Today is Sunday. It is unseasonally warm and mild for November. A good time to be out on the land. Flowers continue to bloom and there are primroses down by the gate on the lane.

The soil will benefit from a layer of protective foliage, which will prevent winter rains from leaching minerals.

Mulching before the ground gets too cold, where soil is exposed, and also use mulch to protect the crowns of tender plants, such as Gunnera.

In milder areas a winter mulch of straw and compost will prevent the penetration of  frost so much so that last winter, after 6 weeks of hard frost, potatoes I dug up were in perfect condition!

 Resist the urge to overtidy, as gardens are also a sanctuary for wildlife.

Beneficial plants like this Pyracantha will provide much needed food for the birds and insects will overwinter in the decaying stems of perennials and tall stems of weeds and herbs like Cow Parsley.

Decaying foliage is very necessary to slug eating beetles and this is a way of enriching their habitat.

Keep planting trees…this is the time to buy bare-rooted stock and as long as the ground is not frozen, then planting can continue throughout the winter.

This is a great bit of reading…and here’s a slice of it…

“It is time for all of us to make changes about how we live our lives and to follow a path of the heart. By following our intuition and inpiration we encourage our own acts of heartfelt genius and boldness. This makes us feel alive and vital, gives us a great purpose and harnesses parts of ourselves we may have neglected or didn’t even know we had. We no longer feel overwhelmed by the way the Earth’s resources are managed, but recognise that change is in our hands, yours and mine, the hands of extraordinary people who have made a leap of understanding and are determined to make a difference. We become part of the change by becoming part of the solution.”

Glennie Kindred ‘Earth Wisdom’

 Watched this incredible video of A Murmuration of Starlings, filmed above the River Shannon at Lough Derg…here it is…