Getting back to nature

Spent a lovely long time in the garden sowing a row of onions, a large container of carrots and another of potatoes and some more spring onions (hoping they'll grow this time).
Our kitchen conservatory, being the warmest place in the house at the moment, has turned into a greenhouse! Having realised I've probably left it a little late to sow the tomato seeds, I bought two cherry tomato plants from a rather gorgeous and well stocked garden centre close to us and have sown them in a large window box style tub indoors. The little tag says they grow up strings, so I'll have to put my thinking cap on as to how I'm going to attach the strings to the roof of the conservatory!! Katie has sown cacti seeds and marigolds, peppers and chilli seeds.

No, they are not dead bodies!!

Outside I've had a good old dig around and weeding session, although it hardly seems like I've done anything. I've planted two sweet pea plants next to our two benches, with tipee canes for them to grow up. I'm also madly digging the earthed area around the pine trees in order to sow a packet or two of butterfly flower seeds. Katie did this last year and they looked stunning, just like a cottage garden.

This little fella was snuggled under a large brick I stumbled over! He's happy nestled among the rotting wood in our nature garden area now.

Also, on the garden front, through the RSPB Homes for Wildlife, we've been doing the April survey to try and get an idea of which birds are breeding and nesting in our garden (or roof in our case). We've missed the first two weeks (of the four week survey), but we sat outside this morning for half and hour to see what was going on. Unfortunately we were rather hindered by the visiting cat we call Kanda whom, still being rather young, insisted on chasing bees, pouncing on bread and sticks on the ground, and generally putting the birds off visiting our patch! We did note three sparrows coming and going from our gutter and three blackbirds, but just yesterday I saw the blackbirds with nesting materials and worms in their beaks so I'm sure they're nesting close by too.

All three of us use the A-Z list of birds on the RSPB site constantly, with it's clear photo/drawing, description and recording of bird song, we've been able to identify many unknown birds we have seen or heard in and around our area. We recently discovered the rather large thrush lookalike visiting us is a Mistle thrush. Katie is tempted to join me for the Dawn Chorus Day on 4th May. I think our HE group is planning a get together with cooked breakfast thrown in, but I reckon we'll stay at home and crawl back to bed afterwards!