Angel

Now that Angel is home she is still nervous but loves sitting on the window sill in the office if we are working in there. She loves being stroked but on her terms so we have to wait for her to come to us.


This is the first time we saw Angel at Battersea cat and dog home in Old Windsor. She looked so little and vulnerable and was very wary of people looking at her. Her home was lovely. She had a bedroom, bathroom and play area with a lovely climbing frame and a little tent that she kept hiding in.

It was wonderful to see the conditions as it was beautifully clean and all the staff were so jolly and friendly, the cats must have thought that they had gone to a four star hotel.

We went back a week later and collected her. They gave us all her details since she was found and her medical history. We met the nurse who had looked after her when she had her operation and she explained that her teeth were in a very poor state as she had obviously been living wild for some time and had a poor diet. They had had to remove quite a few teeth so we need to make sure that she has a lot biscuit to keep the few she has remaining healthy.

They gave her the name Angel and as it suited her we decided to keep it.

Update for July

Due to still getting the house in order, regular overnight stays in Sheffield and an outbreak of swine flu, the update is late this month and these pictures are a week old.


Due to the rain over the last couple of weeks, the squash in the compost bin have gone mad and taken over. The plants are loaded with squash of all sizes and shapes so we should be well fed over the winter.






I have added some trellis for the plants to climb up so I can keep them slightly under control. As we have the toilet on that side of the allotment, I am worried that the plants will reach there. Although it would look nice if they grew up the back and over the top. AS long as it doesn't take any small children into its grip - although !!!!!!!








As we had filled a second bin, I have planted some Butternut Squash plants in here. It is a bit late to get them going but if we continue to have rain and then get nice weather into September/October, we should get a reasonable crop from here. We can only wait and see. It is such a strange year, I have a feelingthat we will reap the rewards of being late with everything.









Another late starter this year is the Dahlias. At last we have some flowers but I am worried about slugs and earwigs. This one is bigger and better than all the others. Once again, only ourselves to blame as we got them in so late. We left a lot in over winter but we thought none had survived. There I was wrong as there are now three dahlias growing in the middle of the beans canes. There are no flowers yet, and I keep parting the beans to give them light so hopefully there will be some late flowers to bring home.










An update from the willow field. We only had about a 60% success rate with them taking, mainly due to us not planting them quickly enought when they arrived. They then didn't grow very well, mainly due to us not watering. Now that the rains have come, they are growing like mad. We have given up keeping the ducks out, but the plants are big enough that they don't trample them.

I don't think there will be willow baskets for Christmas this year though.







I had started a new lot of sweetcorn in the greenhouse, and as the onions and garlic have been lifted, I cleared this and planted out the corn. Not sure how it will do this late but might as well try. There is sign of corns forming so we may get some small ones. If not, it is good composting material. In the background you can see the outdoor tomatoes. I am not very good at keeping them in order so decided that they were bush varieties (they are now). What matters is that they produce tomatoes. These ae mainly the Italian varieties that will go for cooking - some for the freezer, some for ketchup and some for quick pasta sauces so it is going to be a good cooking session when they are ready. I have been quite ruthless in keeping jars this year and rather than keep all, it have been selective to more attractive, portion sized, rather than the bigger the better.









Another floral interlude from the red dahlia. I am sure they had names when I started but they now seem to have white labels as the sun has bleached out all the colour and writing.










Back to the garlic. I planted two varieties this year. Hardneck and softneck. I have excluded the Elephant Garlic as this is a member of the leek family. This is the hardneck which I have grown for the first time. I filled out very well and has very firm bulbs so I will save a few to replant in the Autumn.

I am afraid I don't go by the sales catalogues which say you must buy new stock each year and only locally grown (Isle of Wight). These came from Morrisons, the softneck was partly from Tesco and partly from last years crop, and, I know I wasn't going to mention Elephant, but that has been my own for the last three years and is still growing strong with no sign of disease.











I can't believe I have given such a long update without showing the ducks. While we are working they are lounging by the pond. They love the fact that it is raining as the slugs and grubs come to the surface so there is rich forraging.

Emily is always the first in the pool in the morning so I am convinced she is from German stock!








