Experiment

About this time last year I forgot to empty my wheelbarrow of soil I had filled it with from the border, a fact I discovered when I came across it sometime in the spring under a fir tree. My first reaction was to tip the soil back onto the border, but then I noticed green shoots were appearing from the soil in the barrow so I decided to run my own "Nature Watch" experiment and to leave the barrow to see what developed.

The barrow acts as a reservoir for rain water, and I have deliberately neither drained nor added to the rainfall that has fallen into it this year.Most of the green shoots developed into grasses, but there were a few wild flowers in summer that had obviously been blown by the wind from the fields nearby.

I keep going and having a look from time to time to see what else, if anything, is happening, and today I found that there were "things" darting about in the water at one end.

These are doubtless larvae of insects I would rather not have around, but an experiment is an experiment. I counted about five different varieties of larvae, so we'll see what they turn into in due course no doubt - probably when the bite marks start to show.

This blip was taken using a UV filter so it may not be obvious that most of the area shown is the surface of the water. The various grey and black blobs in the upper half of the shot are the larvae.

Best viewed in large

The experiment continues...