Red nose day 2009

All things red today. Except that is for my red sport relief top which has been adopted by Star as his bed so it is now red on the front and white on the back as it is the start of the moulting season.

Talking of seasons, it is the laying season, so we starting with going up to three eggs last weekend to 6 on Wednesday and Thursday and eight today. Anybody who would like some duck eggs please e-mail ird@sky.com and I will deliver. In the spirit of the day, you could make a small donation to Comic Relief in exchange.

Nick did a fantastic job rattling his bucket at work today and raised over £100.

Still on the red theme, the first pulling of rhubarb last Sunday was a treat and a reminder to get the cookery books out.





I worked hard at the weekend to get the second greenhouse up to the standard it should be in March and I must admit it was looking a bit sad after a neglected for months. It looks lovely now and thanks to the coffee sticks I will actually know what the seedlings are when the appear.

Just a few days later, I notice today that I have some leeks, red cabbage and peas - at least that's what the sticks say.

It must be spring

The weather may be cold but the ducks think it is spring - we had the first blue egg of the year this morning and that must be a sign that spring is here.

Sadly we lost Spikey today

Busy in the kitchen

Today was fine but bitterly cold. We had to take Spikey to the vet this morning and really didn't expect to bring him home but came away with a more perky cat, having had a anabolic steroid injection and with a prescription for human heart tablets to take as well as his cat heart tablets, diuretic and laxative. He is spending most of his time sleeping but seems a bit happier. I suppose we will sleep a lot when we are 147 years old.

We then had to do our stint in the OBAGS shop from 11-12 so by the time we got home really weren't in the mood for planting shallots so they are still in the box.

We did make a new batch of bird food and finished the first batch of ginger beer. The plant has been brewing away in the kitchin for the last week and it was time to boil up a syrup add lemon juice and bottle.

It made three litres with a little bit left over. Having tasted this, I can confirm that the recipe is correct when it says to leave it for a week for the yeasty taste to go.

I am a bit concerned whether the bottle tops will hold as it is still fizzing and we may come down tomorrow morning to find ginger beer all over the kitchen ceiling so maybe they will be assigned to the shed for a week.

Yesterday's news

Firstly, I must show you the temperature in the greenhouse at 10am yesterday. By midday it had reached 80 but the battery had gone on the camea so you will have to take my word for it.















The other great news from yesterday was that we were on the route of the Valentine day tour from Waterloo, which passed through Basingstoke at 11.40. It was a fantastic sight but we were too amazed to grab the camera, so here is a picture taken from their official website.

A treat for bird watchers

Yesterday was a great day for birdwatching. The heavy snow didn't seem to deter them and the blackbirds especially were feeding throughout the afternoon.


Robins are supposed to be very protective of their part of the garden but these two seem to have a mutual respect for each other.



There was one mystery visitor who looked a cross between a female blackbird, a thrush and a cuckoo but the latest concensus is that it is a juvaline something. Suggestions welcome.


Close up for detail.

No place to hide in the snow

.We got to the allotment today and had the first opportunity to have a good walk around in the snow. I can't believe that this time last week we were digging and also that the snow has been here for so long.

It looks lovely on 51 and 52 and for the first time in our allotment history - not a weed in site






Looks like we are going to have to give up on the idea of any more greens this year as the rabbits have found their way in and destroyed every remaining plant. Not content in eating it all, they also recycled into rabbit droppings and left a lovely trail.
We found the entry point in the back fence where they seem to have chewed their way through the wire. Will nothing stop these pests?


It is not only us with problems, Teds netting over his sprouts is weighed down to the ground with snow. I just hope that he can get it cleared before the netting rips as we lost loads to snow two years ago. It is amazing how heavy it is. We have made sure that we have kept the ducks netting cleared as I would hate it to all come down on top of them.

Snow again

It is so British to spend so much time talking about the weather but what do you expect when we spent the day digging on Saturday, too cold to even get a fork in the ground on Sunday and a thick covering of snow on Monday. What a difference two days makes


I did make good use of my time stuck in doors yesterday and made a new bird feeder.

