Creating an Ecosystem

An Ecosystem in the garden is something I've been banging on about for two years. On the back of a brown piece of paper I keep in the drawer of my dressing table, is a plan of what it would like, materials and costings. 

As with all these things, timing and expense are of the essence. On Saturday morning the sun shone, the birds were singing, a carpet of daffodils and snowdrops covered the beds and I woke up full of Spring and a strong pull to be a part of it. As I studied the garden from my bedroom window thinking about where to put the new new ecosystem, James came in. 

"We should go out and look for tadpoles," he announced. My thoughts precisely. Or rather, the next thought that I was just about to have after I'd decided what do to with the new Ecosystem we were going to make. 

So James and I went for a 'tadpole run' all round the fields of East End where we know the ponds are; scrambling through brambles and at one point being chased by what we thought were possibly hornets. Sadly we were a bit early and we didn't see any frogspawn. But neither did we get stung. Every cloud...

That afternoon we went to Thatcham Aquatics and came home with a piece of kidney-shaped plastic which we dug into the back bed of the garden, surrounded with large stones and filled with water. A day later and the chickens have found the Ecosystem! They are absolutely thrilled to to be able to perch on a rock and drink from it, a far more dignified option than their plastic dispenser. In 24 hours, we have attracted wildlife to a new habitat. 



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