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The Summer of doom
Fired with enthusiasm during 2000 I spent a small fortune turning my small
concrete London wilderness into something like a garden. Improving appalling soil full of compacted ash and fireplace debris (and just why does every old terraced house have broken china buried in the back garden - didn't they have dustbins in the old days?). I composted everything I could lay my hands on, nurtured my carefully selected plants, watered, fed and did everything short of tucking them up into bed. And what does 2003 bring? Drought (at least it kept the slugs and snails down), mildew, aphids, mice (well - a mouse), blackfly, a fox tunnelling under the shed , vine weevils and NOW what I'm 90% sure is the second New Zealand flatworm of the year. I snipped it in half yesterday and it still curls up in a most revolting manner - yuk. So why has all my hard work resulted in what seems to be a haven for the peskiest pests? Despite encouraging the birds with a fat ball and daily topped up bird table I have negligible bird life - a pair of blue tits, resident magpies, a single sad robin (sometimes), the occasional wren and blackbird; and couple of fat wood pigeons breeding like the clappers who are the only daily visitors. During the Summer there were endless hoverflies and lacewings. I have lots of wood lice but rarely see a beetle. Should I just wait for a balance to be reached or can I be more proactive? |
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