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!!

Grow time

Although the weather has been beautifully sunny lately, the wind chill factor is a constant reminder of the time of year. It is still a tad bit early , I feel, to get much in the ground, but the greenhouse and kitchen windowsill are brimming with seedlings waiting for the ground to warm up a little. In the greenhouse I have, Aubergines, Cucumber x2 Tomatoesx2, French beans, Broad beans, Leeksx2, Scented peasx2, Lettuce, Courgettes, Cauliflowerx2, Kale, and Red cabbage! On the kitchen windowsill I have Lemon Grass, Jalapeno Peppers, Sweet peppers, and butternut Squash which has yet to put in an appearance! I think I have bought a duff packet of seeds. Can anyone give me some hints on the best way to grow cauliflower. I tried last year, but didnt have much success. I had to pick them when they were really small, about the size of a tennis ball, otherwise they just seemed to want to go to seed, or went a funny colour! Also, anyone know how to grow a monkey puzzle tree from seed? I picked up a few seeds, they are huge! I planted a couple in compost in a heated propagator, but nothing has happened. Any ideas anyone?

Bottoms up Girls!

It has been a lovely springlike day today, so I thought I would let the girls out for an hour or two to have a wander around the garden. This is Rosie enjoying a dust bath. She needs it too, she had a little mishap in the week which caused a little trauma to her comb. It kept bleeding, and the other girls wouldn't leave it alone, so there was rather a lot of blood everywhere! I had to ring Ronald Grover, the chicken man, and he told me to clean the wound, and to put an antiseptic ointment on her comb and to isolate her overnight! Have you ever tried to put sudocrem on a nervous chickens comb!! Not the easiest of tasks, but the treatment worked and next morning she was back with her girlie friends! That day she laid the biggest egg I have ever seen!!

OMG!

So today I thought she deserved a treat, so I let all the girls out for a while,

This is Peggy, looking for tasty treats,

and Lucy, my favourite already, such a calm bird and so pretty. The three amigos having a whale of a time going through the compost bin!!

Bottoms up Girls!

Meet the Girls

As planned, yesterday we took a run out to the New Forest, Beaulieu, to get our chickens. It was about an hour run each way, and we got back home with the girls about half past four. I put the chickens straight into their new quaters, and settled down to watch them. We let Alfie join us, our American Cocker, so that he didn't feel left out, he was so excited to meet them, wanting to play, his little tail going ninteen to the dozen! Two of the chickens, didn't seem to mind him, the White Leghorn was a little jumpy, but soon settled down. I had been given instructions from Ronald Grover, the chicken expert, to feed the girls with some mixed corn about an hour before putting them to bed. I was a little worried about how exactly I was supposed to actually get them into their new quarters for the night, it was now half past five, and getting rather dark!Fortunately I had bought an excellent little book that suggested putting a torch into the roosting box, as the light would draw them in. This worked a treat, within about 15minutes of putting the torch inside, all the girls went in! Ronald had said that it was a possibility that we might get one or two eggs the next day, but that the girls would probably go off laying for a while until they had settled in, so I was really chuffed when all three chickens produced an egg each!

I managed to get a some pictures of the girls, but I didnt want to upset them too much, so they're not very well composed, meet Peggy.. she's the Silver Sussex,

This is Rosie, she is a White Leghorn, and Finally Lucy, she is a French Maran and very pretty.

For some time now, I have been thinking about getting a small tree for the garden. I wasn't sure which , but I knew that it needed to be small, be fruiting of some description and attractive to birds. After discussing these requirements with my friend, she suggested a Crab Apple Tree. Perfect! I had a quick look on Ebay, I never buy anything without looking on Ebay first, and saw several sellers of the afore mentioned trees, at various prices, and decided to buy a mid priced tree. This is a bare rooted tree, and is between 4 and 5 foot. It was priced at £7.00, with P&P at £7.50. ( a little pricey) I had priced them on other sites, and to buy from a specialist nursery I wasn't going to get much change from about £30.00! So, hopefully sometime this week I will be planting a new tree. Take Care Tatty X

Chickens!

Being someone who is not on this planet (according to my husband) I decided I would like to have a go at keeping a few chickens. After perusing the web, and finding out as much info as I could, I made a purchase of a chicken house on Ebay. I love Ebay, you can buy just about anything, except chickens! It came flat packed, and last night we put it together, it only took about an hour, and there was no cursing!

So tomorrow, we are off for a little drive to Beaulieu to buy some chickens! I have chosen, a Silver Sussex a very pretty silver grey bird with a lovely temprament, A White Leghorn, an excellent layer, sometimes laying 2 eggs a day and a French Maran which lays the most beautifully shiny dark brown eggs, with a rich orangey yolk. Its sooo exciting! This time next week, maybe we'll be eating our own eggs! Well not our own, I couldn't possibly lay an egg! You know what I mean!

Long Tailed Tits

A few years ago I was in my garden and watched as a group of Long Tailed Tits flew into our tree, only to be chased off again by a couple of territorial Blue Tits. They are a delightful little bird, very pretty and never alone, they are a flock bird, and I thought I wouldn't see them again, and in fact I never did.... until today!! Again I was in my kitchen and a flock of about 10 flew in and had a good rummage about in amongst the branches of all the little trees and shrubs. The camera was handy as always, so I snapped away.....

They have to be one of my favourite birds, so I felt quite priviledged to see them in my garden, I do hope they come back again soon.