Instructions: Take one empty plastic bottle. Cut a hold large enough for a bird to get its head in (size depends on the type of birds you want to attract). With a hot skewer make a hole one inch below the hole on the back and front of the bottle. Insert a chop stick through the holes ensuring that it fits snugly. Tie string around the neck of the bottle and screw the cap in place. Melt a block of lard in a large pan add enough bird seed to soak up all the lard. Fill the bottom of the bottle with the seed mix. Hang in a tree in a convenient position.

By the time I had finished the first one, it was too dark to photograph so here it is in the snow. A cheeky blackbird soon found it and has spent all morning back and forth feeding itself.

I will have to make sure that the next report is allotment related and not an update on the weather.

I was considering getting some shallots in at the weekend(having bought a bag at the potatoe day last Sunday) but just as well that I waited.

The potatoe day was as usual a great event. We made it a family event with Matt and Rebecca having their first experience now that they are great gardeners. We got a bag of Red Robin for Katy (who couldn't make) and a wide selection for ourselves. Red Robin was the particular choice as instructions from Katy were good bakers.

We also got some Ambo and Valor which are also good bakers but white.

We couldn't leave without some Pink Fir Applie and we also got, Presto, Nicola, Royal Kidney, Galactica, Rocket and Ratte.

Looks like we weren't the only visitors as they had a total of 1,988 visitors although I suspect that there were not many more than two who came all the way from Kent for the event.

http://thewhitchurchweb.org/potatoday/

I have discovered that there is only one blackbird that has discovered the seed bottle so I have just made another one to hang at the other side of the garden where the great tits, blue tits, coal tits, robin and other blackbirds gather. This one has the last of the peanuts, although I was reluctant to put them in as my birder friends tell me that you should stop using peanuts when there may be young so this is their last.

I also put a dish of warm water out and this robin loves having a scandanavian experience of a bath in the snow.

New Year, New Snow

It was a surprise to get up this morning, having listened to the weather forcast from both ITV and the BBC, which told us that it would be milder today, to find it was snowing. Stepping outside made me exclaim (not a quote) that it was colder than I expected and far too cold to snow. Shows what I know about the weather.

Strangely, yesterday we though it was going to be a nice day, as we got up to what appeared to be promise of a clear day. We were stunned to find a covering of snow at Basingstoke station and at the ducks. It appears that it had snowed on Basingstoke town but stopped once you got outside. I can only assume that snow is post code related and as we are RG24 we didn't qualify, whereas RG21 was on yesterday's list.


It did make the circus tent start looking like a tent as it was evident that there had been no wind with the snow as every single upper surface of the chicken wire (or fruit wire in our case) was coated with snow. The ducks were a bit reluctant to go out as the same had happened to their compound.


Maisy and Daisy are very confused as to why they can't swim or why there is no foraging. Roll on spring when the slugs are back, is what they must be thinking.

it is fantastic walking around the allotment when it has been snowing and working out what bird and animal tracks there are. There is a fantastic absence of rat prints but a scarily large amount of rabbit prints and rabbit droppings. Of course, they have wonderful fur coats so are not bothered by the snow. Sadly, there is a shortage of water for the brids as evidenced by the prints in the water trough where the brids have been trying to get at the water.

We have, for the last week, been glad that we are wine makers as we have used the lightweight plastic demi-johns to transport water for the ducks. We haven't been able to take enough for their pond but have kept two plastic boxes and one cat litter tray topped up. Today must have been the coldest day this week as the water we put in in the mornings was frozen by the time we went back in the afternoon so it obviously didn't get above freezing during the day.

It is OK for people who got welly warmers for Christmas as it really was bitterly cold.





Also OK for people who got new Town & Country fleece lined gardening boots for Christmas.......



... and lovely for people who got rabbit slippers for Christmas, to put on when they get home.



Which takes me back to bunnies and the slightly unfortunate side of allotmenteering. We, rather strangely, based on the fact that the ground was like concrete, went to dig some of Katy's parsnips. Again, rather silly as the covering of snow meant that we couldn't find them, but we found that the rabbits had decided to do major excavation from the field behind her plot into her allotment. There is going to have to be some serious filling in and defence building in the spring. Thankfully, when Len gave up his allotment, he gave us some galvanised sheet, which will be ideal for building a defence, if we bury it three feet in the ground. Don't tell Matthew but it is on his list!

