My Yard - Then and Now, 2013 season

A post was done on April 1 showing a couple of pictures of the re-shape of the garden. See that here to recollect. [Click]  June is the best time here in Mysore to start a garden. A dry and warm summer had ended with a couple of rains at the end of May. 

In the first week of June, things were set as I had wished.   I had cut off a papaya tree near the wall as it was a hindrance to my plan.  We had enough fruit from it. Since there was an infestation of mealy bugs, I removed it entirely, which anyway I would have done.  This was a volunteer plant that grew there and saw all that took place in the yard during the 2 years.

I show a few pictures of the same place before showing how it is now, towards the end.
All pictures you will see were taken from either end.  Keep an eye on the house/wall to know. 

Those were in 2008 when the  house was partitioned and my garden had to shift from the eastern side to here to the west of the house where I shifted.  It gets full afternoon sun on this side.  See the compound wall has been raised.  

Some more developments started to shape in 2010 when a new house was planned to come up behind our old house.  Again, the garden was in jeopardy.  No asking why, just see the following photos.

It was like this earlier.

When I shifted the garden I had moved the plants in sacs.

All the things that were in that demolished tiled room where the new house came up had to be moved out into the yard. My infant garden became overcrowded with zillions of things!  

My gardening had taken the backseat. Slowly, the things were cleared, organized and reused. Added to that, more construction materials had to be kept there during the house construction.  

Bicycle of a construction worker. 

Just enough space to walk! July 2011.

See changes and the new house at the back. The tiled shelter which you saw in the preceding view was reversed to the compound wall. You can see the frame in the above picture taken April 2012.  

Did you see the Papaya Tree there?  Keep an eye on that now.

April 2012.

Papaya tree grown tall, higher than compound wall.  Pictured September 2012, now the garden area was set. 

View from first floor room. Did you see papaya tree?  That is my garden area now. 

You saw pictures in the link.  Now let me tell  how I started my 2013 season. I have to limit my plants now as the area is small.   Last year, a kind friend from Dave's Garden, Dee, had sent me some ten varieties of seeds for me. Now was the time to start them.  I had gone to the Pinjrapole Society and bought 50 kgs of vermicompost.  I am using such compost for the first time. 

I had prepared beds by sieving out the soil and separated the stones and small hardened cement clumps that had got mixed up during construction work. 

I have added compost and planted Gladiolus bulbs there. 

I had to use the seed tray now.  Seeds from Dee were tiny.

I filled the tray with half soil and half compost.  This is how I put in seeds.  My watch-repair tray came in handy to tap the tiny seeds.  Those are Primrose seeds.

To know what went where in the tray, I made an index. 

As I saw standing up.

Half of my garden.

New bed added. Now that is where the Papaya tree was. Now there is mint I transplanted from another bed. I sowed seeds of beans near the wall and sowed Coriander [Cilantro] beneath the green gate.  I grew it in March also.  But now I have added compost to the soil and have to see results. 

So much for now.   We have not had rains the first 9 days of June. Let us hope it will be a good monsoon this year. 

Tailorbird nest and egg :(

Our Indian Almond tree is estimated to be as old as or even older than our century old - 101 to be precise - house.  Four years ago I got its top half chopped as it had grown very tall and had spread too many branches.  Also it shed a truckload of huge leaves twice a year [March/September], which I found increasingly difficult to manage.  So since then I prune the branches every now and then to keep its growth in check, thus also limiting the quantity of leaves that would fall.  The dry leaves also serve as fuel for our hot water boiler. Mynahs, crows, spotted doves and other birds and also squirrels enjoy the tree's good shade.  It has also been the 'maternity home' for tailorbirds.

Two days ago I decided to prune it with the long bamboo stick with a curved hook-like knife to pull down the small branches.  Picture below shows the remaining branches after I pruned.

Inadvertently I had cut a branch that had a tailorbird nest which I saw at the time of dumping all branches into a pile.  Dusk was catching up as I finished pruning.  So I kept this branch separately to take a close look the next day.  

