|
WORMS, COMPOST AND ALL THAT ROT.
In any good garden soil there will be a network of tunnels, allowing air to reach the plant roots and water to drain away instead of sitting in puddles on the surface. These are made by several species of earthworms which eat their way through the soil, digesting the remains of dead animals and plants, previously partly digested by fungi and bacteria. Some earthworms pull dead leaves down into their tunnels from the surface, usually at night (remember the early bird), and also "empty their bowels" as worm casts. These casts can be upsetting if they divert the line of your putt, but are otherwise a GOOD THING, because worms cannot "eat" stones and pebbles, and these are gradually buried deeper by the wind-spread casts, which also contain recycled minerals from the earthworms' food. Charles Darwin (think Evolution) made an unsurpassed study of earthworms and his measurements showed that in an old pasture a layer of fine material 5mm deep was deposited annually on the surface as worm casts.
If you remove mowings from your lawn, you are depriving the worms of a good feed. However, if you have a lawn mower which will distribute the mowings evenly the worms will be grateful. The only drawback, for some people, is that you may thereby encourage a moss called Rhytidiadelphus (say "Pretty-dire-delfus" but leave out the P). Learn this off by heart and you will amaze your neighbours by your knowledge and probably win Mastermind. Gardening experts in this country will tell you to rake out this moss and/or kill it with chemicals, but gardeners elsewhere, especially in Japan, have beautiful Rhytidiadelphus lawns from which they carefully remove the odd tuft of grass. Our lawn tends towards the Japanese model.
I digress. If you collect up a lot of plant material from the lawn, flowerbed, vegetable garden and kitchen, all but the tough and woody stuff can go on the compost heap. There are various quite technical ways in which good compost can be made quite quickly, in a matter of weeks, but these involve a good deal of hard work mixing the layers, or the use of something like a large buttertub which can be rotated at regular intervals. Most of us just rely on adding to the heap as material comes to hand. We ourselves have two wooden bunkers, one for fresh material and the other for last year's accumulation to mature. Towards the end of winter we spread or dig in the material from the mature pile around the garden and turn the "young" pile into its place, mixing the material as well as possible at the same time; so it is a two year cycle.
What happens in the compost heap is unbelievably complex, providing theses for countless university doctorates, but one or two clear facts emerge. When the process of decay is at its peak, one teaspoonful of developing compost may contain a thousand million bacteria and a similar volume of fungal threads, each species feeding on some particular portion of the dead plant material. (We even had a good crop of delicious Shaggy Ink Cap toadstools on our compost heap one year). Also involved will be mites, springtails, bristletails, beetles, nematodes ("roundworms") and earthworms (especially the red-banded Brandling worms). The end result of all this complicated food web should be a pleasant crumbly, nutrient-rich material which will help your next crop of flowers or veggies. If your garden doesn't have room for a compost heap, do remember to put all your plant remains into the green bin so that South Lakeland can make compost on a bigger scale.
Query: After the Cumbria Wildlife Trust A.G.M. recently, we had an enjoyable quiz, and in the ensuing discussion we were reminded that a few years ago there was a great fuss made about a New Zealand flatworm which was spreading through Britain, threatening to exterminate our native earthworms with predicted dire consequences. None of us had heard anything about this invader for quite some time, and we still have our earthworms. Has anyone heard any more about this threat?
(Repeat after me: Rhyti-dia-delphus). J D M
SEDBERGH GOLF CLUB
With the arrival of light nights and slightly improved weather, the new golfing season has arrived. The well supported prize presentation evening for all last years trophies was followed by the Captain's Drive In, which welcomed Maureen Prince and Michael Stoker as the new Club Captains. We are sure they will be well supported during the following year.
Thanks go to Ron Gerrard, last year's Captain, for all his help and time given to the Club.
Two competitions have been held already, with the Individual Stableford being won by Robert Moffat, on a card playoff from Phil Gardner. Trevor Gardner finished third. The Easter Egg Medal, held on Easter Sunday in fine conditions, attracted 36 golfers and was won by Barrie Staveley, who beat Trevor Gardner on a card playoff, after both finished with Nett 65s. Phil Gardner finished in third, with a Nett 68.
The new season again promises to be a good one. The course and especially the greens are in excellent condition for early season. Visitor numbers have continued to rise with numerous visiting parties already having committed to playing golf at Sedbergh.
Memberships are still available, or if you have never played but are tempted, please ring the club for advice on 015396-21551. We can arrange taster sessions and lessons if required. Clubs and balls will be provided so there is no need to go out and buy new equipment whilst you try.
It is intended to provide lessons for the primary school children shortly and the ever popular ladies group lessons will be repeated. Again, please ring for further details.
SEDBERGH & DISTRICT HISTORY SOCIETY
The Annual General Meeting of the society was held in Settlebeck School on Saturday 25th March. After the minutes of last year's AGM had been approved the officers of the society presented their annual reports. Apart from the usual lectures and visits the year had been dominated by 25th Anniversary celebrations. Two successful exhibitions were held in Sedbergh and Dent and there had been an enjoyable dinner at which the guest speaker was Sir Christopher Booth. The society had also launched a web-site, www.sedberghhistory.org, and had gained some new members as a result. The finances of the society were sound and there were 279 subscriptions to the society meaning it had about 350 actual members spread throughout the world.
