Where's me eggs Rosie?

I have been a bit stumped about Rosie, our whiteleghorn. She has always been a good reliable layer.....until a few days ago! I couldn't understand why she had suddenly gone off lay. She appeared to be healthy, eating, drinking doing all the chickeney things that chickens are supposed to do, but no eggs. This morning I got up, and the girls were making a bit of a racket wanting to be let out of their pen, so I let them out, and all three girls legged it off across the garden, this is normal for them as they usually go under the weeping cherry tree to clean up the sunflower seeds that the birds have dropped, but Rosie didn't stop there, she carried on straight under the hedge! So I got down on my hands and knees and crawled into the farthest darkest most overgrown corner of the garden, and there she was....... sitting quite happily thankyou on her "nest"in amongst all the wind blown rubbish, when she got off, I found 6eggs! So looks like I will be commando crawling on a daily basis! Dont fancy it in the winter tho!

Squash invasion!

I thought I'd try and be a smarti-pants this time, following this mess I got into with my pictures on the last blog! So I uploaded my pictures first and placed my text around them!! Hera are just a few pictures from the allotment as promised. As you can see the squashes are loving this rain!

Winding their way through the sweetcorn. I love this kind of companion planting.

As you can see they are rampant at the moment. This is a veiw of the fruit bed. The shrubs on the right of the picture are Raspberries, Joan Jay I think. The squashes are making use of every bit of available space, winding their way in any gap, then spilling out onto the paths.

These are three of my pumpkins, I hope they get at bit bigger before they ripen. This is the first year that I've grown pumkins, and I've found lots of lovely recipes. I couldn't bring myself to sacrifice any of them in order that I just get one big one! Tho I have limited the plant to just three.

Another view of the sweetcorn and butternut bed.
I've staggered the planting of the sweetcorn this year, but I have followed advice from a fellow plotholder not to mix different varietys. The later sowing seems to be catching up fast! I love to eat it straight from the plant, I dont bother wasting time taking it home to cook first!

I'm back!!

My humble apologies for neglecting my blog. No excuses, I'm a lazy un-inspired boring blah blah blah!

I have been really busy, honestly, I may have neglected my blog, but not my growing! The other day I went to the allotment and picked 14lbs of redcurrants from ONE bush, I kid you not! It was an amazing harvest! With this bumper harvest I have made 2 gallons of home made redcurrant wine and I have frozen the rest for later use. I also harvested gooseberries and made gooseberry chutney. We are not lovers of puddings in our house, we dont really eat jam, but I, sorry we, do love our cheese! I actually have to admit to not liking gooseberries that much!! Especially when you buy three red gooseberry plants from your local cheap retailer, and they all turn out to be of the green variety!! But not being one to waste anything, I trawled through my cookery books and the internet and found a recipe for chutney. And very good it is too!

The allotment is going well... the slugs and caterpillars are having a whale of a time, despite netting, liberal use of slug pellets etc etc. I try to be organic, but boy it gets on my nerves! It wouldn't be so bad if they targeted just one plant, but NO they have to have a nibble and deposit droppings on everything! Good job I plant loads. I promise to post some photos soon. Meanwhile.......

The greenhouse is producing very well.......

Lovely juicy red peppers
I have to apologise (again) for the bizarre layout. When I uploaded my pictures, I couldnt move them to where I wanted them! So they are rather haphazardly placed! You get the general picture....... I hope....... take care Tatty

Busy Bees

The bees are really busy this evening. They particularly are attracted to this Allium.

Well under-way

A quick tour around the greenhouse and we have a Courgette plant that thinks its a triffid!. Tomatoes chasing, giving a good run for their money! A pepper plant, complete with the first fruit Aubergines A mixture of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and a pot of salad onions. In the garden there is ......

