June veggie patch & stuff

Morning Friends,
Just back from our mini-camping trip this week & have dodged the showers to have a good look around our veggie garden to see what's looking good.....or dodgy.

The borders are looking very full but I usually let them get on with it at this time of year so as to prioritise my time growing food. Will be chopping a few things down & filling up gaps with containers over the next week or two.

Greenhouse is rammed as usual - not a very good pic, but it's just a look. 6 tomato plants & a scallop squash in the bed on the right, grapevine in the huge tub at the far end, peppers & 3 varieties of chillies wherever I could squidge them in, & aubergines & cucumbers up on the bench on the left. I planted a row of lettuce in front of the tomatoes too, which we've already eaten.

I always grow a row of tomatoes outside too, with some calendula to attract pollinators. The outside plants are much smaller than the indoor ones, but will get bigger now that I've started feeding them. The calendula are a mixture of doubles & singles as I grew them from saved seed. As soon as we get a dry day, I'll be gathering some petals to make my annual marigold scones.

Opposite the outdoor tomatoes, a squash bed....4 courgette plants in here & a scallop squash. Gave up on butternuts....see previous sorry tale of those. Behind the squash bed are 2 beds of potatoes. The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship is in charge of those. I just fling some water in their general direction now & again.

Broad beans swelling nicely. Unfortunately will only have a small crop this year thanks to the local sparrow army. They stripped off most of the flowers just for the hell of it. Love that we are doing our bit for a declining species, but they are by far the worst garden pest now, at 'Hagstones', bar none. 

Sweetcorn in one of our big raised beds (netted against said naughty sparrows) & another scallop squash, growing in a repurposed grass box from an old lawnmower. I grow a fair bit of veg in containers. At the moment, I've also got.............

.....2 squash & more marigolds in a the base of an old defunct compost unit............

......a further squash & a spare orgeano plant in an old lorry tyre..........................

 .......& plenty of salad stuff in these long plastic troughs. I bought 5 of these years ago & they are so useful. These lettuces are called 'Intred', a romaine variety. I've also got frilly 'lettony' lettuces, radishes & wasabi rocket growing in these at the moment, as well as red & white spring onions.

It doesn't look as though we will get more than a handful of pears this year - my money is on the Sparrow Army having pecked the blossom off at a crucial time (& I buy the bloody things heaps of fatballs!), but the apple tree is doing better..........

.......& even the permanently sulky greengage tree looks as though it might grudgingly kick a few fruits out this year

I know that photos taken on my phone (while dodging the showers) don't do the garden (or anything!) justice, but one view I really like, is when I'm working in the veggie plot, then looking down through the arch to the house, & seeing all the flowers, the pond with what has been a fab display of native pond irises this year, & the lawn dotted with blackbird families feeding their plumptious babies. 

For those friends who were expecting a big EU Referendum rant, I don't have time for the 27 pages that would currently involve, so am keeping busy & trying not to think about it. Once this latest shower has stopped, I'm off outside to pick some more rhubarb for the freezer, then I intend to bake a cake. Albert Whiskers returned from the C-Word on Thursday. He went over his territory with a fine tooth comb to see if any interlopers had, had the cheek to pee on any of his bushes, but everything was pretty much found to have been in order..........hence today's obvious inaction!

OK, rain's stopping, off to get my trug.
Have a good weekend all,
C x

Sarpo Mira day. They're in!

Greetings Campers,
Useful afternoon outside in the sunshine & I'm starting to feel I'm actually in danger of catching up! All it took was a bit more motivation, kicking the lergy into touch & some slight semblance of a plan!

Borders starting to green up now & the soil is warming. This means it's both planting-time & decidedly grubby cat time, as Albert Whiskers likes nothing better than rolling around on sun-baked soil. If he comes anywhere near me this evening, he's in danger of being set about with a Value Pet-Wipe......not exactly a dignified experience for him!

Well, with the soil warming up nicely, the Chief Potato Grower decided to get the seed potatoes in. They've been chitting for weeks. 

