We have a new member of the Yewfield family
There is a spring in our step
Posted on Sunday 16th April 2023
For those of you following our blog our apologies for taking the winter off…
The Solstice Blues
Posted on Wednesday 22nd June 2022
The fullness and excitement of spring, of lush green leaf and flower, is beginning to wane.
Back to work
Posted on Saturday 12th February 2022
After a winter break on the blog and some slow time for us gardeners…
Winter work
Posted on Saturday 12th February 2022
After a winter break on the blog and some slow time for us gardeners…
Winter at Yewfield
Posted on Saturday 12th February 2022
After a winter break on the blog and some slow time for us gardeners, its time to get back to work.
Storm Arwen
Posted on Monday 6th December 2021
Storm Arwen has left a trail of devastation in its wake here in South Cumbria.
The season has turned
Posted on Friday 1st October 2021
It has rained heavily over the last two nights.
Summer plenty
Posted on Thursday 5th August 2021
In the last fortnight we took off 161 bales from our species rich hay meadows.
Flaming June
Posted on Monday 28th June 2021
The Yewfield garden and meadows are full of colour right now.
How is your dawn chorus?
Posted on Tuesday 11th May 2021
Until a few days ago we had started to wonder what was happening to the dawn chorus.
Change is coming
Posted on Tuesday 2nd February 2021
The Woodland Trust have kindly given us 150 trees to plant…
The Holly and the Ivy
Posted on Sunday 3rd January 2021
When we were gathering ivy for Christmas wreaths…
Grey squirrels: A Conservation Dilemma?
Posted on Monday 26th October 2020
‘Squirrels are bastards’. Those are the surprising words at the start of Alys Fowler’s gardening article…
Green Grow the Rushes O
Posted on Tuesday 6th October 2020
Once upon a time we sang in a madrigal group…
Looking forward
Posted on Sunday 6th September 2020
We’ve been putting tracks and paths through Sawrey Ground Plantation.
Native vs non native: both please
Posted on Monday 20th July 2020
A screaming frenzy of swifts are circling around the tower.
It’s that pink and purple moment
Posted on Monday 15th June 2020
Thunder is echoing softly through the distant hills.
What extraordinary spring weather
Posted on Sunday 10th May 2020
What extraordinary spring weather we have been having!
Every cloud has a silver lining
Posted on Friday 17th April 2020
Covid 19 has, so far, avoided us at Yewfield.
Forest restoration at Yewfield
Posted on Sunday 29th December 2019
The crab apple outside the conservatory is a larder for birds right now.
The glory of Autumn
Posted on Thursday 31st October 2019
After weeks of rain we have finally been blessed with some dry, cool, sunny, quintessentially autumn weather.
August has been a productive month
Posted on Monday 9th September 2019
Summer has somehow quietly slipped by, no doubt helped along by the wet and dreary August weather.
Is our garden wildlife at risk?
Posted on Sunday 26th May 2019
‘We know the price of everything and the value of nothing.’
Come on spring!
Posted on Sunday 17th March 2019
Gosh, the spring solstice is right around the corner.
Winter or Spring?
Posted on Monday 25th February 2019
With record-breaking winter temperatures of 20.6 degrees in Wales today …
A New Year brings new life to Yewfield
Posted on Thursday 17th January 2019
As we welcome in 2019 what better way to bring in the New Year than by planting trees.
Forest lore
Posted on Monday 24th December 2018
There has been a lot of coverage about forests on radio programs recently.
November leaves
Posted on Sunday 11th November 2018
The rain has cleared and sunlight brings colour to the hillside across the valley.
Season of mists and autumn fruitfulness
Posted on Monday 27th August 2018
The harvest moon rises over Claife Heights.
What a summer!
Posted on Monday 30th July 2018
As I look across my writing table at a fresh bouquet of sweet peas…
What a spring we are having
Posted on Tuesday 12th June 2018
What a spring we are having! The dry and continental weather goes on and on….
Timings
Posted on Tuesday 24th April 2018
Timing is critical in spring not only for a gardener but also in nature.
For the love of trees
Posted on Tuesday 26th December 2017
After watching Judi Dench’s delightful portrait of trees at her home in Surrey on the telly…
The gardening year begins
Posted on Tuesday 28th November 2017
As we near the end of the B and B season here at Yewfield we enter the beginning of the gardening year.
Seasonal change
Posted on Sunday 8th October 2017
As October roared in on the back of the first autumnal gales …
Order returns to the garden
Posted on Sunday 27th August 2017
August has turned out to be the coolest and wettest in 25 years up here in the Lake District.
Midsummer blues
Posted on Monday 31st July 2017
We are in the middle of a rather typical Lake District summer…
A pollinators paradise
Posted on Saturday 1st July 2017
As I step out of the house in a summer’s evening…
An Ecologist visits Yewfield
Posted on Monday 29th May 2017
Last week we walked through the land with the ecologist Mike Douglas from South Lakes Ecology.