My morning coffee was in one hand, the nest in the other, I sat on the stone bench admiring both.  See how the extra cotton is pushed out on the sides - picture below.  This is to hold the cotton padding and [coconut] fibres in place, around the inside. This is a medium size leaf it has chosen.  There are even bigger leaves. I had provided these birds some nesting materials last month. See my recent post [click]. 

These birds do not read any books, attend any college or school, yet, they have so much commonsense.  

All they do is observe and follow their parents and follow their instincts.  This is what humans  should be aping! :)  Modern man never seems to take lessons from Nature. 

The nest looked fresh as I peeped inside.  While sipping coffee one more time, I thought for a moment that the little bird had grown and flown away without me noticing, unlike during its last nesting season.  Just then my eyes fell on a small white object a few feet from my stone bench where I was sitting.  That was where the cut branches had fallen. 

I picked up that white object, which was the egg, obviously having fallen out of the nest and landed on a small sand heap, safely.  I show the egg on my palm to indicate its size. 

As I was feeling sad, having disturbed the nest unknowingly, I saw the usual scene of the tailorbirds flying in for their first visit of the day to my Yarden.  One particular bird [out of the 3-4] started to look for something near the spot from where I had pulled down that particular branch.  It must be the builder searching for that nest which was now not where it was. It was clearly confused.
I felt really sorry for that and begged a silent pardon from the heart.   

  I hung the nest using a wire after keeping the egg in it.  Now even if the egg hatches and a chick arrives, it will not survive, because the parents will never find it in its disturbed location and hence will never get the parental care and food.  :( :(

I had dumped the big pile of leaves and branches out of our gate.  To my luck, the municipal waste pick up truck came within two hours, a sort of a record. And on its own!  See the pile below.

Here, carefully see the truck in front of our gate and the man putting the 'green gold' into it.  Picture from my room window.

Bird nest material dispenser - 2

I posted yesterday what becomes the 'part 1' now.  See older post.  I closed with the expectation that I would capture the tailorbird drawing cotton from the dispenser.  It had spotted the source within 2-3 hours of hanging it there.  I waited this morning as most birds are known to devote more time to search and shunt to and fro the new nest with the materials during the morning as it will be cooler.  Sure enough, at around half past seven, the tailorbird made a revisit.  I was about 20 feet away, sitting still, camera on the ready!

It had already made some trips by the time I spotted this - see how the cotton is disturbed.  I sat there after my morning coffee.

I must remodel this.  If the cotton moves down, it cannot perch and draw.  Here it can reach from the branch. 

I mentioned in my last post about my plan for another dispenser for fibrous material.  Here it is and that is why this is 'part 2'.  I had stiff copper wire.  About 2 metres were required to coil it using a long-neck PET bottle. a tip I got in the link given in the previous post. I used a centre wire to hold the top and bottom at the same distance and this serves as the hanger also.  I needed this to prevent the copper coil from stretching down. 

I thank my squirrel that had collected all those jute thread fibres available for it when the construction activity was going on previously and the workers had used the jute threads for scaffolding.  There were some longer pieces of rope also in the squirrel nest!  Ask me where it had made.  It was on the bedroom window, in the gap between the insect screen and the always-closed bottom-half wooden window, safe from rain and sun.  I had removed and kept the entire abandoned nest in some corner.  It came in handy for this more than 6 months later.  Now I'm waiting to see if they need the fibres.  I'll put some thread pieces and may be cotton also here.

Bird nest material dispenser -1

Some months ago while browsing for some ideas of a bird house, I bumped into a site wherein a bird nest material dispenser was featured.  It was something like this: See the link having a very brief  post.  It was a project I could make and I knew it was needed for our little feathered friends as well, in particular, the tailorbird. 

April to August is supposed to be the nesting season for the tailorbird and yesterday I saw this:

I thought this is the right time to provide them some easy pickings for their nesting endeavours.  I found a no-longer-in-use bill holder.  Bills were pierced through the top of the wire and pushed down to the wooden stand, which is actually a base of my grandfather's trophy which is in the showcase.  The base was too big for the rack.

