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; eight very friendly brown hybrid chickens that are always pleased to see people and tend to cluster around pecking at your legs and sitting on your boots, one white Legbar and two extremely large pedigree hens. One is a huge Light Sussex and the other a

remember sitting with a group of friends in a student bedroom watching Geoffrey on television. So, 'growing your own' is the latest gardening trend, is it? Well Geoffrey was certainly inspiring the nation with Mr Smith's Vegetable Plot in the 1970's

Europe with planted shrubs. A friend of mine went looking for them through the dark streets of night-time Chelsea. He was exploiting a little-known fact that these and many other strange critters fluoresce under ultraviolet light. Using a small hand

attracted by mysterious chemical smells lingering on the glass and metal. I don't know what happened to the bees, but whilst I was photographing them I heard a woman speaking on her mobile phone to a friend who was obviously a beekeeper. Perhaps they are now

It's getting to that time of year when wasp behaviour changes. And as far as most people are concerned, it's a change for the worse. Since wasps don't have that many friends to start with, this is a yet further serious decline in their reputation

. It is not one of those gardener-friendly hoverflies lauded for its voracious aphid-hunting larvae. Instead, its large glutinous maggots chew away at the insides of daffodil bulbs; at best leaving a large open wound in the damaged and weakened bulb, at worst

have our very own artificial rot hole.That reminds me. I had a message from a friend a few days ago. She was asking about 'bees' living in the drain outside the kitchen window. Now, I wonder...

, or I can feign disinterest. I do feel sorry for those poor desperate souls who need to see them.One such unfortunate friend posted a parting remark on Sunday, on his Facebook page, that he was off to cruise the streets of West London until he found a

traces of grease, and only use eco-friendly, biodegradable products, which I hope are safe to use around my frogs. Special kits can be bought to divert water from the bath/shower or washing machine to a storage tank outside, but I find dunking

20 seconds worrying what the neighbours would think, and then relaxed, happy with our new arrival.My bumblebees (RIP) were rescued from friends who were landscaping their garden; some of my frogs were rescued from a kitchen drain and the rest I picked