On microbial blessings
I have decided that god is definitely a microbe as things are really looking up for me since dedicating my life in service of the microbial world. Not only did I catch sight of the goldfinches one day this week for the first time since the bastard council cut down the rowan trees, but a handsome young man asked me if I wanted help carrying my shopping and plants home today. I said no, obviously, because HELLO I’M NOT A PENSIONER, but still, it was nice to see my future mapped out for me like that.
In other news, my King Stropharia spawn arrived today, so I made a bed for it. This is it after fox-proofing (before fox-proofing, it looked a bit like I had buried someone). I thought I had more chicken wire than I did, so I had to improvise with whatever I could find in the shed. 😂
I really hope the mycelium will be happy here. It’s under a very large leylandii so the shade levels should be right. Although I am a bit concerned that it will be too shady plus, I used woodland mulch which arrived a few weeks ago and the instructions say fresh hardwood mulch. We’ll see.
It’s a bloody good job that I bothered to fox-proof the bed as the foxes came pretty much as soon as I went indoors. You can see one of them in that blurry photo to the right – they sleep in my neighbour’s bit of the garden, and actually, I’m pleased to see that they are using the catnel as well. (At least, something is sleeping in there…)
I have been planning what to plant in my Dr Tanklittle wildlife garden as well. I am definitely getting a dog rose as the wee birdies like to eat the hips, but I will wait until I have dug in at least two loads of bokashi ferment to that area before getting a bareroot plant at some point over winter.
I also decided that I wanted a white buddleja and a Russian sage as both are low maintenance, hardy, drought tolerant, and good for pollinators. I had no plans to buy them until the spring, but as god is a microbe, I randomly went into the garden centre today and I found both plants for sale at £2.50 a pop. w00t! Here’s my sage and my artful display of trash picking props which I am using to stake and train plants and add some random design elements which make me smile.
Finally, in the spawn bed picture, you can see the edge of a very murky ‘pond’. I want you to know that it’s a complete fabrication that bokashi leachate will clean pond water by eating up algae. I poured a bunch of bokashi tea in there earlier this week and it’s still as rank as it was. In the spring, I will buy some pond plants to aerate it so the birdies and bees can chillax around it after a hard day buzzing and chirping. After which, they will likely braid my hairs and assist me in changing my bed linen, because god is a microbe and I’m smothered in Them. 😇