We bought an 8kg bag of Sarpo Mira & they've filled a couple of beds in the veggie garden. Sarpo Mira are our preferred spud these days because our area does seem to get badly affected by blight. One summer, when we lost most of our crop for the 2nd or 3rd time, we noticed our village garden centre displaying a poster from a local allotment which showed how great their potatoes were doing in late summer, despite it being a really crappy year for blight. The variety was Sarpo Mira. We bought some to try the next year & they were fab. No blight, good crops & very versatile. They made good chips, mash, the bigger ones baked well & the smaller ones were good boiled or cold in potato salad, etc. So pleased we discovered them, as the CPG was getting distinctly peed off with seeing his hard work disappear in a tragic tangle of smelly black haulms. If you are in a blighty area, give them a go.

Have to admit the CPG has put in more labour than me today, as he's also cut the lawn & flame-gunned the weeds on the front drive (& he hasn't flame-gunned a hole in the front door this time.......), but I haven't been idle. I've potted up my outdoor tomatoes & put them in situe, although they will still go back in the greenhouse at night for another 10 days or so. I've planted my usual row of pot marigolds in front of them as these seem to attract pollinators. Saved seed, so will be a mixture. Such cheery flowers. I can almost smell those warm buttered marigold scones already :-)
More cheeriness.....an orange-tip butterfly in the garden today. Used to be such frequent late spring visitors but hadn't seen one for the last couple of years. Also a holly blue butterfly. We do have some holly, but another of their food plants is apparently ivy, & we do have lots of that. Pretty little things. Maybe it's going to be a fab year for butterflies. Hope so!
Oooh, here comes my coffee.
Cheers all,
C x

The swifts are back!!

Morning Friday People,
Our fabulous swifts usually return in the first week of May. Had a look yesterday morning, no sign of them, none in the afternoon, then just as I was shutting up the greenhouse for the evening, I looked up & there they were! Five of them, so only the advance party. Swifts are a declining species & I feel privileged that they nest in our eaves every year. Swifts not only make their way all the way back to the UK from Africa, they come to the same nest site! I can barely get my head around migration, let alone that some of those little birds are setting off from Africa with our very own roof in mind! 

And another piece of birdy info - we've got a blackbird nest! As feathered real estate goes, this isn't the brainiest of choices. It's deep in our hedge (a mixture of privet & fire thorn) but it's very close to the conservatory & my 'cafetiere & good book' sitting out corner. More worryingly, it is right above Albert Whiskers' self-appointed area for...er....more sizeable ablutions. If I can hear the chicks bibbling away, & I really can, then he'll definitely be able to, with his radar tabholes. Oh well, have moved my chair away & will keep putting out bird food. Hope they make it!

The garden's looking happier for the bit of sun we had yesterday. Love this colour combination....pale yellow from the primroses & bright magenta honesty. Both self-sown. Free plants - my best kind!
Greenhouse also looking better for the warmth. The tomatoes I set out in pot rings the other day have settled in well.......

......& you can see I've got a sneaky row of lettuces in there, to make use of the space for a bit of extra food before the tomatoes take over. I didn't buy the official pot rings for growing tomatoes. They were silly money for rings of plastic. I showed them to my Resident Grunt-work Operative in the garden centre & he said if I found him some big pots from the shed, he'd punch the bottoms out. These are now on about their 6th year, & just help with that little bit more soil-depth for hungry roots.

Pleased to see my courgettes & squashes (scallopini) coming through this morning. The only ones not doing anything are the yellow 'Sunstripe' courgettes & to be fair, that was old seed. They can be a bit arsey about growing too, so I'll give them a bit more time. 

Coriander looking lush this morning. Will definitely cut a bunch to sprinkle over our lamb curry tonight. I usually get about 3 good cuts from a pot this size.....more if I've grown the 'Calypso' variety, which this isn't, as it was a cheapo free packet I had from somewhere or other. Intend to make another sowing this afternoon, also of radishes, to keep the good stuff coming.