The rain is also helping the figs which are growing like mad. There must be at least 30 that look like they will mature this year, so I will be getting my fig recipes out. Alternatively, I could make some syrup for those occasions when we are egg bound.









We have had a good crop of currents this year and I have frozen mixed bags of black, white and red. The fruit cage is a bit overgrown with raspberry canes, and I didn't realise that there is a blackcurrent bush hidden behind them so a job for the weekend is picking a load more. Read and white currents are so much easier as they are on strings, so you just need to pull a string off and you have about 20 currents. Blackcurrents on the other hand are individual and take ages to pick.









We are also going into the super food growing with four blueberry bushes. One early, two mid season and one late. We are now mid-season and have a great crop. Late season looks like it is going to be good as well.

We bought a Goji Berry at Tonbridge garden fayre, and for some reason I thought it was a bush. Not so - it is now throwing out steps about 5ft long so I am going to move it to grow up one of the central circus tent poles in the fruit cage and see what it does next year.








One disaster, and the reason why you should never trust pigeons, is that I planted out some dwarf beans and the next day there was nothing more than a stick. All the leaves had been eaten. I am hoping that it is pigeons but I have a feeling that we may have a rabbit in 51 and 52 as there are some beans that have been chewed through and it looks too high to be rats.

Now I am worried that we have rats the size of fully grown rabbits. Moving on.......








..... to sweeter things. I have been so excited about the peaches that I hadn't checked out the other trees and found a fantastic apricot. It is fully ripe but is smooth skinned rather than furry. We cut it in half and I must say it was the sweetest, juciest apricot I have ever tasted - and I have tasted a few in my time.

The tree is going to get extra duck manure for next year and hopefully a bigger crop will appear.







Seasons are certainly changing and the apples have started dropping. There are some trees that only have a few weedy applies and others that the branches are almost breaking. We are going to have to start picking at the weekend so I looks like I will be starting to make chutney earlier than I thought. Thankfully we have a good supply of marrow and courgette so marrow chutney will be first on the menu.




We also sadly lost Apple last week. She picked up something toxic and by the time we got her to the vet she was too week to survive. We have been extra vigilent in inspecting the plot but with all the foraging they do she could have picked up anything anywhere.

We have fruit

It has been a while since I have updated the blog and this is mainly due to how poorly everything is growing. I can't remember the last time we had rain and it is a constant trudge up and down with watering cans to keep what we hae alive. I really don't like watering as it encourages roots to come to the surface rather than going deep to get water, but it has got to the point where they would need to go very very deep. We try to only water the courgettes and squash, tomatoes, and salad crops, but the poor beans are going to need a good soaking soon.

It is paying off with the courgettes. This is one that I had missed and it is already a small marrow. As well as the traditional method of cooked courgette, it is lovely julienne in salad and I am sure Nick hasn't noticed that it isn't cucumber.

Talking of cucumber, we have a couple that are about two inches long and should be able to start cropping soon, but we need to start watering these twice a day unless the weather starts cooling down.





The squash that I planted in the full compost bin is doing amazingly, in fact we are in danger of doing a reenactment of Day of the Triffids. Unfortunately, there are loads of male flowers and only a couple of females so not much fruit yet but there seem to be a couple that I am hopeful will set.

I have good intentions at the beginning of the year, and make lovely labels for all the seedlings. By the time it gets to planting out, I have either lost them or the writing has washed off. This is my way of not telling you what sort of squash they are, so we have some lovely surprises to come when I find a giant pumpkin trying to hang on to the side of the bin.





Still on the fruit theme, the figs are growing well andthe plant is covered. This will be the first year we have fruit that we can use and I am never quite sure when the right time is to pick them. The test is to give them a gentle squeeze but I tried that with the jostaberries and got juice all down the front of my T-Shirt.











The biggest excitement is the peaches which are hanging on to the tree so it must have good deep roots and isn't suffering from the draught. We have been picking off any leaves that show signs of peach leaf curl and the tree now seems clear, although a bit bald.










Lastly, the soft fruit. It seems a bumper year for white currents and we are seeing a real difference having the fruit cage as the fruit is all for us and not shared with the pigeons. Here is tonights meal of strawberries, jostaberries, loganberries, red currants, white currants, black currants and gooseberries. Our raspberries are a later variety so, although there is a lot of fruit around, none ready for picking.