Garden Bears' World - An Evening in the Garden

Hanley Bear is still too sad about the outcome of yesterday's Stoke City game to write a guest blog about his day in the workshop with Grizzly, so here is one from me, Sonning.

We had two very warm days earlier this week, when it was too hot in the garden for furry creatures like us, at least until after the sun had gone down.  So we waited until the evening to explore the garden.

Hanley's priority was to check that 'his' runner bean plant was still the tallest which, at that stage, it was.  And it was the first one with a flower.  However, it has now been overtaken by two of the Chomper Beans!

Growing on the other side of the path are the brassicas - kale and cabbages - which Polar has surrounded with nets to try to keep the butterflies and pigeons off, although it makes getting at them to do weeding very awkward. 

Hanley suggested us bears could crawl under the netting to do the weeding, which Polar said would be very helpful.

The vegetable garden at home is full of lots of tasty things to eat.  The broad beans are ready for picking now and we have been enjoying fresh, crunchy lettuce for weeks and weeks.   

Endon Bear has been helping Polar take cuttings for a new herb garden in the plot next to the cold frame, where there are onions and lettuces growing this year. 

He climbed up to show us where the loganberries grow.  They are rather sharp to eat fresh, which means the birds leave them alone, but we picked some for jam-making and nibbled a few of the very ripest ones.

As we came back up the path from the vegetable garden, we could see the lights on in Grizzly's workshop, where the model railway is.  Grizzly built it himself, with a little bit of help from Polar, Polar's dad and a nice man called Eric, who used to live next-door and had been a coal miner. 

There is a big wisteria near the greenhouse which the smaller bears love to climb, although I am not as nimble as them and find the branches rather smooth to hold on to.  Hanley and Endon encourage me to be brave, but I don't like to climb too high.

And anyway, I had spotted something interesting on the ground - wild strawberries!  As soon as I told the small bears, they were sliding down the wisteria trunk and running up the path to join me.

We were hungry bears after doing our running and climbing, so we ate a few straight away, then picked all the ripe ones we could find, in case Polar wanted them for making jam.

Even though it was getting quite dark, we found the ripe strawberries easily, because we could smell them, like wild bears do.  There are lots of nice smells in the garden in the evening at this time of year, especially the roses, honeysuckle, lavender and a shrub called Philadelphus.

Polar thanked us for the loganberries and said we could eat the little strawberries while we waited to see if there would be any bats flying that evening.  And there were but, unfortunately, it was too dark for Polar to get any pictures of them, so I can't show them to you.