Organic Wildlife Gardens

I was excited to be invited to help this week at his - 'Homeacres' and I've learned so much about . What a diverse and hugely enjoyable week 🥬💚🌱
Some on the many highlights in pictures: planting and tying up of several varieties of . growing in the borders that wouldn't be there if the soil was disturbed - thank you . Prepping radish for local restaurants. filming for the inspiring - looking forward to seeing you guys in brighton on an allotment soon :) Pricking out mini cabbages. The beautiful roundhouse, my home for the week. at sunset. around the and filling with Homeacres hay. Charles cutting his , rye flour rye bread . Rye also now growing at Homeacres. Thank you so much Charles!

A visit to a quarry with to finish his pond with . A van and car full of Cary Stone ( Castle Cary), rinsed, laid on felt and then gap filled with topsoil. With EXACTLY the right amount of stone! high fives all round:)

What an curious little friend I had with me today! Two seemed to be tag teaming food collection. They lucked out with me today getting weeds out of the patio and revealing lots of tasty morsels. They returned to their nests with laden beaks !

The joy from hedgerow flowers!

Mildly obsessed with this little one this morning - drying itself out from the dew and waiting for the sun's warmth to dry its wings and disguising itself perfectly amoung the thick patch of wood anemones. Check his face! .birdgardening

The perfect blossom, droplets of dew, blue sky, friends who you're lucky to work with. With .birdgardening

Had a wonderful moment in the sunshine researching and comparing several Cardamines today with .birdgardening. I've got some for my salad tonight - what a beautiful aromatic watercress/ brassica flavour. The Caramine pratensis ( meadow watercress) loves the wet soils of Westmeston as do the snake's head fritillary ( Fritillaria meleagris). There are so many white ones here too. I'm always fascinated by the chequered pattern which gives it one of its many other name - Chess flower.

The mechanics of Little Amal's face were mesmerising 🧡! Thanks for visiting us in Brighton. A stunning symbol of displaced people and refugees everywhere

Loving looking close up into this compost from .club - can you spot worms, worm eggs, microbe charged biochar, microarthropods? Packed full of life it will give a huge nutritional and microbe boost to the soil around the hellebores, geranium, ferns dicentra and brunnera I planted into a new shady area yesterday. Looking forward to watching the plants thrive :)

With all the gorgeous snowdrop pictures being posted I thought I'd show today's RED sightings instead of WHITE. Acer buds, Parrotia pérsica ( Persian ironwood ) blossom, wind pollinated hazel flowers and catkins, beautiful burgeoning nature :)

This honey bee getting stuck it, check out the pollen everywhere! Laden! 💛🧡💛🧡

These stunning crisp frosty mornings are highlighting the wonderful textures in the miniature worlds of a rockery I planted up last year. It's doing so well, dispute the cold. We have lots of aplines and around 10 different sedums and plenty of these very cute early flowering hoop petticoat daffodils that easily naturalise, as do the snowdrops.

A lovely day at last weekend. I asked about growing in a field of . Double cardboard and thick compost rules apply but with a dark plastic walkway around as a path to help suppress it from around the edges. . Looking forward to getting this project started.

I forgot to share these beauties from last Monday in Westmeston. Why not wrap up and go and find some snowdrops weekend :) it's too early to rely on pollinators, although they enjoy visits from insects, they divide their bulbs which is why you see very tight clusters sometimes.

Don't worry we're in February and Spring is coming! Heady beautiful scent from Sarcococca confusa that we planted in a shady courtyard garden under Acer 'orange dream' with Hakonechloa macra ( they're both still sleeping) Stunning Crocus tommasinisnus has naturalised and spread over the years - such a joyous sight. Hemerocallis foliage has a rich bluish green that I adore - look at that lushness! Hooray!

Beautiful sunrise from Ditchling Beacon. It's so cold and raw working before the sun is properly up but seeing the frosty crystals and the stunning light are the rewards. ❄️

So much snow in Westmeston today ! Heaven! Polytunnel work only today.

Mummified Halloween style hedges on the South Downs Way. The papery protective webbing of the Ermine Moth caterpillars. Looks very spooky! 👻 🎃

Ooo what a beauty, found this Cobalt Crust fungus on rotting Ribes sanguinium

The wildflower turf under the mini orchard has grown super tall all of a sudden and the bees and hover flies are loving it!

A little bit early!

Leonardslee Gardens is dreamy at the moment

Green glorious green!

Plain Green Lawn? What a Yawn!

Plain Green Lawn? What a Yawn! — Jude Martin - Organic Wildlife Gardens One of my gardens in Ovingdean has such a wonderful diversity of plants in the grass/lawn area. It is essentially an extension of the thin soiled chalk downland habitat behind the house, that is kept short by the sheep. The plants are low growing, with loads of bees and hoverflies feeding from them.

I went out to hear the dawn chorus this morning. Windy but still lots of chatter from blackbirds, robins, chaffinches and wrens. Seagulls are hungry with out all the extra chips to eat! 5am looking west over brighton watching the moon set from whitehawk hill and 6.30am looking east watching the sunrise. 7.30 back in bed with tea and crumpets!

New planning conditions will see and installed in all new developments in Brighton & Hove. 🐦🐣🐝🧱

Read more: ow.ly/1kYw50yGtpO

https://vimeo.com/291108273

The UK in 100 seconds See the UK as it really is - 100 seconds, with each second representing a percentage of the different land uses of the UK. Can we make more space for nature?

Candied violets! . I only picked 20 flowers from a huge patch in my mum's because I wanted to leave most of them for the bees at this windy rainy time of year. Make a sugar solution, dip them in holding their stalks, lay out on greaseproof paper, sprinkle with caster sugar, leave to dry, trim stems. Eat, decorate, share and smile!

Organic Wildlife Gardens updated their website address.