Sunshine!

A beautiful weekend and a long over due session at the allotment. I was ill last weekend (I had a really bad cold for the first time this school year!) so Mrs. G. had to be plant mistress on her own :)
She did a good job! We now have several courgette plants under cover from slugs and birds.

We don't seem to have planted very much this year. Not that it matters that much. We planted lots of things that didn't really take off last year and that we weren't all that bothered about anyway. The potatoes are doing well and even though they're not as big as the potatoes on the neighbouring plots, I'm very confident that we'll get lots of spuds this year. 

I planted 3 tomato plants to the right of the potatoes in the the first bed a while ago. I put cut off plastic bottles around them to protect them but something (birds?) have eaten a fair amount of the leaves. Very irritating. We covered them loosely with netting, hoping that'll do the trick.

We also got rid of one of the two composts as we don't really need more than one. All we did was remove the sides, cover the ground in old carpet and put the sides on top to weigh it all down. Hopefully the grass underneath will wither away and die and we can work that area into an extra bed ready for next year. 

The spinach we planted last year was very successful. To our surprise it has just kept on coming. According to one knowledgeable neighbour it could be perennial spinach (we clearly didn't check the label) and so Mrs. G. cut it all back a couple of weeks ago. It's come back no end! This time we need to pick it asap as it will otherwise bolt. The celery we planted last year never really happened and died in the winter, i.e. we never got round to removing it, and believe it or not but that has also started to grow. I suppose it's all because of the mild winter so there's no magic involved but nevertheless, we're quite chuffed. On a more negative note, the rocket seedlings I planted two weeks ago have all died...

The yellowy green plants are celery and the green row in the middle is the spinach.

The autumn raspberries are looking fabulous but the summer ones we got from a friend don't look too happy. We're not too down about that though. They probably need a year to adjust and will give berries next year. 

We did a bit of weeding as well and then sat down on the grass for a chat. The weather was glorious! It does mean that we need to water in the evenings but that is a really good thing for me. I need an evening walk! Getting up at the crack of dawn every weekday to get some report writing done leaves me very tired in the evening. A walk to the allotment might do the trick. 

I love having flowers on the kitchen table and always buy a bunch when I go to the local farm shop on a Saturday. My favourite flower, the tulip, is now gone so yesterday I bought some very unusual smelling pretty things. There was a label of course but I have forgotten what it said. They smell quite strongly of something similar to cloves. Very nice!

I feel like I'm a student again with the report writing hanging over me. I tend to think of lots of other things to do. Last year we painted a blackboard on Little Miss M's wardrobe door and the other day I got the idea that I could use the paint to make labels on jars. Completely unnecessary but good fun!

As if we didn't know that we only have muesli in that jar.

Well today is yet another fantastically beautiful day so after I've finished some reports I think I'll do a bit of gardening. 

Mrs. M.

A bit of planting

We're a bit late planting this year. Mrs. G. has gone away for the weekend and I saw this as an opportunity to get things done at home. Until I took at trip to the allotment and saw how hard my buddy had worked in the week. It made me feel very guilty and lazy so I decided to make an effort on this last day of the long weekend. 

I didn't want to go ahead and fill the remaining beds without Mrs. G. so I only got plants that I was pretty sure she'd want us to grow. I started off by digging in some horse manure before planting some shallots. I bought two bags at the local garden centre as they were half price. No wonder they were cheap. I could only use half of them as the rest had gone rotten. There were no onions left so I assume we're way too late for that. Luckily we've got a whole bed full of them that we planted last autumn, ready for picking in June. 

Quite a lot of onions and garlic!

I also planted some rocket and both mixed lettuce and iceberg lettuce. We'll stagger this so that we'll have lettuce throughout the summer. 

I  bought the rocket at the local farm but the lettuces are seeds from a packet. 

Finally, I bought some tomato plants at the local farm and fingers crossed that there won't be any frost as I decided to plant them out. I put cut off plastic bottles around them to protect them a little bit but I doubt they'll keep the frost out should we have a cold night or two. 

The potatoes are emerging, though they are a long way behind the spuds on the neighbouring plots. No that it matters. As long as we'll get potatoes I'll be happy. 

 

Hopefully we'll get some more planting done next weekend and then we'll have to focus on weeding until harvesting. 

Mrs. M.

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.