I must most sincerely apologise for the lack of blog but I put it down to the weather and Wimbledon (not the garden but the tennis).
Very little work seems to have gone on as every time we are at home it is raining. The weeds are growing like mad and the ducks are loving it. They now stand by their gate waiting to be let out into the allotment when we get there in the evening as they love being out amongst the fruit trees foraging for bugs and young shoots. They especially love getting their beaks under the ground cover that I put around the trees as there are loads of woodlice and slugs around. The trouble is that it is so soft soil that the they come up with muddy beaks as Elena is demonstrating here.
Some things are growing well and we have had bucket loads of raspberries, they are starting to come to an end but the logenberries are also covered so a couple of boxes of them as well. There goosberries were totally wiped out by the birds as we forgot to cover them and the blackcurrents, red currents and white currents are too young to give a good crop this year but I have great hopes for next year.
Logenberries in their growing stage. We made the mistake of trying to pick them when they were the colour of raspberrries but they go really deep purple before they are ready and get sweeter as they mature.
An interesting experiment in the growing of peas. The ones we grew are CW were disasterous and we had about 30 pods from as many plants. The ones I planted at OB have done wonders and I picked a carrier bag full last week and as many are ready for picking already. I have pulled up the peas at CW and replaced them with more climbing beans which should give us a late crop.
Back to the ducks. We are down to very few eggs from Ebony only as Elena doesn't seem to be laying at all and Emily has gone broody. We are hoping that another week she will be over it as she is quite pathetic. She sits in the nest that she has made in the corner of the house with her head poking out of the door so that she doesn't miss anything. She seems to have become the leader as the others wait for her before they come out of their compound. We have a tarpaulin pinned down to supress the weeds and it has made a natural pond which they love. As it is filled by rain water they loved sloshing in it and filtering the water with their beaks.
Now all there is to do is leave your with the promise that I will keep regular updates no matterwhat the weather and will leave you with trying to imaging the wonderful smell that is filling the kitchen from the sweet peas that I have growing at OB.
Very little work seems to have gone on as every time we are at home it is raining. The weeds are growing like mad and the ducks are loving it. They now stand by their gate waiting to be let out into the allotment when we get there in the evening as they love being out amongst the fruit trees foraging for bugs and young shoots. They especially love getting their beaks under the ground cover that I put around the trees as there are loads of woodlice and slugs around. The trouble is that it is so soft soil that the they come up with muddy beaks as Elena is demonstrating here.
Some things are growing well and we have had bucket loads of raspberries, they are starting to come to an end but the logenberries are also covered so a couple of boxes of them as well. There goosberries were totally wiped out by the birds as we forgot to cover them and the blackcurrents, red currents and white currents are too young to give a good crop this year but I have great hopes for next year.
Logenberries in their growing stage. We made the mistake of trying to pick them when they were the colour of raspberrries but they go really deep purple before they are ready and get sweeter as they mature.
An interesting experiment in the growing of peas. The ones we grew are CW were disasterous and we had about 30 pods from as many plants. The ones I planted at OB have done wonders and I picked a carrier bag full last week and as many are ready for picking already. I have pulled up the peas at CW and replaced them with more climbing beans which should give us a late crop.
Back to the ducks. We are down to very few eggs from Ebony only as Elena doesn't seem to be laying at all and Emily has gone broody. We are hoping that another week she will be over it as she is quite pathetic. She sits in the nest that she has made in the corner of the house with her head poking out of the door so that she doesn't miss anything. She seems to have become the leader as the others wait for her before they come out of their compound. We have a tarpaulin pinned down to supress the weeds and it has made a natural pond which they love. As it is filled by rain water they loved sloshing in it and filtering the water with their beaks.
Now all there is to do is leave your with the promise that I will keep regular updates no matterwhat the weather and will leave you with trying to imaging the wonderful smell that is filling the kitchen from the sweet peas that I have growing at OB.
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