New Additions

We have some new additions to the family. We wanted some company for Old Ma Goose, but with her age thought that another goose may be too much for her. A young goose could soon become a bully, that is to an older goose who has become more placid over the years. Placid as in comparison to geese in general.

So something that looks similar but no threat to her. Ducks came to mind.

I have always fancied Kahki Campbells for their egg laying abilities. The conversion of slug to egg is very appealing. We tracked down some point of lay ducks from West Wales Poultry. Nigel the proprietor was really friendly and helpful, showing us all round his place to view the different varieties of chickens and ducks.

When we got there the pond out front had a lot of very gregarious white ducks moving all over the place. They turned out to be Cherry Valley ducks. They have been bred for the table but have turned out to be excellent eggers. So now we ended up coming away with two Kahki Campbells and two Cherry Valley ducks.

Waiting to go into the water.

The Khaki's make little wittering noises along with a quack when they are in the shed. Unlike the Cherry valleys who make a very definite quack all the time.

Time to get the new pond finished.

As you see it is being well inspected by Old ma Goose who has been doing a lot of supervising.

Completely Mad.

The Postmen that deliver to us are completely mad, well they seem to be once they leave the road and enter our track.

The Postie said he thought something jumped out of the bank and he only twitched the steering wheel to avoid it and it was whipped out of his hands this is how he ended up. It is one of the longest straightest parts we have on the track!

But he managed to come a cropper. I had to walk down to the end to make sure he was okay and not lying at the bottom of the hedge around the corner. He was fine thankfully.

His boss came up with a 4X4 and hauled it out without much damage to the bank, sod the van.

After they had gone I found a chunk of trim from the van in the bank, I'll give it back to him tomorrow :-)

Critical Threshold Reached

After recalculating the world use of Phosphorus, researchers think we have now reached the threshold where stocks will  start declining.

Phosphate rock from which phosphorus is mined from, formed from long dead sea deposits. The deposits are actually  many millions of dead sea creatures, mainly fish; laid down in huge numbers, then covered over by mud and finally over millions of years transformed into Phosphate rich rock.

Deposits of these rocks are found in very few places, the USA, China and Morocco being the main sources. But we have mined them voraciously, transforming the rock, in a particularly dirty manufacturing process, into fertilizer such as superphosphate  and Sodium triphosphate that is used in many laundry powders.

The problem with these chemicals  the Phosphate is in an unnatural soluble state. Phosphorus in soil is only normally unlocked for plant use by bacterial or fungal actions. But we have bypassed that process so that rain will dilute the Phosphorus into a liquid salt that plants will absorb.

The  only trouble is much of the liquid Phosphate washes away before plants can touch it and in the case of the Sodium triphosphate added to washing powders as a form of softener, that too is just in liquid form flushed down the sewers. All this Phosphate ends up in rivers and lakes creating dangerous algal blooms.

This is a complete waste of a resource and it is running out. There are no more ancient seabeds around and non forming in the modern world. Phosphate rock is going to run out. Estimates predict shortages occurring in the next 20 years. This is no news to me, information was around over 35 years ago that this would happen and in about the time scale predicted.

What can we do?

Look for washing powders that do not contain Phosphates. Some manufacturers state this quite plainly on the box. Look for natural washing detergents and you can be more sure of this.

Buy organic foods and grow organically.

Organic practices are the only way to recycle Phosphorus back into the environment. Anything that is composted contains Phosphorus from the crops that the compost is made from. Organic methods also conserve Phosphorus that is released  by natural breakdown in the soil  at a pace that plants need it without wasting the Phosphate by making it too soluble and washing away.

Phosphate poor soils can be topped up with Phosphate rock. That is Phosphate rich rock simply ground up into a fine substance to enrich soil. It is not soluble and will not wash away. One application can last up to four years whereas an application of Superphosphate is only good for one season.

Bone meal is another slow release source of Phosphorus and you are doing a better job of recycling than using  ground Phosphate rock.

Much of the Phosphates wasted in gardens are applied as fertilizers to lawns. Most gardeners apply in a heavy handed way thinking if a little does the lawn good a larger amount will be doubly good. It just simply washes away out of reach from the grass in the next heavy rain.

If you need to apply fertilizer to lawns then use an organic form such as chicken manure, dried cow manure or similar. Blood, fish, bone will also fertilize the lawn and all of them are slow release. Then recycle the lawn mowing's back onto the compost heap where the Phosphorus will end up elsewhere in the garden.

Rake out the moss from the lawn now to invigorate the grass meaning you will not have to add so much fertilizer to get a lovely green sward. Compost the moss of course, it makes a great additive to compost heaps.

Ecological Collapse

Extremely troubling news broke the other day. A research paper in the Science Magazine found that the drought in the Amazon rainforest in 2010 was more severe than the drought there in 2005. The 2005 drought was supposed to one in a hundred year event, then it happened again in 2010.

The Amazon river and it's tributaries fell to the lowest levels on record. Tracts of the forest dried out and died. Some even suffered from forest fires, which is unknown in the area as it is tropical rainforest and usually too wet to burn.

The usual area to suffer from drought in the Amazon is the Northern part. This is linked to the natural El Nino effect occurring in the Pacific and is a natural cycle The latest area was much further South and it is believed it was possibly brought on by the warming of tropical Atlantic. At the moment it is still too early to know if it is anything to do with global warming itself, but it is heavily suspected.

