h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nara Japan I don't really like Preying mantis they tend to eat without killing their prey so it can get very noisy but they are every where here ,Like I said just started using my camera n trying to get stuff a bit different than back in england ,this is what I have so far http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/dna/h2g2/brunel/F1694533/ext/_auto/-/http://www.flickr.com/photos/21128589@N02/

Hey thanks for posting that Arnold. They're brilliant photos. I've had a quick look, but shall look more thoroughly later.

Just had a look at the slide show and movies. I'm with Mar... very jealous. I've had gardens like that in the past, love the wild and the tame growing together.

And fresh broadbeans

I love looking at British wildlife because so much of what's been introduced here is from the UK. It's interesting seeing the cultural differences too. Blackberries are a noxious weed here, and many gardeners think blackbirds are vandals (which they are ). Also there's often a kind of snob thing going on where native species are highly valued and wild introduced ones are considered naff. I love them both of course.

Totally get the scifi thing with the love in the mist!

What's the fox chasing at the start?

Arnold, who is the rice for? Is it for your family or to be sold?

It is for the family four families really My mother in law + sister in laws , brother in laws + my Familly about 14 people all told ,My mother in law used to grow much more and sell but not anymore ,we only have the two Tambos now , my house is on land that was a Tambo(rice field)and My brother in law built an apartment block on his piece 6 flats , my sister in law has rental parking spaces on hers ,

When father in law died we each got a piece of land and mother in law also sold some , She still has a building 3 floors the ground floor is a post office

Is that common, for families to grow their own rice? Do you get enough for the whole year?

This was a farming family Who had always grown rice and my mother in law still has 2 good size gardens she grows other vegetables in ,

It is not unusual for people to grow their own rice I would think about 25% do it here and yes that is enough rice for a year I expect it will be about 40 sacks of rice and about 30 kilo per sack

Yes kea, brambles are a bit schizoid here. One moment people are hacking crazily at them and cursing. Even me sometimes. And *once* in the past when I had neglected my garden for a whole year, (due to severe indifference, depression and lethargy, apres a love affair finishing), the following the spring I went to town with some ICI 'agent orange' type stuff on them in one or two places...

And then people are saying, 'oh you are so lucky, you have all those blackberries in your garden. I bet you're cooking blackberry and apple pie all the time.'

I'm not a massive pie fan but I actually stew cookers (apples) from next door, they give me, and add a load of blackberries and serve with a slab of vanilla ice cream... (I love hot and cold together).

***

Are you sure we're talking about the same blackbirds? vandals? I've never seen it. Yes they eat a few earthworms that gardeners value, but they also eat loads of grubs of all kinds that gardners hate. Where does this vandal idea come from?

The fox is chasing the vixen...

Yeah, definitely the same bird. They get into the garden and throw mulch around (i.e. onto the lawn) or pull out seedlings, or whatever you've put there that you want to stay there. I don't mind them so much because like you say they eat lots of stuff that's good to not be there, plus all that scratching and digging is probably good for the soil. But I do cover up things I don't want disturbed.

So you have a lawn, kea? How very English.

I think the sort of vandals blackbirds are, fits right in with my brand of horticulture...but seriously yes you maybe right because sometimes I've noticed the way some seeds don't germinate, even with right weather conditions, no clear cut cat disturbance and too early in the year for slugs etc. But I'll always forgive them because of their truly magical singing in the night and early dawn.

(They've finally stopped this year here, after finishing all their breeding activities and taking a well earned rest. Crikey I love them).

I'm not sure how English a lawn it is though, being bumpy and holely and made of couch, clover, moss, dandelions, and daisies

You can usually tell when the blackbirds have been at the garden as they leave a shallow bowl in the dirt where they've been going round and round looking for grub. Plus there's bits all over the place.

You probably don't have enough bare dirt or mulched bits in your garden to notice


Of course, it could just be our blackbirds. It's common here for introduced plants to get out of control because they grow so much bigger and faster than they did in the UK (which would have been a surprise for the settlers no doubt). Maybe the animals are like that too

Hi woman

are you having a good time in your garden?
tell us, honey.
I know you get a bit bored sometimes here... but...
I miss you!

I blame birds for your absence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbjYjXDQhhw

take care niña

Hey Mar, thanks for that link Yeah I'm getting a good dawn chorus here again now.

I've been planting lots of indigenous British wild flower seeds in my garden this year to help bring more and more insects in, which also helps the birds for food. I've also put in small ponds, an old sink, an old aquarium with water weed and rushes I collected from a pond in the local park, which brings in even more insects and birds can drink from it. My garden is getting to be more and more of an interesting ecosystem. I love it. I'm also doing things like 'companion planting' such as planting marigolds around the broad beans. Broad beans are prone to attack by aphids but marigolds attract hover flies which eat and lay their eggs in aphids.

I also planted to chilli pepper seeds to day in pots, and next week will put in some potatoes, using compost I have been making all year from waste food and weeds.

I've been reading quite a bit from a book which says that the richer ecosystem you can make in your garden the less problem you get with pests. I won't say I wouldn't occasionally use the chemicals...I'm not a fanatic, if slugs start to eat things, but it's early in the year for them yet and we had a hard winter so there maybe less of them this year I hope.

It's so much fun experimenting in my garden and keeping an eye on wildlife. Some blackbirds are nesting again in an ivy tree at the back of the garden.

Lovely to hear from you

Your garden sounds like a pretty impressive place

But surely you don't intend to recreate a rainforest there, do you?

oh my girl!! all that sounds lovely!

It seems that you are celebrating the year of Darwin

How good, nena, no wonder that you spend so much time in that garden and less in h2.

There are plants that act as pesticides, like mustard and similar, they act in the soil. But there are others like garlic or pelitre(spanish) that can be used on the plant. Nicotin is also good for those little green rounded ones that I don´t know the name and stick in every plant.
I only have a few pots in the sill of my windows... lavender, lily bulbs, sandalo and daysies.
And birds... plenty, I´m lucky with the place where I live, no noises and countryside around despite being in a block of flats.

Lovely to hear from you too


Toy Box

*waves*

What a restful place to stay, this thread I mean

Eh Toybox, French

Early this morning at breakfast I saw father blackbird, squabbling sparrows, robin, woodpigeons and great tit pair in the garden. I also have sparrow nest in the hedge, early babies are already making a racket.

Nicked some more pond weed yesterday from local wildlife centre pond and got a free pussy willow which I planted. Also planted a bird feeder thing in the garden.

I think I'm turning into a complete weirdo freak...really I am.

Tit pair? Free pussy?

Thanks for and Birds and ponds sounds good Are there pictures somewhere (I used to have a link, somewhere, maybe...)

By the way, do you have frogs in your pond?