I love feeding the birds. It's better than TV for me, watching to see who's visiting and what they're up to.
Of course most of what they eat is seed I've bought in from the RSPB. But I do like the idea of my garden providing some of it too.
So this year I've got the bit between my teeth, and this week I've been sowing a cornfield.
First step, prepare the ground. I'm sowing a large area - 300 square metres - so I went at it with a rotavator, but this works just as well in a small bed and is even worth trying in a large planter.
The land I'm sowing was under a closed canopy of rotting plum trees until a month ago, so I don't have a significant weed burden to worry about, so rotavating is all I'm doing to prepare the soil.
Then it's onto the seeds. I bought 600g of cornfield annual wildflower mix - the basics are Field Poppy, Corn Chamomile, Cornflower, Corncockle, Corn Marigold, plus I went a bit posh and got a mixture with a bit of Opium Poppy, Field Forget-me-not and Night-flowering Catchfly.
I also bought 600g of mixed cereals - oats, wheat and barley.
I split them into six cereal bowls (and then got in trouble when there were no clean ones for dinner). This meant that I could better gauge how evenly I was sowing them across the plot, rather than having to try and guess an even rate over the whole area.
Then it was a case of broadcasting the cereal seed and raking them in so they are buried an inch or so down, safe from pigeons, followed by scattering the annual seeds on the surface.
And that's it - nature I'm hoping will do the rest.
Here is a photo from Hidcote where they had sown such a mix, minus the cereals.
A late winter or spring sowing tends to have few poppies (sadly) but I'll happily settle for something that looks like this.Especially if the sparrows and finches take up the invitation too!
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw
Our social landlord's garden management director allowed me to have a rectangle of unmown lawn in our large back garden - as long as no other resident complains. So far, no one has! The land there has been mostly left untouched since Victorian times when our building was a poor boy's school. I've read its history (this set of buildings then became a poor house and then a maternity hospital)and I looked at maps because I wondered why there were so many unusual small groups of lawn plants there. The rectangle's area has always remained free of buildings and of any known use. I supposed that, way back then, mowing the lawn was more difficult than now and they probably grew plants that stayed low and looked nice. So part of this rectangle already has some really nice small flowering plants but a good deal of it is barren - perhaps due to a good deal of small stones in the soil. (I think I read that Forest Gate E7 is built upon an Alluvial wash while I was researching Crossrail.)
I can't afford wildflower seeds. A friend bought two packets - one for spring sowing and the other for autumn - but they very small packets. So I set about walking all around my neighbourhood collecting seeds from flowering wild plants by the walkways. We have a park on three sides of our building, which was designed 20 years ago to be a park for nature and many parts of it are wild. I didn't abuse any plantings! I just took small amounts of seed.
During this last autumn, winter and early spring I've sprinkled some of the seeds hoping to imitate Nature. So far, nothing appears to be new but it's early days. I noticed that already this area (about 30x60') has attracted a variety of insects and birds and the impressions of foxes having lain there. I bet our few rare hoggies have been there as well.
I'll let you know how it goes. You put much more effort into your patch, Adrian!