Albert Whiskers thinks 'Sod the veg, when's me dinner coming out?' Strongly suspect he's been out all night (cat turf wars on our street, Big Grey Fluffy has been waddling his way up our end upsetting the applecart in local cat relations). Albert Whiskers appeared at breakfast time absolutely ravenous, wolfed his pouch in one while barely coming up for air, then laid into his biscuits. At 7.47a.m precisely, he started asking for his dinner. No chance yet, Matey!
OK, well I'm off down the greenhouse with those seeds. 
Cheers Friends,
C x

All behind like a cow's tail.....

Afternoon Campers,
I feel soooo behind with the garden this year. I'm putting it down to a number of things.....two lergies, Easter weekend, birthday weekend...which due to Lergy 2 rolled into the bank holiday, & most of all, the icy nights we've been experiencing until very recently, which has put the brakes on much of my veggie-growing activity. Must try to do more regular blog posts to motivate me into making progress.

These are funky little tulips, aren't they? They're called 'Lilac wonder'. They close up when it's shady & open right out into pinky-purple stars with poached egg middles when the sun comes out. They've been flowering for ages - a welcome pop of colour on our dark courtyard (way too dank to call it a patio!) 
I've started livening it up today. I want it to look lighter, more airy, more welcoming....more anything, really, it's such a big bloody black hole, but the key thing is that I don't intend to spend any money on it. Well, maybe £5. OK, £6 at a push. I'm going for a vintage theme, & intend to re-purpose stuff & use clobber I've already got. Had a general tidy-up & sweep today. Removed 3 tubs of daffodils. No joy in looking at dead flowers. Have replanted them to fill gaps in my big borders for next Spring. Went round wafting the secateurs in the direction of anything looking dead, wilty or just generally crappy. Funny how once I'd done that, I started noticing new green things coming into their own.

The witch-hazel is pushing out Spring leaves........it will enjoy a month or two of perfection before the leaf cutter bees move in on it, chewing out halos of greenery & rolling it up under their wing before taking it off for their nests.

Well, I felt quite inspired once I'd started clearing away the crud. I brought my pelagoniums & agapanthus out for a short back & sides, & have left them in situe to start hardening off.

Whooo-hooo! Am flying now! Fetched Possibly The Most Pot-Bound Bay Tree In The World & set about re-potting it into the lush pot I received as a birthday present at the weekend. It's been a gorgeous sunny day here & the warm roots smelled amazing.......a little like the leaves, but more like a Bay & Lime fragrance the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship used to wear. Any neighbours looking out probably thought "OMG, she's actually INHALING PLANT ROOTS now!" But hey, these are grim times, horrible divisive Tory government, levels of inequality going backwards.......a girl has to take whatever zen moments she can! 

Then scrubbed out the foetid bird bath.......it's beyond me what had been going on in there. It was a rainbow of sludge, all of it clinging to the sides like grim death. There may have been new penicillin strains in there, all of it now dumped around roots of cherry tree in the hope of amazing nutrient content. So that's the start of my £6 courtyard tart-up. The best thing is that it looks way better already. The next best thing is that I haven't spent any of the £6 yet!
Think I need to focus on the veggie garden tomorrow.
Hope you've all had some of this fab sunshine.
C x

Beware! Small furries!

Morning all,
An innocent foray into the pantry the other day resulted in me finding not a bar of chocolate I'd forgotten about, not an extra bottle of vintage blackberry gin.........but a very obvious, particularly fresh-looking MOUSE POO!! Oh joy! Another run-in with the local furries. I have no fear of rodents, so turned out the pantry, in full-on mouse detection mode. I don't know how you spent that morning, but I spent it collecting & counting mouse poo. Eight. Hmmm. That's ok, as it would indicate that this is just the advance party. Probably one brave individual having a quick skank through the air brick to see if we've any decent biscuits in.

Despite growing up in the country, I can't recall ever seeing a single solitary mouse indoors (apart from the two pet ones I illicitly had off a class mate which lived in the bottom of my wardrobe until Grandma grassed me up). It was received wisdom in our family that rats lived under Grandad's shed, but despite sitting outside, aged 4, waiting & watching for ages, I never saw any evidence of this, which was disappointing, when seeing an actual live rat seemed so much more exciting than spending time with a new baby sister.

