Thursday 18 April 2013

Tadpoles at last

After losing a lot of frogspawn due to the heavy frost, some sensible frogs have laid a lot more since then and I now have many tadpoles swimming around the pond. The ornamental cherry tree is in full bloom with thousands of small flowers opened. Unfortunately because of the severe weather there has only been one visiting bumble bee, albeit a very happy one! I have a good production line going in the greenhouse with very good germination rates. I am concentrating on growing herbs, vegetables including many heritage varieties and dye plants. I will keep you updated on the results and the uses I have for them. The ground where I dug in the Bokashi composted material now has a very deep and friable covering of soil. I planted garlic, shallots and onions in there during the autumn and they are growing very well. On the right is a piece of work that was entered in the Isle of Man Art Society Easter exhibition. It is based on a photograph that I took in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. I have called it Egyptian lovers and it is created by photo transfering the original image using bondaweb onto calico. I then hand stitched it using fine cotton and silver threads worked in straight stitch, seeding and french knots. I have nearly finished a large Llama felted hanging in brown fleece and have just started a second in white.