TWIGS - Tidying & Weeding In Gardens Service

05/03/2025

Moles…

🦡 THE EUROPEAN MOLE: Misunderstood Garden Engineer

THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR UNDERGROUND NEIGHBOR:

🌿 NOT A PLANT EATER!
- 100% carnivorous diet (zero interest in your plants!)
- Consumes 50-100 grams of insects daily
- Eats their weight in pests every 24 hours
- Targets destructive grubs that damage plant roots
- Primary diet: earthworms, beetle larvae, wireworms

🌱 SOIL IMPROVEMENT SPECIALIST
- Creates natural aeration better than any garden tool
- Generates 20kg of loose, fertile soil daily
- Improves drainage in heavy clay areas
- Prevents soil compaction through tunnel networks
- Distributes beneficial microbes throughout soil layers

🚇 UNDERGROUND EXPERT
- Can dig 20 meters of tunnels in a single day
- Maintains complex network of permanent and hunting tunnels
- Super-sensitive touch receptors detect even tiny prey movement
- Active year-round, even during winter
- Lives mostly solitary life in territories up to 3,000 square meters

LIVING WITH MOLES WISELY:
1. Remove molehills from lawns (free, nutrient-rich soil for gardens!)
2. Flatten tunnels in lawns with roller (no need to kill the mole)
3. Use repellents in critical areas, not poisons
4. Appreciate their work in vegetable and flower gardens
5. Remember: a mole-free yard means grub-filled soil

When you work with me instead of against me, your garden's ecosystem thrives naturally.

02/03/2025

Hi TWIGS followers! I’ve collected various branches and prunings to make this dead hedge in my garden. It’s on a steep bank which needs stabilising, and also, after the removable of nearby Gorse below, the garden is more exposed to wind than it was. Adding branches and prunings in an interwoven structure with uprights has created a substantial windbreak. It also creates a habitat for birds, mammals and insects. There are already a few established bushes as well as wild vegetation along this fence line which I’ve incorporated into the ‘hedge’, so it will green-up once Spring gets fully underway!

01/03/2025

Hi TWIGS followers! My first Bee of the year in the garden today… 🐝 ❤️

11/04/2023

Hi TWIGS followers! 🐣I’ve spent a lot of time over Easter working in my own garden on this long border. The bricks in the curving border have been relaid, ’all’ (🤣) the ground Elder has been removed, and I’ve just covered everything in bark chips which I collected for free from another local business! To top it all, I’ve just seen and heard my first Swallows of the year overhead! 😊

27/02/2023

Hi TWIGS followers! I’ve just made use of a pile of tree branches and made this ‘Wattle’ fence along a very bare metal fence border to the garden. Uprights, called ‘pickets’ are pushed into the ground every 12” or so and then the pliable branches are woven in between. You can strip off the smaller twigs but this version makes a good screen and uses all the wood up! 🌳

08/02/2023

Hi TWIGS followers! These pots were in a sorry state after the hard frosts we’ve had, so they’ve been planted up with mini Daffodils, Pansies, Primroses and Daisies, all in lovely new compost. What a difference! 💐 ☀️

10/10/2022

Hi TWIGS followers! There are still lots of tomatoes ripening in the autumn sunshine in the greenhouse! The freezer is already full with all the tomato sauce I’ve already made!! 😬🍅

06/08/2022

Hi TWIGS followers! I do love a bit of weeding & cutting back… it’s very satisfying! 😊👩🏻‍🌾

26/07/2022

Hi TWIGS followers! I’ve grown cucumbers in the greenhouse this year, and after suddenly having quite a few ready at the same time I decided to try making sweet cucumber relish!
The vinegar smells awful when it’s cooking but it tastes rather nice! It has to mature for 6 weeks now before it can be used… ⏰😳

22/07/2022

Hi TWIGS followers! How’s this for a wonderful garden shed?! It’s built into the walled garden (designed by Gertrude Jekyll) in the grounds of Lindisfarne castle over in the north east, which we visited today. 🥰