Anyone for Lettuce

Just a quick post this morning. Yesterday turned out to be a glorious day, at one point I had to leave the greenhouse for a while as I was too hot. The scale was showing 136 degrees! 

My Cos Lettuce is now at the point where I should think about putting it outside. Its still too early! My Fault I planted too many seeds and a few weeks too soon. Over enthusiastic! 

I need to keep them healthy for another 2 weeks and then they should be OK to go out . Same problem with the herbs.

I have kept  a planting diary which I plan to use next year to make sure that I get stuff ready at the right time. I was desperate to use the greenhouse and plant things so if it said April on the packet it was in on the 1st of the month. Maybe mid april would have been more sensible! 

Of course the joy of Herbs and Lettuce is that they do grow so quickly and I shall sow more seeds later to make sure I have the best plants ready to go outside.

Lots of other things are coming to life outside at the other end of the garden,  so here is a selection.

I had a bit of a shock yesterday afternoon. No pictures as it all happened so quickly - I had gone in to get a cup of tea (and a bit of cake) which  planned to enjoy in the sunshine. As I walked past the open greenhouse I saw one of the local pidgeon's was inside! He/She was trying to get into the sack of corn I keep there for the chickens. 

Now this is a smart bird. He/She has been hanging around for days and whenever the chickens knock over the corn pot on the lawn He/She is straight in to snatch some. It had obviously been stalking me and now knew where I kept it, at the first opportunity it was in! 

It saw me and panicked, pots were getting knocked over and it landed in my tray of spinach and was digging up the little plants with its feet. So I panicked, my plants! I spent ages trying to grow them and now a bird was spoiling it. 

As I ran into the greenhouse, the bird flew up into the air and hit the glass roof, puffs of feathers started to rain down on me. After 4 hits it was obviously winded and so sat stunned on the worktop. OK I thought, I can catch a chicken, I must be able to catch a pigeon. It happened so quickly, I caught hold of the bird which fought me and flapped its wings in my face but I managed to turn and sling it straight out of the open door! It flew off and I just stood there stunned literally spitting feather's. The whole incident lasted about a minute and I am sure looked hilarious but I know now in future to keep the corn out of sight! 

As a follow up to this story, I was wandering down the garden this morning to let the chickens out and was buzzed by a very low flying pidgeon, so much so I had to duck! I think He/She has declared war. 

Doggy news. He's in disgrace, or he was for about 2 minutes. Gibson has watched me outside and has decided he is also a gardener, so he likes to dig. Unfortunately he has yet to learn to wipe his feet!

How can you stay cross with this! 

And finally quite off subject but very pretty, yesterday at our beach there were some men Paragliding along the cliff edge. It looked very serene. I think I fancy a go.

Happy Wednesday.

And so the battle begins!

I am a mild mannered person most of the time, but I am determined to make sure that nothing will spoil my vegetable garden. 

It would appear that carrot fly is going to be one of my major adversaries. I planted carrots some weeks ago and as usual having never done this before I just got on with it. It now appears that I should have taken steps straight away to protect my plant from this predator. 

After some very useful advice from another gardener named Sue  at Green Lane Allotments , I realised that immediate action needed to be taken. First port of call, a bit of research on the internet. It would seem that the fly is attracted to the smell of the carrots, caused when the leaves are bruised. As I had yet to thin my carrots there was still hope that they had not found my straggly little line of seedlings. Enviromesh seemed to be the answer so once again, online I went and found what I needed. 

It arrived yesterday so off I went to protect my carrots from the fly. 

Before this though, I had to thin them, so after waiting weeks for them to get to a reasonable size, I now found myself pulling most of them out again. As they were so small it wasn't worth keeping them to replant. I was now up against the clock to save them from my new enemy, The aroma of my now bruised carrot leaves was floating away on the wind attracting them to my garden. 

First a frame, I had some of my Lidl poly tunnel supports laying unused , these would be perfect. 

Then after a quick battle with a huge piece of mesh, in the greenhouse, it was cut to size and in place over the carrots. 

So if the fly's have managed to get to the carrots, thats a real shame but hopefully I have done enough to prevent any further damage. 


