Weeding the Web

A watering solution for forgetful gardeners

Remembering to water pot plants is not my strongest suit. Last year, my windowsill chilli plant (Prairie Fire – very cute, eight inches tall) failed miserably, through no fault of its own, bravely offering up prematurely dried chillies between shrivelled leaves on its little twig branches.

So, much as I like to think I can overcome such weakness through sheer willpower, I was interested to try a Plant Genie Watering Globe. You see quite a lot of this sort of thing around. These are very sturdy handblown glass balls with a long hollow stem – fill with water and insert into the soil of your pot.

I got mine directly from the owner Charlie Silverlock when I visited his stand at the excellent Cranleigh Show, Surrey, last year. His company, free2garden, specialises in designer and hand-crafted garden ornaments.

Small backdoorshoes in abundance

Back in February I told you about my new purchase of Backdoorshoes, which I can say are continuing to do their job and delight me every time I slip them on. This weekend the Daily Telegraph featured Stephen Avery, who set up the company. He's a lesson in entrepreneurial spirit, having launched innovative ideas for twenty years.

Consequently, he seems to have developed a gut instinct for what might work but, as with all new ideas, he had to be willing to take a punt.  One the problems he hadn't anticipated was that, as the shoes are made in batches containing a variety of sizes, he's growing a small mountain of the less popular size shoes. Obviously he didn't watch the Dragons' Den episode in which Lesley-Anne Simmonds was advised of the same problem. It's just as well, because Avery seems to be doing well and has already managed to direct some of his surplus into schools' projects.

If you need a large number of small clogs, he's going to pleased to hear from you!

 

Keeping hens the easy way

I spent last week looking after my neighbours' chickens. The neighbours were, of course, away. I didn’t just get a yen to enter their house, pass them at breakfast and start nursemaiding the livestock.

And it was such fun! But perhaps I just had it easy.

They (the hens) live within the wire-fenced confines of a secure, roofed compound. When their owners are at home, they roam the garden during the day. The door to the roosting box can be raised and lowered by a rope from outside the pen, but actually I was instructed just to leave it open.