The big problem is the release of Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As the trees die and rot down or burn due to forest fires, the stored Co2 is released into the atmosphere instead of being locked up in the eco system. The 2005 drought was estimated to have released around 5 billion tons of Co2, just under the USA yearly total; 2010 has not been calculated as yet. The world cannot take this and the fear is that it could lead to a feedback loop where the extra Co2 brings more warming that leads to more drought and even more death of the forest leading to increased Co2, and so on.

So what can we do?

We can help in initiatives such as those promoted by organisations such as Conservation International, where forest is properly managed and replanted leaving virgin wood alone. Increasing the density of forest throughout the world takes up Co2 and locks it up into the eco system out of harms way.

Not Just Rainforests

Rain forests are not the only forests we need to keep in good health and replant. Northern forests such as the Boreal forest of Canada and Russia have just as exceptional Co2 lockup systems. It's all too easy to think that outside of the rain forest does not count.

So we can support big projects involving huge tracts, but it all seems very impersonal and sometimes hard to relate to. We need to do something  as individuals.

One of the simplest ways is to plant a tree of some kind in your garden. There is still time to do this in the early months of Spring. just make sure you keep it watered in Summer.

Trees are a fantastic way of locking up Co2, as they grow and get bigger and thicker you can literally see it laying down the wood which is composed of Co2.

I have no room for a tree

I hear this all the time and it just is not the case. Trees are very flexible to grow and there are methods in which very large forest trees can be kept to a manageable size, yet still lock up Co2 in their wood.

Here is a good example.

This is Pat's tree, it is about 20 years old, an Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) or the European Ash. Pat has this tree trimmed every Winter to keep the shape. The trunk and branches are lovely and thick, making a quite marvelous architectural look, and there is loads of Co2 locked in that wood. If it was allowed to grow normally it could reach 20-35 metres tall, a very large tree.

Ok so she is not locking so much Co2  up in it as it would do growing normally, but as they say every little helps. A big plus is the benefits to wildlife in the area who can take advantage of the tree environment.

We have numerous trees in our garden, some are fully grown specimens but others are kept smaller through pollarding.

Pollarding

Pollarding is a method where a tree is harvested for wood by trimming the branches when they reach a certain size. The wood can be used for various things or simply as fire wood. A pollarded tree is cut at or above head height, that's assuming you are of fairly normal height.

An Ash pollard that is harvested for fire wood.

You may think now, aha, if you burn the wood the Co2 is released so you gain nothing. Not so. Each time you harvest the wood and burn it, the tree reabsorbs the Co2 released by burning to make new branches, ready to harvest in future years. Then comes the wonderful bit. The trunk keeps getting bigger and bigger over the years. The tree lays down more wood in the trunk taking in and locking up ever more Co2 and even more wonderful, a pollarded tree can outlive a natural tree by around 4 times the life span and sometimes more. Some of the very old Oaks in Britain that are centuries old were originally pollard trees used for building wooden ships in the Tudor period. Co2 locked up for centuries.

This is a pollarded Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) we grow for sticks.

Pollarding is a great way of growing trees and keeping them at a reasonable height, yet suck out Co2 from the atmosphere.

For more definition on pollarding have a look at Wikipedia .

Coppice Trees

Another method is to coppice trees. This does not lay down quite so much Co2 in the trunks but is still useful making plenty of  branches for various uses and you do create a very long lived trunk of tree.

This is quite a nice young Willow coppice being started that I saw in a garden. These trunks will over a number of years get bigger and bigger and the poll where it shoots out of will become wonderfully gnarly.

More definition of Coppicing trees again at Wikipedia .

We can make a direct difference as individuals within our own immediate environment, just get planting.

Growing Good Health

We are right at the beginning of the new year and new season. Latest research has come out to show that those that eat more fruit and vegetables per day have a lower risk of Ischaemic heart attacks and dying from them. This is one of the most common forms of heart attack suffered.

A European Prospective Investigation found those that ate 8 portions of fruit and vegetables a day compared to those that only ate 3 portions had a 22% lower risk of dying from IHD.

Now a portion in their eyes is only 80 grams, that's the equivalent to a small carrot, a medium apple or a small banana! Only eight portions in those quantities.

With the new season just starting now is the time to plan to grow some of your own fresh vegetables or fruit. The reason why? If you grow it yourself you are more likely to eat it because you will not want to waste the work growing and nurturing something you have produced yourself. Plus there is nothing fresher more vital and healthy than something you have picked straight from the garden and eaten in a short period of time. It beats any shop bought produce.

So boost the quantities you eat by growing more yourself, your health will grow because of it.

Hedge Trimming

We are trimming some of our hedges around the garden to reduce a bit of their height. We try to maintain them at around 8-10 feet which is the optimum height for maintaining healthy wildlife cover. It seems to work as the bird population in our garden is tremendous.

But we end up with loads of trimmings. The simplest answer is to shred them down. We cannot at the moment afford a large shredder but you would be surprised what we achieve with a small domestic form.

It is electric powered and chops stuff up with a cog mechanism that crushes and cuts. I have over the years used quite a number of shredders of varied types, and the one we have is pretty miniature to some I have used. But it does a pretty good job as long as you are not too short on patience.

The shreddings can be composted, the woody components take around two to two and a half years to break down really well, but makes a great soil building compost.

Wood chips and leaves, mostly holly make a good path cover.

We also use it as shreddings for our paths through the garden. The great part of doing this is the different kind of environment this creates. One that is rich in foods for masses of insects that then create a living larder for birds and other creatures. During the very cold months the soil under the shredding mulch stayed soft and was much appreciated by a mole that travelled throughout the garden along the pathways. Where it stopped it threw up piles of lovely sifted soil which I have collected for potting later in the year.