The next job on my list was one I have been putting off. Time to bank the potatoes. I don't know why I was worried about it because it took me 10 minutes and was pretty simple. 

The tomato plants that were amongst the first seeds I planted, were now getting too big for the pots. Its still far too early to put them outside so I decided to use a grow bag inside the greenhouse. 


This is something I do know how to do as in my last tiny garden this was the only way I could grow tomatoes. A few minutes work and they were done.

Just in case you didn't recognise it I labelled my asparagus, shame we can't eat it this year

Next on the list, as herb garden. I had planted Basil, Corriander, and Dill and they are growing nicely in the warm, but I popped up to the garden centre to buy Rosemary, Thyme and Sage.

They went straight in outside, to be joined by the others at a later, warmer date.


And last but certainly not least, the strawberry bed. It has been nicely wrapped and protected from the elements for a couple of weeks now. But after a particularly nasty storm a couple of nights ago the poly tunnel was looking a bit battered and saggy. I took he plastic off the sort it out and was delighted to see these little beauties.

I don't think we will be supplying Wimbledon but it looks like we will be enjoying some lovely puddings in the summer. 


You may be wondering about my last post, where it appeared that aliens had landed in the chicken house. Well you will be pleased to know that about two days later, they returned to the planet from whence they came, and egg production returned to normal. Margot celebrated by making another bid for freedom. 

And finally Gibson. Our tiny sweet puppy is growing on a daily basis and developing his own personality, which at the moment is heading towards stubborn. As he grows so do his teeth so Jim is having to come up with inventive ways to prevent him chewing the house. His current favourite is a large dog toy called a Kong which Jim fills with his dog food which has been soaked in water to go soggy. It then spends 24 hours in the freezer. It takes Gibson hours to get the stuff out and keeps him very occupied. 

No garden time this weekend as we have a family event, one of our number has reached a landmark birthday so we are all off out for a nice lunch. 

That must have hurt!

One of the chickens has started to lay what my nephew described as, mutant eggs. On Friday I wandered up to the henhouse and had a bit of a surprise, laying amongst the straw was the biggest egg I have ever seen. I had a quick check of the hens and they all seemed fine, but whoever laid it must have wondered what on earth was going on. 

To give you some idea how big it was the egg on the right would have been classed as a large by a supermarket.

It must be a double yolk? the only way to find out was to cook it. Whether he wanted it or not my nephew was having a fried egg for his breakfast. We stood expectantly over the pan, as I cracked it into the fat. 

There they were, two beautiful orange yolks, sizzling away in the pan. They didn't take long to cook and were shortly on a bit of toast and being thoroughly enjoyed by a 10 year old. 

Well that was an unusual event, or so I thought. Monday morning it happened again. Another huge Mutant egg. This time it went home with my nephew so his sister could enjoy it. 

So who was it, I have no idea, but maybe you can spot a chicken with a gleam in her eye in this picture? 

On to the plants. As they do, they are all slowly coming to life, nothing extraordinary has happened since my last post but I have planted the Asparagus and Rhubarb. They both came nicely packed from Thompson and Morgan

I have never grown either of these plant before so I read the instruction for planting carefully. Basically dig a trench and plant them with the roots spread! 

Asparagus first. A couple of the plants did appear to have very small asparagus tips on them already. This has confused me somewhat as I thought you didn't get any tips in the first year. 

Does anyone know what you are supposed to do with the tips the first year? should I just cut the off and throw them away? I will have do do a bit of research. 

Rhubarb was next.

So now its a waiting game. I only have one of my small beds left to plant. Its for my herbs and they are currently growing in pots in the greenhouse. Chives, Basil, Coriander and rocket are all waiting to take up residence alongside the strawberries. 

I need to weed my other beds but it has actually rained here rather a lot over the last couple of days. The sun is out now but I am off for a haircut.

Puppy news. He is growing and this morning is off to get microchipped. he has also had to have a new lead as his puppy collar no longer fits. As I sit typing he is chasing an ice cube around the room and has just licked the TV. Lovely.