Happy Easter

Easter eggs! The view from my bedroom this morning.

A time of rebirth and renewal in the world here. I hope you all have a lovely day, wherever you are!

An unexpected gift

Ooh I have received an unexpected gift via the postman!

I was entered into a draw and I have won some lovely goodies from Garden Organic.

A jute bag, some seeds, a CD about composting, a couple of booklets (on worm composting and composting), the biography of Laurence D Hills ( which I was actually considering buying!) and a yummy G and B Easter egg...

Mmm guess what I will be doing on Easter Sunday? reading my new book and eating "Maya Gold" chocolate, that is what :-)

It has occurred to me, as I have some of these items already, and I have got a few other things I would like to share out from having a clear out, and it is my birthday soon

..... I think I shall do a giveaway...watch for a post in the next few days for details....

I REALLY should know better.....

I REALLY should know better.....

I posted a comment on a previous post earlier today....

The picture shows a shrew ( a common shrew I think, pigmy shrews are even smaller with even pointier noses!)

but the cats DO bring in bank voles, yellow necked mice, wood mice and ( whisper) the late Monty puss brought in a dormouse once, which I managed to rescue and release. The worst "present" was a live Moorhen, which was brought in through 3 cat flaps, 3 rooms and then killed ( very messily) all over the sitting room carpet...that was done by Kitty Cat many years ago, in his "catching Hares, Rabbits and full grown cock Pheasants on the wing" days...

I wish the young cats would bring back something edible, for a change, I don't really fancy shrew...(!

Guess what Sidney has just brought in?

A full grown, warm, dead rabbit....

I need to be careful what I wish for, I think!

Slaughter of the innocents

What IS it with my animals?

First it was moles, now it is shrews!



See how small it is?



They have very sensitive snouts and whiskers.

This one was unfortunately dead when we got to it, but we HAVE rescued many, alive and wriggling and vocal. Watch out if you ever have to handle one, as shrews bite hard and they, too , have venomous saliva!

and now the hens are getting in on the act! These are of Henny, she caught this live shrew and ran off with it, the other hens following her like a macabre Benny Hill chase scene, before she managed to find the time to swallow it whole. :-(







We find at least 3 dead ones a day, usually inside the dining room. I think the cats have the (misguided) idea that as WE eat in there, THEY should as well?

And we are constantly rescuing other wildlife at the moment...

Sometimes I think I live in a madhouse ;-)

Homegrown food - taking stock of what we still have and looking forward to new stuff

If you look on the right hand side of my blog you will see a list of the homegrown food we still have in stock and are eating now. I have been asked by a few people what we have left, so I thought I would make a list. Its getting less each day, but I was quite pleasantly surprised when I did a quick stock take! I am not sure we could live on it but it makes a welcome contribution to the diet.

The first of the new season salad, herbs and such like are coming through fast now, and when I see new bean and pea plants growing fast I know we are not far away from eating them, fresh, again! I have carrots growing in tubs inside the polytunnel and spuds in bags with haulms up the top of the bags! ( so new spuds will be on the menu in another month...) and the broad beans are doing well in the garden. I have turnips to succesionally sow, asn the usual salads, spring onions and radishes will go in as and when a bit of land becomes available throughout the summer, and in pots in the Polytunnel.




The plum trees are smothered with blossom and as long as we have no frosts in the next few days, should have a bumper crop of fruit this year. The soft fruit has lots of flower buds forming as well.





I have all my seed potatoes in the ground, now, and am actually ahead of myself thanks to the good weather! (shhh, don't tempt fate!) the parsnips are all in as well.

I just need to get the onion sets in the main garden, I have overwintered shallots and onions in some raised beds, but need to plant more, oh and carrots, in between the alliums. The garlic, planted in December, is going well.

I have peas and beans of all sorts shooting up, all the tomatoes, peppers, aubergines etc are now good sized plants and are out in the cold frames inside the polytunnel, where they keep nice and warm at night with a lid over them and get fresh warm air in the daytime without the lid.

I still need to put some melon and cucumber seeds in the heated propagator ( now I have some room!) then when they come up (in a day or two!) next will be the courgettes and then squashes of various sorts, which will go in during the next week or so.... I find these grow so fast that I tend to leave them until about this time in April, otherwise they grow into huge leggy plants when it is still too cold to pot them out in the Polytunnel.

This year I am going to try, yet again, to grow some Kale and Purple Sprouting, plus a few other brassicas...we will construct a METAL cage which, hopefully, will stop the squirrels from eating every last shred of them. So I have been planting various brassicas and they, too, are in the Polytunnel.

Looking at my "fresh food" list, I DO need some brassicas to fill that "hungry gap", about now....!

Phew! I hadn't realised quite how many plants I have growing, I am not surprised the house and porch and polytunnel all look like mini forests at the moment :-)

I do feel worryingly ahead of it all at the moment...but I probably shouldn't have said that ( she whispers) as we will now have non stop hail storms for the next month, or a plague of locusts......or something....I keep expecting to find a whole clutch of seeds I should have sown in January , but didn't ;-)


So...what do the rest of you have left over from last year? and will you be growing more, or less of anything in particular this year?