hi from deepest dorset

[kimbobill]

Hiya, and thanks for letting us browse your site over the last few days and letting us join!
We were very much into SSish-ifiness through the eighties lost it through the nineties due to work, redundancy etc and started to find it again in the naughties.
lack of space hasn't helped but our daughter has just got a house with a good size plot at the side!! It hasn't been touched for a long time so it been ripping the bramble out cutting the 4 foot grass down along with the bed spings and sofas that have been burnt there over time. theres a really good supply of slow worms to help us, I think it is 16 that we have found and tried to keep with bits of tin and undergrowth left for them.
2 and a half pound of gooseberry jam and a gooseberry crumble we are on our way and I've lost a few pound into the bargin

Kim and Bill

[Andy Hamilton]

Hello and welcome, I have slow worms on my allotment too. How does the bits of tin help them?

[John Headstrong]

Hello, I am new here has well, great place


to answer the tin query, Slowworms like to be warm, the tin is a solar heat collector, they often will use a road for the heat. I have heard of them hanging around in cold frames, sending people running away screaming "snake!"

[red]

hi and welcome

its great to see slow worms - not seen any at our new place..

[Millymollymandy]

We've seen a slow worm in our orchard. Things like that make my day!

Welcome to the site by the way!

[Thomzo]

Hi and welcome to the site.

Gooseberry jam - yum! I planted some gooseberries this year but will have to wait for the fruit.

Cheers
Zoe

[kimbobill]

Thanks for the welcomes just back for a bite to eat and tea! loads of tea. great weather for the plants but really muggy and great when it rains just murder after with the humidity.

John got it right with the tin they just love the protection they get from it and the heat. just leave an old bit, less than a foot square or the adders and grass snakes will move in, on the edge of your plot.

In our own garden there has never been enough space to grow veg properly. So we have always left a small amount of nettles and encouraged butterflies into our garden with wild areas and flowers. I come home at lunch to find a cabbage white dancing around the broccoli plants.
argh now what do I do?
they are sitting indoors in a bucket of water at the moment.

[The Chili Monster]

[ohareward]

Did you know?

Slow worms can contract their muscles to shed their tail if attacked by a predator. When a bird attempts to eat them they 'freeze'. If the bird starts pecking they will continue to stay completely still, shedding their tail which wriggles about for up to 15 minutes. The bird then generally picks up the tail and flies away, leaving the tail-less reptile alive. The tail regenerates in a matter of weeks into a short pointed stub.
They live up to around 15 years in the wild, but a slow worm in the Copenhagen museum lived to be 54 years old.

Robin