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. When the children were small she'd jump into the paddling pool with them. Now she prefers sitting with her mouth wide open gobbling at the water. I almost expect her to fill up like a balloon, but things like that only happen in cartoons.Such fun

of flies emerges.Fruit flies (at least two Drosophila species) feature strongly, which is no surprise given the amount of apple cores, banana skins, melon shells and potato peelings we chuck in each week. Although the adult flies are only 2.5mm long

the garden, but our resident south London foxes liked to play with them and many have been damaged or gone missing. Those that remain are nailed to the shed and the flagpole. The sheep jawbone eventually also fell apart because of their meddling, but the cat

relevance to my everyday gardening but I enjoy having them anyway. In this list I include old books like Gardening For Ladies which was published in 1851. It includes some wonderful stuff: for example in the chapter on Digging (Stirring the Soil

wasted.Later in October I'll be able to start picking other varieties (I've about 10 in all), including Cox, that have also cropped really well this year. These later ripening varieties do store much better, so I set them out in wooden, stacking trays

' worth of detritus sitting in an open shed. Now, some of you may have seen pictures of my garden before and will have realised that there are lots of plants crammed in here. As a result there is a small mountain of stuff that I need to shred.This brings

stuff but they did so with some seriously dangerous kit. Last year I blogged about discovering an undisturbed shed, containing bottles of liquid nicotine, powdered arsenic and all manner of scary-looking fumigators and puffers.Things have changed a bit

two are used to build piles. When the 'brown' storage area becomes empty, we turn one of the piles into it, which exposes the pile to oxygen and helps to accelerate the cooking. Should I feel the need to accelerate matters further, a bucket in the shed

. It is time to bounce into 2010 with a light step and the feeling that valleys can be crossed in a single bound.Many people will have decided that the time has come to start growing their own vegetables. All those excellent Gardeners World projects and blogs

Over the next few weeks, you may find a large wasp on the plot, which will turn out to be a queen. Having overwintered, queen wasps look for a place to start a brood, and may well decide that your shed (or in my case, compost heap), would make a