Clever bits of kit
Posted on Monday 24th April 2017
We have acquired a portable chainsaw mill. The advantage of this clever bit of kit is …
A case for Sycamore
Posted on Sunday 19th March 2017
Over the past couple of weeks we have been planting a variety of trees to diversify…
Winter work
Posted on Sunday 12th February 2017
Apologies for the gap in the blog entries as I have been in Canada celebrating my mom’s 90th birthday.
Red squirrels at Yewfield
Posted on Monday 2nd January 2017
2016 ended on a positive note in terms of wildlife at Yewfield…
The season is changing
Posted on Monday 5th September 2016
Autumn is peeking at us around the corner.
A day out
Posted on Thursday 7th July 2016
It’s not often that gardeners get a chance for an overnight outing …
Natures colour fest
Posted on Monday 20th June 2016
As the season’s change so do the predominant colours that go with them.
Good news for Yewfield’s forest
Posted on Friday 10th June 2016
As mentioned in the last blog we entered a competition …
Visits to Yewfield
Posted on Sunday 22nd May 2016
It has been a week of visits to the gardens and woodlands of Yewfield …
Ponies, chickens and slugs
Posted on Wednesday 4th May 2016
Apologies for missing a post. April was a busy month. For gardeners it has to be the busiest. On the 1st of May we took our ponies away to summer pasture.
It has been an educational weekend
Posted on Tuesday 5th April 2016
It has been an educational weekend especially for thinking outside the box…
Planting tomorrow’s forests
Posted on Sunday 20th March 2016
We have been planting trees up in the larch plantation just off to the left of the footpath up to Tarn Hows…
Winter twiggery
Posted on Sunday 6th March 2016
We all know about autumn colour and the explosion of multiple greens in spring but …
This wet winter
Posted on Friday 5th February 2016
If you live in the UK you can scarcely have failed to notice that last weekend many of us were counting birds in our gardens
From the ridiculous to the sublime
Posted on Saturday 16th January 2016
From the ridiculous to the sublime. Over the past few days sun and snow and sub zero temperatures…
Hope springs eternal
Posted on Monday 4th January 2016
Writing this at the end of December, Storm Frank, the third major storm here in Cumbria this month, is lashing the windows…
Floods in Cumbria
Posted on Sunday 13th December 2015
In spite of experiencing yet another ‘one in a hundred year flood event’ here in Cumbria (the last one was 6 yrs ago)…
Up here in the Lake District…
Posted on Monday 30th November 2015
Up here in the Lake District we have been experiencing one Atlantic front after another…
Don’t you love November…
Posted on Wednesday 11th November 2015
Don’t you love November…
No really. Leaves to rake and stack, garlic and tulips to plant and hay rattle seed to sow. Hay or yellow rattle Rhinanthes minor has to be sown with this year’s seed…
Harvest
Posted on Sunday 1st November 2015
A lingering autumn has almost made up for the miserably damp summer we had.
Surveying Yewfield
Posted on Thursday 15th October 2015
Ever since we arrived at Yewfield 22 years ago we have been asking what grows here and who shares this land with us.
Pests and predators at Yewfield
Posted on Wednesday 23rd September 2015
How to deal with pests and predators at a vegetarian guest house and County Wildlife Site is an ongoing dilemma…
Managing land in the Lake District with a vegetarian ethos
Posted on Saturday 12th September 2015
That phrase sounds like a contradiction in terms. The Lake District’s landscape has been shaped by centuries of sheep and cattle farming. It is still the dominant form of land management here. Grass is what we grow best or so we are told. So is it possible to look after the land and contribute positively to it’s landscape without having to raise sheep and cattle for meat?
WWOOFING at Yewfield
Posted on Sunday 30th August 2015
From April to November we are a host farm for volunteers from an organization called WWOOF…
Making hay when the sun doesn’t shine
Posted on Saturday 15th August 2015
So far the summer of 2015 has been abysmal for making hay up here in the Lake District. We need a good 4 to 5 days of reasonably sunny weather to dry the cut grass before baling and storing it in the barn for winter. One could, of course, buy in hay which would save a lot of work and angst but our species rich meadow hay, I believe, keep our ponies healthier than they would be on your regular rye grass hay that would be for sale.
Our Bees Are Spoiled For Choice
Posted on Sunday 2nd August 2015
It has been largely cool, wet and windy this past week but that hasn’t kept our bees in the hive. The lime trees are still in blossom, bramble in the hedgerow is in full flower, heather on Tom Heights above Tarn Hows paint the hillside pink and purple, clover speckles white and red in the still uncut hay meadows and garden flowers such as geranium, astrantia, campanula and daisy, all good nectar and pollen plants for bees still dance in cool breeze. Next week rosebay willow herb will be out, another favourite bee plant.
Flower, flowers everywhere!
Posted on Thursday 23rd July 2015
In the garden we try to incorporate wild flowers along with more conventional perennials and shrubs to make it attractive to our bees and other pollinating insects. This year has been a good year for our bees and it seems for bumble bees as well as the garden hums with the sound of them.
Yewfield gardens and land
Posted on Sunday 12th July 2015
Welcome to our Gardeners’ Blog. We will be putting entries in every fortnight with the purpose of informing you as to what is happening in the gardens and land here at Yewfield.
