Welcome back to a relatively trouble-free week. No major calamities and weather improving – warmer and lighter winds.
Patch:
Everything growing like mad at this time of year. Good harvests of peas, dwarf beans, beetroot etc. Courgettes producing prolifically. In fact too prolifically! Don’t get me wrong, I like courgettes, but even I draw the line at courgettes for breakfast. Took second cut of comfrey which I will compost, having made more than enough evil smelling liquid feed to see this year through. Also dug up one potato bed to store in cardboard boxes. Remember, they need to be kept in the dark or they go green and start sprouting.
Planted out some more leeks – just for the sheer joy of it!
Spent much of this week constructing a new turkey house, ready for the six week old poults which we will be collecting in a week or two from a local farmer. The ducklings are growing fast and will soon need more space than our bathroom can provide, so we are going to put them in the old turkey run. Turkeys are very good natured but really, really, stupid – they make chickens look positively intelligent. When we got our first turkeys a few years ago, we ordered two, thinking that would be sufficient for our xmas needs. In an unusual sales technique the farmer suggested we got three. This was not, as I cynically thought, just a way for him to increase the sale, but he kindly pointed out that there was a good chance of one of them dropping dead - for no apparent reason- and if we started with only two we could end up with a very lonely turkey. Blow me, he was right and we have lost one most years. It felt like a car salesman suggesting we bought two cars, instead of the usual one, because one will probably blow up and it’s handy to have a spare. The farmer told us that one year 200 hundred of his young turkeys died when a thunderstorm passed overhead. He swears that now when thunder is threatened, he spends the night in the shed with them to try and keep them calm. Well that’s what he tells his wife anyway and I for one believe him.
Last week I mentioned that I thought I might be becoming the Mr Bean of small-holding- with things going wrong right, left and centre. Well, just harvested some carrots and I think I might be turning into Sid James instead. Me and the polytunnel toads were in stitches at the weird and wonderful shapes. God we know how to have good clean fun on the Patch.
On the Wild Side:
First pick of foraged blackberries, which seems a bit early to me. The first flush are always larger and sweeter, so will get picking for the freezer.
Joined by a sparrow fledgling today. At first I thought it had fallen from its nest, but when I picked it up to put it somewhere safer, it flew off. Well, I say flew, it wasn’t flying as we know it Jim, but it was somehow defying gravity, so hopefully it will make it. One good thing - our cockerel won’t tolerate cats in the vicinity, so that’s one less hazard for it to contend with.
Just spotted a wood pigeon nest in a tree overlooking the patch. So that’s how they manage to search out and destroy any un-netted brassicas so incredibly quickly. Bastards. I had uncharitably been wondering if they were in cahoots with the polytunnel toads who have informed me in no uncertain terms to “chill out man” and “all property is theft anyway”. Easy for them to say!
Tip of the week:
Keep picking as soon as veg such as courgettes or peas are ready, otherwise they will think they have achieved their goal of procreation and stop producing new fruits.
Well have a good week and may your cucumbers and melons grow large. (see what I mean? Sid bloody James).