My first experience of a domestic mouse invasion happened while I was living in a particularly dreadful shared student house. I say 'particularly dreadful', but should qualify that by saying that it was still ten times better than the previous student house, which had an indoor water feature.......as in when we turned on the 1-bar electric fires in our rooms, the walls ran with water. The fires had the luxury of 2 bars when we moved in, but after a week, we arrived home to find the landlord leaving with a bundle of bars in his hand which he was 'taking for spares'. Anyway, I digress. When we returned to House no 2 after the summer break, there had clearly been a mouse invasion. A clan of the things had set up home in the upstairs flat residents' fridge & had eaten a hole the size of a plate in part of the stairwell. There was no damage to the downstairs flat where I lived, but I could hear many sets of mouse feet scampering around in the cavity walls, so called the landlord out. He waited till the rent was due......why make a special journey? I explained about the mice in the wall cavities. His reply?? 
"Ah. That's not mice, duck. What you can hear in there is pigeons".
I adopt my special voice which I use for speaking to people who may cause me to lose my patience & try not to look at the 6 months of food spills he's wearing down the front of his jumper (the sort of garment which if he took it off, would jog to the bin on its own). I explained that it is NOT pigeons. It's mice. It's definitely mice because I can hear them scampering about & more worryingly, I can hear them CHEWING. But no, he's not having any of it. They are apparently the feral city centre pigeons, which is why I can hear gnawing. Is he saying that these pigeons are so hungry that they are flying out to the suburbs to feast on ancient plasterboard in people's cavity walls?? Yes, he WAS saying that. Action taken = none.

Next mouse experience was over a decade later when a field was cleared at the back of our house for building. All the critters scattered far & wide......most of the rodenty ones opting for our garden. Big mistake, our cat at the time, Willow, was an excellent hunter & must have been sitting on the other side of the hedge with his mouth open. One mouse made it into our kitchen, where he confused us by running between ours & our neighbours house. I bought a humane mousetrap & stuffed it with a decent cheddar. 2 days later.....nothing. Neighbour bought one & caught the mouse within 1 hour with a lump of Mars bar. Lessoned learned. Don't bother wasting cheese, it's junk food all the way for mice here.
When Willow was old & poorly, we had our Very Big Invasion. A neighbour had re-sited his shed & the mice who were living underneath it were looking for new premises in what was a cold autumn. The found their way through an airbrick & under the floor boards of our house & ran between ours & our neighbours. Mars bars were bought & traps set. Within a week, we'd caught 7. They were so blatant, that the final one was caught almost in our hands from his little hideout behind my cookery book shelf on the dresser. One afternoon, I had no sooner taken one for a long walk to freedom & reset the trap, than another one succumbed to chocolate temptation & off I went again. I walked most of them a good way off down to a farmer's field & let them go. Then I read that mice need to be freed at least a mile away to make quite sure that they won't return, so I took them further, down to the far end of the village (where the Tories live). Eventually, we had to call out Pest Control. He wasn't bothered about my theories on where they might be getting in. He asked straight away if we'd got any stripped wooden floors. 'Yes', I said, & learned how this is a really easy way for them to get from underneath a house (where they're quite common) up into our living space. He was impressed that we'd caught 7, but said that this indicated a Big Infestation. Cold weather & destruction of where they are living is a key reason why mice will pack their little knotted hankies & try to move in.
So, I scrubbed out the pantry, & have been checking daily for further signs. So far, so good. 

Now you may be wondering what the Chief Rat Catcher was doing while all this activity was going on. Well, he was putting his skills to use in the time-honoured way.....

...because here, you can actually SEE the keen level of interest he showed when I went to explain about the mouse.

This was him wanting to get involved while I was busy taking everything out of the pantry to check the extent of infiltration. And this was him pledging to earn his keep by setting up regular patrols......

