Some of my Mosaics

I have been making mosaics for quite a few years now. I went on a course with Martin Cheek in Broadstairs many years ago and really caught the bug. Since then, I have made and sold many mosaics all based on natural themes. When solitary mosaicing becomes too lonely, I visit Oliver Budd in his studio near Bodium Castle for a couple of days company. Olly's classes are always inspiring and its great to use the wide variety of materials to be found in his workshops.

I am very fond of this beetroot which I made at Olivers studio. The leaves are broken tile which helps gives texture to the leaves, the ribs and body are a mixture of Smalti and glass tile. The background spirals rounds from the shadow with the tiles graduating out in size from the centre.

This running hare was commissioned by a friend as a present for her husband. the materials used are vitreous glass and ceramic tiles. The ceramic gives a flatter colour giving a contrast in texture as well as colour. They are also less likely to shatter when cutting small strips of tile - have a look at the hare's furry chest and tummy. The ivy was included to introduce some movement as a counterpoint to the direction the hare is running.

The larger you make your mosaic, the easier it is to get fine detail using a general tile size of 1cms square. The hare is about 35 cms square and it was easy to get a good flow to the lines.

Here is an angel fish which I made as I had some sea glass I wanted to incorporate in the watery background. Found on the beach on the north Kent coast its a lovely material, I wish I could find more of it. Mirror tiles also work well as in water. The materials used are mostly glass tiles, with the yellow and orange fins in smalti and the outer edges of the background in seaglass.

I find the easiest way to make the mosaics is on an mdf board which is sealed with watered down pva glue. The finished pictures are easy to handle and can be hung on the wall with mirror plates or just propped up on a mantlepiece. Tiles are stuck down with pva and when completely dry, grouted. Don't use ready mixed grout unless the surface of your mosaic is very flat as it is quite gloopy and difficult to get into crevices. Grey or sandy coloured grout gives a much more pleasing finish especially when using natural subjects.

I am currently working on a large Dodo which has turned out pleasingly quirky. I have incorporated some ceramic tiles I made to resemble feathers using terracotta and tin glaze stamped with an old printing block - I'll put up some photos soon.

Warning: making mosaics is a seriously addictive past-time.

Meet the Girls

I have kept a few hens in the garden for over 10 years now. Sadly due to visits by the fox and despite my best efforts to keep him out, none of the current girls are more than 3 years old. Jemima (because she survived the last fox visit) is a white leghorn hybrid who is definitely the boss. She is a small, very upright hen with a large red comb and is very partial to fingers so you have to take when feeding her. She will also pick slugs off the bottom of plant pots with a little encouragement - a very handy skill! She loves sitting up high in the run and looking down on everyone. She lays an enormous cream coloured egg.

The other hens are all less than six months old and just in lay for the first time. I have three cream legbars - Milly, Molly and Mabel. They are very pretty hens with brown and gold plumage, Milly & Molly have black tails and Mabel's is grey. These hens lay the holy grail of hen keeping - blue/green eggs - colours you can on the F&B paint chart! Each lays a different coloured egg from the palest blue to olive green. Henrietta and Nora are black & white speckled hens - Nora has feathered legs and both lay a small dark brown egg. The final two are Ambers called Sugar and Spice both are creamy coloured and Spice has brown speckles, they are very friendly.

Their home is a 30x20 foot run under the shelter of a large pine tree which gives some protection from the rain. I have netted the roof to keep the collar doves out. I lock the hen house at night as I have discovered the hard way that foxes can climb vertical fences.

They are particularly fond of cauliflowers and cabbages which disappear in seconds under a scrum of greedy chickens. I have banned them from the kitchen garden now as seedlings are beginning to appear and the girls are very effective rotovators in their efforts to find worms. They escaped at the weekend and it took me ages to round them up. Friendly and biddable when they are in their run, once out they turned into fully fledged members of the escape committee and couldn't be tempted back by anything. Needless to say the grass always looks greener.

The chooks are fed organic Layers Pellets which they find less exciting than kitchen scraps and left over pasta, they are also very fond of fish and chips. The also get a handful of mixed corn. Because they are in a restricted run I also give them oyster shell and grit to keep their gizzards healthy and calcium levels up. The run has a good covering of wood chips which keeps the mud down and gives them a good layer to have a scratch through. Last year we had some tre work done and consequently have a large pile of coarse woodchips - perfect. I have also been using them to mulch around newly planted trees and shrubs over ground cover fabric to help keep the roots moist.

Today I collected half a dozen eggs. Hen House Poulty in Teston, Maidstone is a good source of all things poulty and supplies all you need to keep your own hens. I got my cream legbars from Dudley at Highdown Poultry near Tenterden.

A Novice Beekeeper - March Diary

I am a relatively new beekeeper. I took the introduction to beekeeping course last year with the mid-Kent beekeepers, and I took delivery of my first bees in July which is quite late in the year. I keep the bees at the bottom of the garden in an old fashioned beehive known as a WBC Hive - this is the pagoda style, painted white with a metal covered roof. Yes it would be lovely to have some honey this year, but my main aim is keep a healthy colony of bees.


I fed the bees lots of sugar syrup in the autumn to make sure the colony grew large enough to survive the winter with plenty of food stores. I also treated them against disease - The winter bee lives much longer than her hard working cousin the summer bee, six months as compared to just six weeks and parasites have much more time to take hold in the hive. Also the colony needs to maintain its warmth in colder months and needs to be large enough to generate this heat by clustering together.

I am pleased to say that now we finally have some warmer weather, I have seen bees flying around the garden and a few joined me in the greenhouse today. Rosemary is beginning to flower and is very popular with the bees, although the plants have taken a beating in the winter cold. I have planted spring bedding and bulbs in the kitchen garden to help provide some early nectar for them.


I am hoping not to have to open them up too often and leave them as much alone as possible (yes I did get stung last year)! The main task is to provide the bees with the room they need - by adding extra layers to the hive - and to prevent them from swarming - although I now have a second hive, which is empty so an early swarm wouldn't be too bad (as long as they didn't disappear completely). Some beekeepers keep an empty hive to tempt a swarm to settle. Bees are in short supply this year due to the increase in new beekeepers looking to establish their colonies and last year hive equipment was in short supply.

The queen should be laying eggs and raising young to replace the workers which have overwintered and who will now be nearing the end of their lives.

You might not know that all the worker bees are female and yes - are responsible for all the food gathering and young rearing in the hive. The Drones - males - are produced in small numbers and their only job is to mate with a new queen. They are usually kicked out of the hive in the autumn by the workers to die in the winter cold.

welcome to my blog

Well this is the brave new world - first Twitter and now my very own blog, welcome one and all. Spent the day in the greenhouse pricking out crimson clover and Sanfoin grown for the bees. The chickens escaped from the run and ran amock in the kitchen garden, mad for the new grass and then discovered the joys of digging for worms in the raised beds. I must be more careful with the gate! I have been creating a new flowering area principally to grow nectar rich flowers for my bees to enjoy. I broadcast seeds last autumn grown elsewhere in the garden and now have corncockle, crimson clover, sanfoin, phacelia, borage, mullein and teasel all coming through. I have emptied packets of poppy seeds in the area too so have my fingers crossed for a good crop.

The new willow "fedge" is coming to life. This is a simple cross weave made with prunings from the willow tunnel and planted through weed surpressing fabric and mulched with bark. The idea is to hide the compost bins, although when the hazel platt grows this should help to. Thanks to the squirrels raiding last years nut crop, there were lots of young hazel trees springing up in the vegetable beds.