nest box latest

The great tit parents are going back and forth with ever-increasing frequency. Visit the bird feeder in the back garden, fly over the house, feed the chicks in the front garden. They must be ready to fledge any day now.

A sparrowhawk got one of the newly fledged sparrows, but we had a very healthy crop of young sparrows this year, so I think we can spare the odd one to feed baby sparrowhawks. It was the first one exalted_mugwump has ever seen and only my second.

I think my raspberries may have manganese deficiency

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/min-def/plate308.jpg

A lot of the leaves look like that, with yellow between the veins. They're growing in the least fertile corner of the garden (the one that originally had the most builder's rubble in it) and it's never had as much compost dug into it as the rest. Does clay contain much manganese? It may be that organic matter makes minerals more available. My soil science was a very long time ago - does anyone know much about it?

no incoming email

I'm currently not getting any incoming email, so if you're needing to hear about me about anything important, it's probably best to phone...