More courgettes, it is surprising the difference between the ones grown inside the greenhouse. My second lot of carrots. The monopods had the first lot! Strawberries, you cant beat picking them warm straight from the plant. More strawberries, plus potatoes and at the back shallots,

An outdoor cucumber....(I think, I got them mixed up!) Red sun Shallots, these were a freebie from T&M,This is a picture of the Crab apple tree that i bought from Ebay, and the postman , in his wisdom, folded it in half!! When it arrived in its dormant state, I splinted the damaged branches, and three out of four of them have knitted themselves together! You can just make out the splint.Two of my girls who follow me around the garden, hoping that I wiil find them tasty treats! Usually I oblidge(? that doesn't look right!) And finally Potatoes!!
See you soon, I gotta go to work now, Bye X

Its True!

Just a very quick post to brag really! Ihave picked my first courgette, grown in the greenhouse, and more exciting than that, yesterday I popped down to the allotment between the showers, had a quick look about and there was a ripe strawberry just shouting at me to eat it! I didn't have my camera with me so I have no proof of this but I promise you its true! It wasn't very big, but it was delicious. Is (was) this the first strawberry of the season, or has anyone else beaten me to it?

I'm a well trained human!

This little robin had gotten quite tame last year, and I havn't seen him for months. I was in the garden a couple of days ago, and he was hanging about. I thought maybe he wanted a top up of seed. I buy a mixed songbird mix, and usually athe starlings eat all the best bits, the suet pellets and insects, leaving only the boring plain seed. So I topped up the seed, but no, that wasn't what he was waiting for. He started flitting about, following me around the garden. Then the penny dropped! He was wanting mealworms! Live mealworms! He must have remembered that last year I was putting them out for him, and this year he has come back!! Isn't that amazing!! so i hotfooted it to the local supplier and came back with fresh lovely wriggly mealworms. He has been in and out all day so he must have babies somewhere. It is such a privilidge for me to be his human! He has trained me well!

Hotch potch and promises

This is definitely my most favourite time of year, full of the promise of longer days, shorter nights and sunshine to follow! I took advantage of the early spring sunshine to get outside and use my much neglected camera. Here follows a hotch potch, pictorial story of spring that enhanced my day.Plot 44 all ready for the onslaught of veggies just waiting for favourable conditions to permit a frenzy of transplanting!The Morello Cherry tree just waiting to burst into action!Fruit buds all ready for the signal to go..The gooseberry bush already on its way to producing sweet delicious fruit for jam making....This Cranberry bush is in its 4th year and I still hav'nt had any cranberries yet!Raspberry bushes, Joan Jay just waking out of hibernation ready to produce lots more wonderful fruitOur shed after its annual spring clean!!unforced rhubarb..........Early peas, Meteor I think.......... or could be Feltham First....... Broad beans and Blue Lake climbing beans hardening off.....onions and garlic coming along nicelymy favourite weeping cherry tree just bursting with blooms... this must be one of the most photographed tree in my albums... I never get fed up with looking at it, it is soooo prettyThe Girls enjoying a dust bath under the trampoline......Rosie stays amazingly white!! Despite chucking dirt all over herself on a daily basis!

butternut squash seedlings, my favourite discovered since allotmenteering, vegetable!What am I going to do with all these courgette plants!My favourite Narcissi.. not only very pretty, but also scented.....dont know what its called tho!Pepper plants growing away beautifully on my kitchen windowsill........

Shallots growing in a discarded storage box..............cauliflowers and kale..........tomatoes and cucumbers...............the list is endless........I think the sunshine even made my brain grow!!!! Amazing!!!!!. In the front garden I have a large palm tree of sorts that drops its long straplike leaves all over the place! I usually go around picking them all up and chuck them in the bin. I dont even bother to compost them as they are so tough. .......But today I had a brainwave.... I collected up the leaves and used them to weave around the window boxes in an attempt to strengthen the coir that had become loose and was losing compost. I think it will be a success... see for yourselves! Recycling at its best!

The leaves are really tough but look attractive too! This was such an ingenious idea I feel it should merit a posting all of its own! Scuse me while I repeat myself!!