The Very Reverend Ingram Cleasby was re-elected as President and the existing officers and committee members were re-elected en-bloc with the addition of Mrs Josie Templeman. After the formal part of the meeting the large number of members present took part in a short quiz and then enjoyed splendid refreshments provided by the members themselves.
FROSTROW W. I.
Members sent their good wishes to their friends in the W. I. who were ill - notably Dorothy Gerrard and Jennnie Dawson. Discussion followed the recent Report on higher subscriptions and the new W.I. magazine. It was reported after several Committee members had attended a special meeting that these decisions had been taken only after a questionnaire had been sent to all members and the findings checked. Members were encouraged to try out the new system.
Elaine Horne the Speaker talked about various composts and their specific uses in the garden.
Elaine demonstrated the best methods of planting alpines which needed to be kept out of harsh weather and then showed members how to plan tubs of lily bulbs followed by pricking out of seedlings. Many questions were ably answered and members were looking forward to better weather for gardening to start. Jean Jones offered the Vote of Thanks. The Raffle was won by Margaret Faulkner. JT
MAY MUSINGS
Time is flying by. The wedding seems to be coming towards us at an alarming speed. Elder daughter came for Easter, not that I put any pressure on you understand. I just sent a few text messages asking when coming and can you stay a while until the message got through and she and D came Saturday-Monday. Son came Saturday, not for supper as he and T having an Indian take-away later but he tucked into some nevertheless. Younger daughter went to Whittington Races but came for breakfast on Monday. We had open house on Saturday, friends in Sunday for tea and family including the little twins and Auntie Rose for dinner and the Easter egg hunt on Monday!
A lovely bustling family Easter and the dishwasher decided to die on us. I found the washing-up quite therapeutic but felt bereft when only cooking supper for three on Monday as numbers had reached nine for meals! My brother suggested leaving the table in numbers, "Number one move away now" etc.
Cleo coped with Scuby the twins dog invading her garden and lazed on the lawn as Scuby chased the ball continually and the egg hunt became hide and seek and tig and torment D who took it all in good part.
Help is at hand for me, I know some folk think I am a bit odd. I would rather be odd than a bore or known as narrow minded. I have a very open mind and I love my family. This helps me go along to our elder brothers "blessing" as he and his male partner of over 40 years make their relationship "legal". To help at hand is my faith, my family and my "sheep pen"! No real sheep in sight. I mean my new shed in the garden, my prayer room, my retreat, my quiet place, bought with the proceeds of the sale of furniture left my by dear Barbar, who died just a year ago and who loved sheep. Just one thing, this "sheep pen" could easily be mistaken for a wendy house/children's play house! That is what it is, so will serve two purposes. When I bought it the chap said I would not be able to stand up in it. He never moved a whisker when I said, I don't need to stand up in a prayer room! Go on, do something different and enjoy it!
MAY GARDENING
Some plants bring out the worst in people, and in my experience the ones which cause the most bad behaviour all have blue flowers. Well behaved, even timid, committed gardeners will forget themselves and tramp over borders, squashing other plant in their wake in order to get a close up and hands on view of the Himalayan Blue Poppy Meconopsis x sheldonii, while others will wobble from stone to stone in a rockery to kneel before Gentiana verna the Spring Gentian. I can't blame them - I'm guilty myself, although, of course I only did it because someone else had paved the way first!
Meconopsis x sheldonii is certainly a most exceptional colour and puts me in mind of the rich blue of the Mediterranean sea. This colour comes from one of its parents - M. grandis, also a plant of great beauty, but in my experience, not so long lived as its offspring as it has a tendency to fade away and die after flowering, especially when grown in dry conditions. M. betonicifolia, the other parent can also be short lived if allowed to flower as a young plant, but it does grow very easily from seed so one plant flowering can yield 50 plants for the following year.
Two other blue Meconopsis can occasionally be found in cultivation; the wonderfully named M. horridula with purplish red flowers and the beautiful, dainty Harebell Poppy, M. quintuplinervia with lavender blue flowers. Not all Meconopsis are blue. Our own native Welsh Poppy, M. Cambrica comes in yellow or pale orange forms, usually single but occasionally fully double. M. napaulensis has pink, red or purple flowers.
Elaine Horne
SEDBERGH POETRY GROUP
We shall celebrate our First Anniversary on 15th June by which date over 20 meetings will have been accomplished always with between 6 - 9 members.
A 'workshop' approach has been maintained throughout. This means that our leader Jonathan Allen, himself doing his Master of Studies at St. Martins College, Lancaster, provides initial words or phrases to act as initial stimuli for members to turn into poetry there and then. After a strict time limit of some 20 minutes each of us then reads their lines to the group. He or she, is not allowed to speak whilst their work is discussed by the rest of us. Now you may not think this is much of a fun way to spend an evening but we actually all enjoy ourselves greatly!
Of course we do other tasks involving writing pieces at home and then 'editing' them at meetings. Some poems have gone through 5 or 6 revisions with really major changes before we are satisfied. As a result we have become a very cohesive and determined group and we aim to publish our first anthology to coincide with the Literary and Drama Festival in August. This will contain the fruits of our labours and should form a natural sequel to "Sedbergh Writers" published in 2006. All members of the group will contribute several of their own works, and on this occasion contributors will be limited to members of Sedbergh Poetry Group.
We should like to thank Booktown for their long term support in our first year.
For further information please contact wither the Secretary, Christine Wood on Sed. 21750 or the Chairman, John Mander on Sed. 20905.
|
|
