Jen Mac

Do the compost - Doing The Plan Do the compost - How we make compost in a garden in Somerset UK. Magical microorganisms and worms turn waste into a rich organic growing material that helps the garden grow.

Visiting the EPA to check a composting link, I note that one of their 100 wins in 2025 was "$1.1 million settlement with Home Market Foods after fatal anhydrous ammonia release at Massachusetts"
www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa...

@timharford.ft.com is that a big number?
#DoTheCompost
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Our Somerset garden doesn't benefit from much sunshine in the winter, but we do get to see views across the valley.

This week's #SixOnSaturday #GardenBlog has a veg bed, sage and monstera cuttings, apple tree pruning, neat edges and hedges and the joys of doing the compost.

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Twisted hazel, purple hellebore, pond reflections, birdsong and growth - Six on Sat - Doing The Plan The frost has thawed. Robins, tits and blackbirds are singing and scrapping over food and territory. It sounds pretty to me but it's a battle for them. Since this is a garden blog and not a bird song...

Robins, tits and blackbirds are singing and scrapping over food and territory. It sounds pretty to me but it's a battle for them. Six things that caught my eye in our shady back garden this mid January in Somerset.
#SixOnSaturday #GardenBlog

doingtheplan.com/2026/01/17/t...

Six on Saturday – My Gardening Week Six on Saturday is a weekly meme originally hosted by The Propagator but now in the tender care of Jim at Garden Ruminations. I definitely chose the most challenging time to start participating given there's been a week of frost, snow, wind and rain. I hope everyone has kept safe and your gardens were not too battered. It's been pretty much impossible to do anything in the garden this week except grab a sledgehammer to break the ice on the pond, walk briskly down to the compost bin with vegetable peelings and make plans for the year ahead.

Six on Saturday - My Gardening Week & 2026 Projects #SixOnSaturday #gardens #gardening #nature

#SixOnSaturday
#SpireSaturday
#StaircaseSaturday
#SaturdayStairs
#StationSaturday
#SteepleSaturday
#Stouturday
#StreetArtSaturday
#StuartSaturday
#SwordSaturday

Collage of : garden pond covered in ice and snow, yellow chard covered in snow, snow covered oak branches, robin in a hedge, pink viburnum flowers, pink osteospermum flower,, surrounded by snowy leaves.i

#SixOnSaturday from yesterday's snowy garden. Mostly gone today but still chilly: snowy pond, rainbow chard, snow on the oak tree, robin in the hedge, viburnum, osteospermum

My Little Garden 10th Jan 2026 In a week when we’ve experienced a wolf moon, icy winds and a sprinkling of frost, the promised snow has eluded us in my little corner of…

The week when we had a wolf moon, lots of 'weather' but no snow #mylittlegarden #SixonSaturday
renaissancegd.medium.com/my-little-ga...

Happy Saturday everyone. The snow has mostly gone and the sun is shining so it’s a good start to the day. Whatever you’re up to - enjoy! #SixOnSaturday #gardening #gardeninglife

#SixOnSaturday purple Pansies, tiny Haworthia, red Clover taking a beating from the deer 🦌😫 Mammillaria, a striking Violia and African blue basil scenting the greenhouse 😌

#Flowers #Gardening #Plants #GulfOfMexico #Winter #FlowerReport #PurpleFlowers

My first #SixOnSaturday of 2026 definitely has a wintery feel, but there’s still some colour in the gardens.

I have an Algerian Iris, a crisp down, frozen waterfall, Snowdrops in the Snow, water droplets on Euphorbia and Garrya flowers.

🌱 #Gardening #UKGardening #FlowerFeed #BloomScrolling

Six On Saturday: Released The garden has been frozen for about a week but the lying frost has gone now and warm temperatures are heading this way – for a few days. Storm Goretti howled around for a while but thankfull…

The frost has gone and the storm had run out of steam by the time it reached us. Here's my #sixonsaturday a short walk around my #garden with plenty of jobs to be done n20gardener.com/2026/01/10/s...
🌱 #ukgardening #gardening #flowers

Collage of garden photos - frosty views of a garden in Somerset, UK, including a metal cat sat in a planter of cyclamen, a frosty window, hellebore, witch hazel and primrose flowers

Frosty patterns on the greenhouse window, with ice crystals making beautiful fern like shapes, and a blurred view of the dark garden, and the sunlit valley

After a winterval blogging hiatus here's #SixOnSaturday with beautiful frost ferns, hellebore and witch hazel, plus a hopeful poem and links to some wonderful oddities. wp.me/p7ZPGx-3Wi

#GardenBlog #WitchHazel #TinyAngryWitch #FrostFern #Hellebore #ResonanceFM #StewartLee #DarkestBeforeTheDawn

hope and grace still reign in certain sectors of the living world

We bought a couple of wooden carvings at Wells market a few years ago. We named them Gog and Magog after the legendary giants who have appeared at the London Lord Mayor’s show since the time of Henry VIII. In our garden, they guard the greenhouse and the tool shed. 🙂 The carved wooden faces are weathered and wizardy looking, with long beards, bushy eyebrows, and furrowed brows.

Two pictures of wooden carved faces on a small greenhouse and garden shed, in an English garden in autumn. Gog and Magog are legendary figures that appear in different traditions as either one giant or a pair of giants. In the Bible and Quran, Gog and Magog are associated with a final, apocalyptic conflict. In British folklore, they are giant guardians of the City of London. In our garden, Magog looks after the lawnmower and garden tools and Gog protects the plants in the greenhouse.

The Lord Mayor's show, with two giant wicker figures called Gog and Magog. The show has taken place for centuries, as part of a ceremonial to assert the powers and privileges of the City of London. According to folklore, the giants Gog and Magog guard the city.

