This week the contractors are again on site, helping with essential modifications to the beds.

Their task: to drill out 1 and a quarter inch diameter holes at 3 inch intervals along the timber bed edgings.

Why? to allow free access in and out of the beds to ground fauna such as beetles. Once the holes are all drilled we will need to maintain the soil/bark mulch level so it is in line with the middle of the hole. Without this modification, on encountering a steep vertical surface there is a danger the crawling insects will just run along the length of the board rather than bothering to climb up and over.

Here's a close-up of the holes being drilled through a wooden template;



And here's the finished holes (though mulch levels are still to be changed) - the perfect 'underpass' for creepy-crawlies! I just hope they appreciate the effort we have gone to.

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Thanks to all the responses we had from the 'What's this mushroom?' post

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We've just been planting out some replacement plants for those lost in winter and look what was growing out of the middle of one!!

Can anyone help us identify it?

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The volunteers have been taking the remainder of the insulating bracken mulch off the Mirabilis (Marvel of Peru) and checking to see how many of the tubers have survived. A tense time indeed!

With relief the majority of tubers are intact and have bulked up to twice their size. Since they were already something of a bully last year, taking over much more than their allocated space, we've decided to reduce the number of tubers per bed - from 7-8 down to 5.

Here are the lifted tubers, dark and firm, ready for replanting;

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As promised, Andy has picked a sunny day to use the Vortis suction sampler. By 'hoovering' critters off the plants it allows us to monitor invertebrates that hang out on the foliage - caterpillars, aphids, beetles, and that sort of thing. Many of these will be herbivores, feeding on the plants they are on, though others will just be resting.

Andy spends 10 seconds passing the sampler along the plants on each side of the plot, following by another 10 seconds sampling the plants in the middle, and an additional 10 seconds on the climber as this is usually taller than the other plants. He repeats this across all 36 beds.

So how does it work?

Essentially, the Vortis is powered by a petrol engine (the orange bit at the top), which creates a strong sucking action at the nozzle end (the grey bit at the bottom). When passed over foliage this sucks up a mix of insects and loose plant debris which enters a chamber in the middle (conveniently fitted with a see-through top);



The sample is deposited in a plastic container on the side of the machine;




The advantage of this bit of kit over other designs is that it doesn't macerate the sample and collects it without the need for nets or filters.

The last part involves labelling the sample, fitting a tight lid so nothing escapes and taking it back to the lab for examination at a later date;

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