Yes, his utter indifference has been quite staggering to behold. I can't say this has entirely surprised me. Albert Whiskers is completely random. A visiting mouse could be totally ignored, or he could meet with the nuclear option. Who knows?

One thing that did surprise me is that Mousey had broken into & eaten just one thing. Boxes of cereal, crackers, pasta, crisps, root vegetables.........all those items were sitting in the pantry waiting. But what did it choose? 

This, dear readers, is a jar of my home-made apple, cider & chilli jelly, previously unopened. Mousey had chewed off the cellophane lid, removed the wax paper disc & as you can see, eaten at least a centimetre of  the jelly. Jellies are liquid when they're bottled, so the surface is smooth. I also fill jars up to the top as this is good practice with home made preserves, to keep out the air. I couldn't believe how much of it had been eaten! Mousey is clearly a bit of a chilli-head as this is quite a hot jelly............maybe he doesn't have the same range of taste-buds as humans & couldn't taste it? In that case, all I can say is that I bet he felt it on its way out!

So there we are. Pantry being checked daily, but thankfully no sign. Have got a couple of bait boxes in dark corners just in case, but I don't really like using those. Humane traps are my favoured option. You have to remember to check them very regularly so that a creature isn't left shut up for a long time, but it somehow doesn't seem so bad to trap them if they get a chocolatey feast followed by a little ride in the car! 

Wishing everyone a good weekend,

Until next time,

C x

The Wanderer returns.......

...........or should that be The Very Naughty Cat?

Hello Friends,
Well, a sunny chilled out gardening morning turned into a stressful day as we dealt with The Strange Disappearance of Albert Whiskers. He'd had a nice enough catty morning. A large portion of particularly trouty gunk, two or three hours lazily patrolling the garden, rooting around in his spring den & explaining the concept of hedge ownership to Felix...................... & then he vanished! 
At 2pm, we realised we hadn't seen him since before lunch & commented how unusual it was. 
At 3pm, he still hadn't turned up, & that was distinctly odd, as Tummy Time usually kicks in about then & he likes to stay close to the kitchen in case there's any danger of anyone opening the fridge. Checked the house thoroughly in case he'd found a sunny, hidden little spot. He hadn't. 
4pm. Still no sign. The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship went out to check the shed. I checked the washing machine cupboard, as for some reason it has been the lifetime ambition of all the cats we've owned to excavate the furthest reaches of its dank cobwebby depths. 4 hours might not seem like a long time, but this is totally out of character & that's the worry.
5pm. We go upstairs to check over neighbours' gardens as far as we can see. Albert Whiskers is predominantly white. He isn't very good at camouflage (although I suppose he may come into his own when we next have some muddy snow), & he isn't in any of the gardens we can see.
5.10pm. Missing over 5 hours. I can't tell you how unusual this is. If Albert Whiskers isn't fed by 5pm sharp, he starts nibbling our trousers. Or tights. Or actual legs. This is so out of character. Decided to walk the length of our street to call him, trying to look through into gardens at the same time. Absolutely no sign whatsoever. This week is going to be stressful enough with the new clutch/gearbox problem & the multiple ££££-signs this is going to involve, without a lost cat. Trying to get a grip but am now stressing!!
5.20pm. Realised that a neighbour has been cleaning his caravan all day. Visions of furry stowaway. But no, he says he hasn't seen Albert at all today.
5.30pm. I check the shed again, even though it's already been checked & there's nowhere he could hide. I fetch the 'Dreamies' jar & walk around the garden shaking it. I have never known Albert Whiskers not to come running at the sound of the 'Dreamies' jar.....he even thinks cornflakes,  pistachio nuts, buttons, basically anything vaguely small & rattley might be 'Dreamies'. It never fails. But he doesn't come.
5.45pm. I decide to search along the street parallel to ours in case he's got onto that via any of the gardens opposite. But if he did, he isn't there now.
6.00pm Still no sign. There's a roast chicken in the oven. Albert never usually takes his eyes off the kitchen window if he goes outside when there's a Sunday roast in the offing.
6.15pm. Missing for over 6 hours. Absolutely utterly unheard of for Albert Whiskers. 
Then we suddenly spot our other neighbour beckoning us over the garden wall.
All that stress we'd been feeling? The pavements I'd trudged looking for him? The plans to knock all the houses on our street tonight to ask for sheds & garages to be checked.......that worst of all horrible feelings, that maybe we should walk down to the main road to see if he has met with an accident?