Legendary giants Gog and Magog are apocalyptic figures in the Bible, representing doom. But in British folklore they're jolly giants guarding the City of London.

They're also tiny wooden carvings that guard our tool shed and greenhouse.

doingtheplan.com/2025/11/02/a...

#Gardenblog #History #Myth

I has 14 deaths and 1 horse fren.
I ♡ horse

Collage of autumnal garden photos, with a purple and lilac pansy, a calendula flower, sage plants, autumn leaves, and white 'starburst' like flowers of fatsia japonica

This week’s selection for #SixonSaturday is all autumnal.

Rishi Sumac is about to shed his last leaf. The pansies are tougher than they look.

The garden is dying back, but there are still some burst of brightness and very optimistic looking seedlings
#GardenBlog

doingtheplan.com/2025/11/08/s...

Gog, Oakey, dahlia, sweetpea, anemone and autumn – Six on Sat, 11 Oct 25 Rambling round the garden, with a selection of autumn flowers and some surprisingly fast sweet pea seedings.

#SixonSaturday #AutumnLeaves #Dahlia #GardenBlog
Featuring Phill Oakey, the oak tree named after the ‘Don’t You Want Me’ singer and synth superstar, the red leaves of Rishi Sumac, and ongoing rambles round the greenhouse
doingtheplan.com/2025/10/11/g...

A bunch of garden flowers, with a big frilly pink and white dahlia, deep purple cosmos flowers, and pale purple daisies. The flowers are in a brown clay pot, on a dark wooden table.

Collage of garden flowers - with a closeup of the pink umbelliferous heads of sedum flowers, daisies with yellow centres and lilac petals, a rich purple clematis with three big, slightly wet flowers, a close up of hotlip salvia flowers, that resemble ladies dancing in red and white skirts, the autumn colours of the leaves of a sumac tree and a bunch of garden flowers with a big pink and white dahlia

In this week’s six on sat - the dahlias are as smashing as the genial host of a light entertainment darts show, the chlorophyll fades to carotenoid as the leaves go orange, and the hot lips are in full bloom.

#SixonSaturday #BloomScrolling #Flowers #Garden #Blog #dahlia #smashing
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Garden montage with purple bellflower, a pink rose, a wooden chair in a small greenhouse, planting spring bulbs, a ladybird and some acorns and conkers.

A blurry image from the Frome Tunnels tunnel of the old Roman road underneath the town centre.

#SixonSaturday #GardenBlog

This week's highlights include bellflower, pirouette rose, spring bulbs, a tidyish greenhouse, a ladybird and magic conkers. Plus the old roman road under Frome Town centre.

doingtheplan.com/2025/09/27/m...

A notepad and pencil, handwritten note: Reasons AI sucks. Stealing words, knowing nothing, discourages thinking, boils oceans, infests discourse, capitalist extraction. Full text on blog. Reasons AI can fuck off 1. Stealing all the words 2. Knowing fuck all 3. Over confidence 4. Incapable of true understanding 5. Encourages lazy thinking 6. Discourages thinking 7. High social cost, low social value 8. Boils the oceans 9. Infests public discourse 10. Capitalist extraction

Close up of a ladybird, red with black spots, by a pond in a garden in somerset

A grey squirrel on a green lawn, in a lush garden.

More reasons that Artificial Intelligence sucks sprang to mind after an unsuccessful chat with a particularly chirpy and idiotic bot and ongoing news.

Reasons AI sucks. Stealing words, knowing nothing, discourages thinking, boils oceans, infests discourse, capitalist extraction.

wp.me/p7ZPGx-3Fu

Six on Saturday, Sumac, anemone, geranium, apples, pondlife, and speckled wood There was a clump of anemones here when we arrived, and although they’re too big for the space I expect them to be there forever, and don’t mind that at all.

Anemones and wood speckled butterfly in my #SixOnSaturday #gardenblog #August #wildlifegarden doingtheplan.com/2025/08/02/s...

A close up image of a waterlily and damselflies on a pond. Two damselflies are linked in a heart shape on a lilypad.

Two damselflies on a lilypad, forming a loop while they are mating. One is blue and the other is pale green. They have big black shiny eyes and delicate wings.

Damselflies and waterlily in this weeks blog

The damselfly has a remarkably complex sex life

doingtheplan.com/2025/07/26/s...

#Gardenblog #SixonSaturday #Betterlatethannever #Damselfly #Waterlily #Wildlifepond

A buddleia flower on a green bush in a garden, with a colourful peacock butterfly

Hiya! Here's a peacock butterfly visiting a buddliea bush. #BloomScrolling #butterfly

Six on Saturday, bees, birds, horsey, James Galway and yukka buds A selection of garden highlights on a soggy Saturday. With bees, birds, roses, and a question about the flowering habits of yukka.

#SixonSaturday Garden blogging fun times with bees and birds, and roses and a question about the flowering habits of yukka

doingtheplan.com/2025/06/07/s...

Pneumatic tube - Wikipedia

Surely vacuum tubes are the ideal burrito distribution system? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumat...

Frome residents win five-year battle for community-led housing project Mayday Saxonvale scheme is given the go-ahead after an extraordinary meeting of Somerset council executive

The Frome Saxonvale town centre redevelopment will be community led. Good news for Frome and hopefully a chance to show what community led projects can achieve to revitalise town centres putting community before profit. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

🐝 a bit of good news for bees, flowers, fruit, honey and ecosystems...

Perhaps humans might be the problem?

Today I learned that Cercidiphyllum japonicum is called Candyfloss tree because when the leaves turn in autumn, they smell of burnt sugar.
#thicktrunkTuesday
Thanks to @lindacdolan.bsky.social #Trees

good morning treepeople and happy #thicktrunktuesday