And then there was one

Oh dear. One more chicken has gone to chicken heaven. Little Peggy is no longer with us since this evening. She seemed poorly yesterday afternoon and didn't even leave the coop today. She didn't eat or drink and seemed very uncomfortable throughout the day. We suspect she had soft eggs inside that wouldn't come out. Poor thing. 

I wonder how long Gwen will last now that she's on her own. Since chickens are flock birds she probably won't be very happy. Oh dear.

Mrs. M.

Raspberries

A friend of mine got hold of rather a lot of summer fruiting raspberry canes and offered me some for the allotment. How could I say no? Mrs. G. and I arranged an area by the existing autumn fruiting raspberries (looking very good already) and planted them in two rows. 

All we need to do now is arrange some poles and wire to hold them in place. A job for the weekend I believe. 

Mrs. M.

Tidying up

Luckily, the weather has been fantastic all week so the visits to the allotment have been really pleasant. We've now more or less finished weeding all the beds and even though everybody else seems to be planting away, we've decided to wait until May. The nights are still fairly cold and apparently we had frost the other night.

The plot inspectors will be making a visit next week so we've tried to tidy up around the shed as well. We've got a grass patch with rather long grass so this week it was time to get the scissors out.

 

It would have been easier to cut the grass with a lawn mower but since we haven't got one, this was really the only way of doing it. I love the smell of newly cut grass and we decided to sit down and eat our lunch when my back shouted for a pause. Mrs. G. had been busy baking bread and I had brought cappuccino so we had a rather yummy  break. 

The whole plot is looking quite good now, so no worries about being  "told off " by the plot monitors. 

We've promised ourselves to dig over the beds in the autumn so as not to have to do it in the spring next year. The reason why we were a bit lazy six months ago was the bad weather. Fingers crossed for a nice autumn 2014!

Mrs. M.

New spot for the chickens

Today has been a glorious day! Mr.M. and I spent all day in the garden cutting back bushes and moving the chicken coop and run. We're having a garden room built where the chickens live so we had to move them. They didn't seem to mind while we were chopping and moving, but they have seemed a bit unsure about their new place this evening. Ah well, considering the size of their brains, they'll soon forget ever having lived in a different spot.

In between chopping and lifting we had to have quite a few tea breaks. We tend not to use loose tea but I was given some by my sister last week along with a little diver to put the leaves in.

 

Once the little diver had had enough he was off to his little rubber dinghy and the tea was ready.

Cute little fellow. And the tea was lovely as well. 

Mrs. M. 

And then there were two

Oh dear. Mr. Fox has paid a visit. Dear Marjorie is no longer with us after a run in with the sly animal. At least that's what we think happened. What else could it be? She was found with her neck broken behind a tree at the top of the garden and there were feathers all around. Gwen and Peggy were at the bottom of the garden making a racket and seemed quite disturbed.  

Marjorie, Peggy and Gwen.

I suppose we've been quite lucky not having lost any of them earlier since they've been wandering around freely for hours every day. At the age of two they are considered "older" chickens and I guess Marjorie had a good life while it lasted. Now that Mr. Fox knows that there are chickens to catch, he might be coming back. We'd better put a padlock on the coop!

Mrs.M.

Potatoes are in

Easter break. How lovely is that? Fabulously lovely actually. Time to relax and do what you want to do for most of the time. I do have some work in my school bag but I've put the bag out of sight for now. 

Commitments have not allowed me to go up to the allotment until today. It was pouring down all day yesterday so we weren't sure whether we'd be able to plant our potatoes today. Was it going to be too wet? Well, if you don't try you won't know. Mrs. G. and I met up at 10 o'clock in the windy but sunny morning. Boy was it nippy! We had already dug over two beds but soon realised that we needed another bed as we had three types of potatoes. Hey ho, let's dig. The soil was wet but workable so it didn't take us very long to weed and dig. Soon enough we had three beds with potatoes buried in three rows per bed. 

Romano late potatoes ready to be covered up.

Early Foremost to the right and late King Edwards to the left.

It didn't take very long at all but instead of heading home (Mrs. G. is off to the airport this afternoon and I'm having visitors arriving tomorrow) we started weeding the onion/garlic bed. It's amazing how addictive weeding can be. It helps that it looks so much nicer afterwards. 

  

 

Onions are great to grow as we both use that a lot in cooking. These are early ones and should be ready to harvest in the early part of the summer. We'll also plant some that will be ready by the autumn. You can't have too many onions!

After only a couple of hours the allotment wasn't looking too bad. I doubt whether the plot police will have a go at us. 

Neither of us will be able to do any more work this week but roll on next week - time to sort the rest out!

Mrs. M.