It is cold, the pavement on Earlham Grove icy with frost. Frost on car roofs too, as I walk down to the garden. Car roofs are the most visible frosty surfaces. They are horizontal and so lose heat easily. Clear nights are the coldest as there are no insulating clouds. Car roof tops are metal, good conductors, so easily lose …
We had Auld Lang Syne, fireworks, and drank too much at the changeover from 2025 to 2026. And saw the cheers and joy around the world as 2026 swept in, with hopes for new possibilities this year. Love, money, health and dare one say – peace. It is New Year’s Day as I write this blog and the hope is …
Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. The sun rose at 8.02 am and will set at 3.51 pm, giving us 7 hours and 49 minutes of day. The longest day, the Summer Solstice on June 21st 2026, is 16 hours and 38 minutes, more than twice as long. Today’s sunrise is not, though, the latest …
Since doing the Cereal Project in 2020, I have maintained an interest in cereals, their growth and usage. More than half grown in the UK, mostly wheat, oats, and barley, are used for animal feed. In this blog, I am looking at wheat, the most important of our cereals by tonnage. Its primary contribution to our diet is as bread. …
The leaves are all but gone on most of the trees in the garden. A few languidly hang on but a strong wind will tear them away, leaving a winter silhouette of skeletal trees. We have two evergreens: a dwarf juniper by the small pergola and the olive tree. There are two distinct strategies playing out. The first is dump …
Cop30 is in Belem, Brazil, running for two weeks, starting on Monday. It’s the latest climate change summit. Trump won’t be there as he says climate change is the biggest scam ever. One wonders whether he actually believes that all the climate scientists across the world are in a conspiracy to fool the rest of us. My belief is that …
Last Sunday, I led the Witch’s Tree walk. It was a chilly, dull day, unlike last year’s walk when it was sunny and 18 degrees. Nevertheless, 16 of us set off across the Flats to Bushwood. Once into the trees, we had the autumn colour all around. The pronounced yellow of lime trees, the crinkled yellow and brown of oak …
This time of year, we become very aware of trees. The leaves of deciduous trees are going yellow and some like the cherry tree going red too. The big month for leaf fall is actually November which is less than a week away. By December, we’ll have bare, skeletal branches, in the garden and along Earlham Grove. I went around …
Newham Council very soon will be implementing its waste food plan. It should begin for some households before the end of the year, and for all households in 2026. It is government directed. We will all be given what they call a caddy, which is a 5 litre container with a lid. Most people will keep it in their kitchen. …
On Thursday and Friday we had an inch of rain, brought in by storm Amy. All around the garden are sycamore helicopters, and scattered along the pavement of Earlham Grove, which made me think how wasteful nature can be. Those on the pavement are being trodden in, and will either be swept up by the roadsweeper and end up in …