I poked some surgical cotton which I keep in the first-aid box and some thread in the form of cleaning waste cotton [red thing] which is very thready.  I thought the birds would like them. This is a beginning experiment.

Since the item was ready, it took no time to install.  I hung it around noon on the hibiscus plant where the tailorbirds frequent.  And in the evening, I saw the cotton being pulled from different sides!  I had later hung it on the curry plant as I could view it clearly from the room window.  Usually in the mornings they are more active collecting materials. Let me see if I can catch them on camera, picking [with thanks] cotton.

I now plan to add some coconut fibre and jute thread and do what you saw in the link I gave in the beginning.  I will be trying to improvise on this project.

I had already made a post on the nests with images.  See it here. [Click]

Yarden Re-shape

Gardeners do this oftentimes - reshaping or moving plants around!  I am no exception.  In my opinion, if a design is 'permanent' then there is no scope for creativity and we get new ideas every now and then.  So if there are 'movable assets' as I call stones, curbs and bricks, I can convert the seed ideas into fruition.

Now, all I did was to remove one half of the tomato trellis which was obscuring the path and a straight bed parallel to the 'dismantlable' moat-parapet.  The tomato plants had dried. So it was time to remove them.  I also observed that only one half of the trellis and a netting above it were sufficient for 3-4 tomato plants.  I shifted one half of the trellis - which actually is in the shape of a gate [iron] near the Gerbera plant.

Support frame that held the tomato plant - seen on left, one half retained.  See the other slightly to the right.

View from the other side.  See the straightened bed and the other frame. 

Another view.

Shade net can be seen. 

Last week, I also erected a shade net to protect the small yarden from the sun this summer which is expected to be quite warm due to a huge shortfall in the last monsoon.

A garden friend from Dave's Garden, Dee [who lives in a Dome-shaped Home] has sent me some 9-10 varieties of seeds which I plan to try-grow this coming June when rains should start after summer.

It was a lot of work today as I had also prepared the bed by sieving out the new bed. The soil had plenty of cement grits which had got mixed up when the earth was used for concrete roof centering for the house which was built more than a year ago.  I salvaged the good earth and also raised the entire garden area, using stone curbs that are not visible.

All those were done at a time when the other half of our house which is now owned by someone is being dismantled.

Earthworms in the yarden

The Common Earthworm in my yarden [click for link - National Geographic].  

This is a beautiful specimen I had found some time ago while digging the bed.  I have kept it on a huge almond leaf for size [first picture].  The sight and presence of these is a positive sign for gardeners.  In my yarden, they are lucky because I do not poison the earth with pesticides or use any kind of inorganic manure.     In the above link please read 'Did you know?'.  You will know about a popular legend we all talked about.  Very nicely the doubt is cleared!

Click here for more [Wiki] information on the "farmers' friend".

Bird bath mirror fun

2010 October

Above two images, December 2010. 

Those are Sunbirds I had noticed this enjoying itself in front of the scooter's mirror.  Having seen their curiosity I had wanted to place a mirror there for them.  After more than two years I implemented now.  But to have some fun with other birds - to see how they react to the mirror at the bird bath itself, which is almost at the open scooter shed.  

Red-whishered Bulbuls are regular visitors to the bath.  A couple came as usual and noticed this new object, investigated, sat on it and made sure there was no danger from it.  Both of them seemed to agree. .

Before splashing, one of them positioned itself right in front of it, on the brim of the bath, spread its wings as it made a peculiar sound a few times.  I may interpret this as a pleasure sound, which I had not observed any of these do before!  It was now seeing 'another bird'!  It was a funny reaction.  I could not photograph it.  

Splashing happily!

After the dip-splash, they sit on another twig higher up - which I have also provided - and wriggle the water from their wings. 

I will shift the mirror to the wall in the shed where the tailor birds and sunbirds like to go.  There are branches  of the Holmskioldia shrub which has its feet in the shed and 'limbs' growing outside and through a gap left between the compound and roof of the shed.  They like these branches.  So I will hang it near here and see what they do.  I have also provided a horizontal stick [which can be seen in the picture above] in front of the mirror for them to sit and look at themselves.  Let me see.