Christmas breakfast

Christmas breakfast if you are a duck (and your owners had prawn cocktail the day before)















Christmas breakfast if you own ducks (and remembered to get salmon from Tesco)

Winter harvest time is quite different from the summer and where we have always had disaster with parsnips as our ground is so shallow, Katy is quite different. They are our leeks, onions and artichokes but we cannot even match her on parsnips as ours are about as thick as the leeks and about as long as the onions.





Following on from previous posts, the rest of the sleepers have been moved to our allotment. A rather unusual technique of tossing the sleeper was adopted but.....




they have been piled along the path, carefully avoiding placing them on raspberry canes ........






.. and they make lovely seat for a well earned rest.












I am thinking about starting a spot the difference competition as there seems to be growing similarities between Nick and Matt.

We garden by organic methods so there is no risk of genetic modification.

Out of every sadness a benefit.....

It was a sad moment when we arrived at the allotment yesterday to find that two of the nicest allotmenteers you could meet had been allocated a plot just a short walk from their home rather than the two miles to Churchill Way, so had decided to move plots.

We will really miss them, but gave them a two egg leaving present.

They left us their raised beds. Today we started moving and were amazed by the smount of compost they contained as well as railway sleepers.

We have brought eight half lengths home to make steps between the two lawns and have moved some of the heavier ones onto our allotment. There are still a lot to move, and if the plot hasn't been allocated to someone else we will move some more next weekend.




We decided to fill the Jewswons bags provided by Brian from the sand for his extention, and thought we might be lucky to half fill one. This was the case by 2p.m. but by 4.30 when it was dark, I had filled 1 1/2 but was too tired to lift the camara to take a picture.

The ducks were a bit miffed as they weren't tall enough to look in the bag but they somehow knew just how many worms there were in there. Putting it in bags was my good deed for the worm preservation society.

Watch this space for very long, very straight carrots and parsnip next year!!!

Anatomy isn't one of my strong points, but however many bones there are in the human body, every one of mine aches.

Water Water everywhere

Last weekend Nick replaced the taps on the water butts attached to the downpipes on the brick shed. We managed to 'find' a couple on other sheds that weren't working so now have two on each side of the shed. Amazingly, in just one week, all four are full of water.

Great relief as the water gets turned off on the troughs so we were worried what we were going to do for replacing the water in the ducks pond.

Ice Skating

It has become a tradition to ice skate at Christmas. The Natural History museum has one, Somerset House has one, Canary Wharf has one, and now Churchill Way has one.

Happy Christmas from the 12 ducks of Christmas

Eggs and greens

One other benefit of the sun shining and lots of water to swim in, is that we have ducks that are still laying. We have either one of two per day so they are keeping us well fed.

Man cannot live by eggs alone (we would be egg bound if we did) so we balance it out with a lovely selection of greens.





The sprouts don't seem to have sprouted but we have some good leaves from them. Brocolli is still sprouting and we have some lovely Kale.

There is a good crop of Jerusalem Artichokes as well as some crisp French parsley and a steady supply of salad leaves in the greenhouse.






I am a bit worried that the onions I planted a few weeks ago aren't all sprouting but the garlic is looking very strong and healthy so we should have a good crop by next June/July.






As always, the first thing to suffer from too much rain is the path to the duck compound where it becomes a bit of a mud slide. Not good in high heals before work in the morning, so Nick has had to start wearing wellies in stead! Thankfully, it is time for the council to do hedge trimming so great surprise yesterday when an enormous heap of chippings had been deposited so tomorrow is going to be path day.

December sun

After the October snow we have December sun. November was very little but rain so the camera refused to get out of the car.


The ducks love the weekend as much as we do as it means forage time. They also get to spend some quality time in their outer pond.






They are also getting the message that they are have a celebrity status so have to pose when requested. It is a bit like it used to be at the swimming pool where colour bands had a time slot. They swap over so there seems to be a message that all chocolate ducks to the pond, followed by white ducks to the pond.




The others are good but Apple really has become a diva.







Jessica has become a duck with attitude












while Fennel is a still a bit shy










unlike Eve who was determined to be in front.