A lovely swim in the sunshine

We spent a vey relaxing two hours duck watching this morning as they splashed around in their new pool. We took a video on the camera which is below. Click on the arrow in the centre to start the video.

It takes quite a long time to load so be patient.



After their bath there was lots of stretching and drying....
... and then they decided to go back to bed for an afternoon nap.

Three ducks, three eggs

One egg today so we now have three eggs, all different colours but which egg matches which duck?

Back to gardening

We have become a bit obsessed with ducks over the last few weeks but there has been some gardening going on as well. Nick has totally weeded the strawberry bed, I have been busy sowing in the greenhouses and in the ground, and yesterday I put a load of peas out supported by the hazel twigs that I cut from the hedge.

The small greenhouse is full of loads of different types of beans which are bursting through the surface of the compost. There is also tomatoes, celery, cauliflower, sprouts, celariac, salsify and sunflowers. The large greenhouse is bulging with more tomatoes, chinese artichokes, globe artichoke, salad crops, more celery and loads of flowers as well as three hanging baskets that are so far advanced they think it is summer.

Duck egg blue

Well Mike Hatcher was right, we did get white and green eggs. When we let the girls out this morning there was a beautiful green egg sitting in the straw in their house. We think this must have been from Ebony as she is the darkest duck. Although I say green, it is more blue and you can see where the colour Duck Egg Blue came from. I have shown it with the white one from Wednesday so you can see the contrast. Guess what we are having for breakfast tomorrow.

The first egg

You can imagine our disappointment when letting the ducks out this morning, we searched for any egg laying and nothing at all. They were very lazy again and it took ages for them to come out with Emily being the first. She stood in the doorway for ages until the others joined her and they all ventured out together. There was the usual ritual of stretching and shaking before the dabbling started then suddenly there was an egg lying on the ground. Nick and I were sitting in their garden with them and didn't notice which one laid it but we have a feeling it was Emily.


It was a wonderful sight and a lovely white egg. Hardly a meal though, but we are hopeful that there may be others before the day is out as Elena looks a bit egg bound.
They were far more relaxed this morning and had a good breakfast before we left them in peace.

Mike Hatcher

If anybody is looking for a birthday present for me, a subscription to Practical Poultry will not be a disappointment. For further information go to http://www.practicalpoultry.co.uk/ which is an introduction to where the girls spent Sunday night. They were lucky enough to be the guests of Mike Hatcher who is described by Practical Poultry as a ‘poultry guru’. It was indeed an honour and a pleasure to meet him and a fascinating person to talk to.

A good first night

It took us half an hour to get the girls into their house last night and it was dark by the time we left the allotment, but this morning they looked quite content and seemed to have had a good night. Nick said that I gave them too much straw, and it did seem as they were very comfortable as they were reluctant to wake up and they eventually came out to a lot of stretching and shakeing of tail feathers.

They are still quite scatty today but less than yesterday so progress is being made albeit slowly.

Ducks over Basingstoke

The day has finally arrived and we have ducks.

They came from Oswestry via Coventry and spent last night in Newbury/Wantage before coming home this morning. They were very nervous at first but are settling down now.





They are real time wasters as Katy and I sat all afternoon watching them. We were also watching Nick work but he was not as interesting.






Emily
Emily was named first as it seemed a natural name for her. She is the smallest of the three and we think the youngest. She is also very gentle and timid. She is also the most perfect as show standards go, very good posture and perfect manners.



Elena
Elena was named after the female lead character in Zorro as she is wearing a superhero mask. Elena is the Greek version of Helen which was also the off duty name of Elastigirl in The Incredibles. She is a colour created by her breader which is a white and blue so farily unique and I think will turn out to be the most inquisitive. Although not the tallest, she is the sturdiest and was the first to find the food.



Ebony
Ebony is the leader of the pack. Wherever she goes the others follow. She is the largest and oldest with tinges of grey in her feathers. She was the first to swim in the pool and the first to explore the whole of their garden, finding the way round the back of the house.

Scoop

Plastic bottles are greatly underestimated. I have been getting very frustrated as how difficult it is to get compost from the bag to the potting tray on the bench in the greenhouse. No longer with my special compost scoop!

Master Rebecca Hewett

The biggest news and a great relief to finally get the hear after a long wait, is that Rebecca has gained a massive 77% and a well deserved distinction for her dissertation.

As well as her BA she now also has a: MSc HR (Consultancy) with distinction


What a clever person she is, and an up and coming gardener as well.

(Please ignore the title of this post, it was the best I could think of. Also, for those of you who don't have Batchelors and Masters but are good at grammer, should it be 'a MSc' or 'an MSc'?)

Good Friday at the allotment

More standing on ladders with a large hammer in your hand going on at the allotment on Good Friday. What a lovely day it was too.








The duck compound is built with the exception of the gate which will be the project for the week in anticipation of Salisbury Poultry Auction on 14 April. A second layer of wire has been added making a six foot fence and we will put fine mesh netting over the top with a tarpaulin in the autumn and winter.