"Are you looking for your cat?", said our neighbour, "because if you are, he's in here. He's been asleep all afternoon on a chair & he's refusing to go home".
"What do you mean 'refusing'", we said, "Just send him home".
"Well, we would do", said neighbour, "but he's made himself comfortable on a chair & every time we try to move him, he grumbles at us".
We are now both apologising for his bad behaviour.
"Is he on a cushion?" I asked.
Oh, & guess what? He was! 
"Well, lift it up & tip him straight onto the floor. He can growl all he likes, but he won't bite you".
Neighbour went in (the whole family are there now, it's like a sort of feline eviction roadshow........a mobile phone is produced with a photo showing how comfortable he'd made himself) & a minute later, Albert Whiskers finally emerges onto their patio.
He managed to squeeze through the gap in the chicken fence.......too much Albert & not quite enough gap.....& reluctantly came indoors for long enough to make a dint in his dinner of 'Encore'. Yes, I know he really only deserved bread & water, but we were so relieved to see him.
And after his plateful of One Of The Most Expensive Tins Of Cat Food Money Can Buy, what did he do?
He exited our clearly substandard horrid home via his flap, trotted across the courtyard, squidged through the chicken fence & went to press his traitor's nose up against our neighbour's patio doors to try & regain entry! I am pleased to report that his charm offensive failed & as I write, he is back slumming it by the fire here at 'Hagstones'.
BLOODY CATS!! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!!
Cat stress. Dealt with.
Car stress. Ongoing.
Till next time,
C x

Happy Easter!

Hello Friends,
Just a quick one today to share a few pictures & to welcome in the Spring.

The Easter 'tree' is up & the decomposing white fluffy chick who nearly went in the bin last time has lived to see another year! Despite the terrible weather forecast for Easter weekend, this morning began with promising amounts of blue sky & sunshine, so I had a little walk down the garden to soak up those early signs of spring. So many brimstone butterflies already this year, our old pear tree full of wood pigeons 'getting it on', & judging by the amount of new taddies in the pond, the neighbourhood frogs have been getting it on for some time! The daffodils were blowing brightly, a number of them in my courtyard containers having over-toppled, fetching up in a vase indoors........

......which is when I noticed that all of them are double blooms. I bought a bag of pretty much bog-standard bulbs, so can only assume the garden centre staff had either wrongly labelled them, or a customer had 'helpfully' muddled up the displays. Either way, these are beautiful & have produced 2 & the occasional 3 flowers from each bulb. 

First bluebell buds just popping too.

I've done a bit of baking this morning - just bread, & as my Easter cake was eaten yesterday at our Family Day, I've baked a quick semolina cake filled with home-made raspberry jam, which we've just sampled warm with a fresh cafetiere. Ooooh, simple pleasures! Am intending a day of relaxation & leisure today.......nothing more energetic than reading, knitting & cat-stroking.......
.......talking of which..........

The Big Hairy Half of the Relationship snapped Albert Whiskers enjoying a brief 'Easter moment' this morning:

Eggs & baubles all intact. He is very tired this morning, having had a night on the tiles. There's a new cat on the block......quite a chunky gingernut with a white bib & paws. I spotted him last night trotting past our house, & given the cautious look he gave up our front drive, I am assuming that Ginger Newbie & Albert Whiskers are already acquainted. 
He did raise sufficient energy earlier to enjoy a few 'Dreamies'........

......but apart from that, I am not expecting him to surface until Tummytime.
A very Happy Easter to all our friends & family, whether you are taking part in the Christian festival or celebrating as we do, the return of green & lovely things, we wish you a peaceful & happy time.

C x