Rebecca was busy with the weatherproofing of the house. There was a bit of concern at one time, that the house wouldn't fit in the compound as the boys have added central posts, but sleep easy, it fits!

The central posts are so that we can divide the compound in two as ducks have a habit of making a wet muddy mess, we will have one side occupied and one side resting. We have a bag of grass seed ready so that each resting side can be resown with lush tasty grass.



Always one to show an interest in the goings on of his star allotmenteers (we like to think we are anyway), Ted popped in to visit, so for those of you who haven't met him, here is Ted - site foreman and allotmenteer extrordinaire. He has been working his plot for over 30 years and what Ted doesn't know, Bob Flowerdew does. He is our gague of what to do when and the time has come to start carrying your parsnip seeds with you just in case if is time to sow. Not today though so they are still in the pocket. Parsnips are notoriously bad to germinate and any sign that the soil is too cold, too warm, too damp or too dry, there will always be another day.



We did do some actual gardening and the first of the peas went in supported by the hazel sticks that I cut from the hedge. The broad beans that Bex planted in February were ready to go out and a lot more than we expected so should get a good crop.

The potatoes are planted

We have planted the potatoes at Old Basing. Remember the varieties that we got at the Potatoe Fayre well here they are in the order in which they should be ready to harvest i.e. first earlies, second earlies etc.

This is the largest bed that has been well manured so we are confident of a good crop this year. One benefit of potatoes is that they break the soil well down giving a good loam for next year. That is the theory anyway.

Filling the bath

This weekend we brought a whole new meaning to the phrase 'filling the bath'. We have put the bath on the fruit patch on 51 and this year it will be used to grow pumpkins in, which is the reason why it is being filled with manure. This will compost down well so that from next year it will be home to the mint and horseradish.

We have also been rather cunning in leaving the plug out and putting a bucket in a hole under the plug home so that any water that drains away will be collected and will be an alternative liquid feed to comfrey tea.

It's what brothers are for

Back at the allotment today and we make our usual pre-gardening walk about. 53 looked OK except the rabbits had been nibbling at the steps of the fig, I then opened the gate to 51/52 and had the great shock of a present left by Ted tied to the door handle of the greenhouse.

When we saw him we showed our gratitude and interest in his trapping of them and what he did with them next but wandered back thinking what on earth do we do now.



Only one thing for it........ the cavelry was called.





Those of you who are squeemish stop reading now.





It didn't take long for them to be skinned and prepared. It is a shame that we don't know any way of preparing the skins as they are so thick and fluffy at this time of year.

I was rather pleased to see that we have trendly rabbits at the allotment as once their coats are off they are kitted out in the greatest ski boots with matching tail! (click on the image for a closer look)

This is a reminder of why I love the allotment so much!

5.30p.m. Canary Wharf station on the Jubilee line.

More disaster

We are totally stumped by the rabbit situation. We wedged the gate shut so that they couldn't get in through there but it seems that there is another way in. Total inspection of the fence undertaken and we found one small hole that could be a posibility. They have not decided that they like onion tops, this is probably because there is nothing left on the brassica patch worth eating. The netting on the brassica patch was all over the ground but we cant blame the rabbits for that - it was the weight of 3-4 inches of snow earlier in the week.

Figgie pudding

We have planted the fig at the bottom of No 53 with the intention that it will give a bit of shade to the pond. We used a section of old water butt, which was buried in the ground, to get the fig to put down deep roots. I have great hopes for fruit this year as it produced a load of small ones last year which we removed to allow the plant to strengthen itself.

How to make Newspaper Pots

1. Use a normal tabloid size newspaper, different sized newspapers will provide an assortment of pot sizes. One sheet of newspaper opened out flat:
2. Fold the page in half along it’s spine:
3. Then fold in half again:
4. ..and fold in half again:
5. Now is the tricky bit. What you are trying to do is fold the bottom right hand corner, as you see it in the picture above, inside and to the centre. What I do is lift the fold up so it forms a right angle and then push the centre in towards the centre of the fold. You will end up with a triangular shape with the original newspaper spine flat. This is where I think most people hit a brick wall, do persevere, once you have got it then you can churn them out in seconds. It’s not easy to explain or photograph but here goes:



6. Fold the top left ‘triangle’ back over to the left to form this.






7. Repeat step 5 on the other side so you end up with this:






8. Now you need to fold the edges in to the centre, like so:






9. ..and then fold them into the centre again, like this:







10. Now flip it over and do step 8 and 9 on the other side and you will end up with this:




If I am making a batch of these and not using them right away then leave them in this state and sandwich them between 2 books with a weight on top. When you come back to them the creases will be nice and crisp and they will stay together better.

11. To make the pots fold the top flaps back first, then carefully open up the pot by putting my hand inside and gently forming it into a cube. Make sure you dont push the folds open. It may seem like it will never hold soil and just open up. Don’t worry as long as your creases are nice and crisp then it will be fine once the soil goes in, it actually helps keep them stay in the right shape.



This is what you should end up with!