Always a chance...

   Frost! There have been several mornings of quite severe frost this last week. As it happened I shuffled around the potato patches and covered up those that were beginning to show. Unfortunately some of them still got caught. Such is the risk one takes planting them early. In my area frosts are possible until mid May. I have taken a chance and planted out some iceberg type lettuce in an outside the poly tunnel bed and covered them up with plastic bottles with the bottoms cut off. This should be enough to protect them. I have thinned out the two parsnip rows and transplanted some winter savoy type cabbage which I have covered with cloches.

Parsnips and prepared cabbage patch

    The first two spurs of asparagus has been cut with plenty more to come. They were eaten with a dippy egg and brown toast soldiers!

First asparagus of 2016

   In the poly tunnel I have top dressed half of the long bed with well rotted chicken manure and planted out four "volunteer" tomato plants. I am taking a chance with these as frost could still get them even in the poly tunnel. They are volunteer tomatoes because I do not have the faintest idea what variety they are. I have also planted out summer cabbage in the poly tunnel in the hope of a quick crop (Baccalan de Renne and Predouce Louvier both successful in the poly tunnel last year).  I had to resow the coriander as I believe the seed was not any good, however, it may also be that the soil was not warm enough.  I have transplanted beetroot, grown in modules to the poly tunnel long bed. More tomatoes transplanted to pots, this time Galina and Milfleur.  I have sown Wautoma and La Diva cucumbers which now makes three varieties of cucumber sown!
  Of course the grass was mowed again and more forking and weeding done in preparation for the sowing of peas and haricot vert.
   On the animal front the duck continues to lay, the chickens are laying well and the sheep, well, are being sheep. No more lambs yet! Oh yes as I sit here typing up this blog it is raining again.
  

And yet another one!

Ewe lamb

   Usually I leave writing about our animals to the end but this week the sheep take first place.  As I write this blog we have had now had twin lambs and three singletons. One of the twins we have had to take in and we continue to bottle feed. All are thriving. The female duck continues to lay an egg day and the chickens are laying well, in fact, we have so many eggs we are struggling to keep up consumption with production!

Ewe lamb

   In the garden the grass grows well, darn it. Once more I have mowed grass. The first sowing of Touchon carrots has been made, more in hope than anything else as the soil is wet and a little cold. I have now sowed various varities of sweet peppers, apple cucumber, jalapeno peppers, celeriac and bunching onions. I have never had real success with spring onions. In five seasons here at Champeau I have had one year of success and that was when I over wintered White Lisbon. French spring type onions have been abysmal so this year I am trying bunching onions. Like chives they grow as a bunch which can be split up. You eat the whole onion like a spring onion. Time will tell!

   In the poly tunnel the successive sowing of radish continues to do well and I am pulling bunches of nice sized radishes. More Little Gem lettuce has been transplanted and few of the first lot to be transplanted are well established and growing well. Tomato plants are thriving and my five volunteer tomato plants are almost ready to be transplanted into the large bed of the poly tunnel. I have no idea as to what variety they are.

Ewe lamb

   In the outside garden the potatoes are up and I am busy going around covering them up. There can still be frosts up to the middle of May. Onions, shallots and  garlic all still thriving. Oh the asparagus is up and that reminds me I need to go and cut some for breakfast.

Every blooming year!

   This blog covers two weeks. I took myself off to the UK for a week to see family, friends and visit my wife's grave (40 year wedding anniversary while I was in the UK). Before I went all looked reasonable in the garden and finished planting potatoes and helped my grandson plant his. Pulled some turnip/swede and transplanted Ethel Watkins Best tomatoes into pots.

Twin lambs, ewe and ram

I return from the UK and all you know what has happened. Grass up around my ankles and cherry blossom out! So the first job was mow the grass. It took me a day and a half. I managed to get it done before it rained thank goodness. Then twin lambs were born. Mother rejected the youngest and we are now bottle feeding it. Next day another lamb arrived, a ewe.
   Anyway, onward with the garden. More rain. The potatoes are up but I am unable to earth them up because the soil is too wet! Sowed more radish, common basil, lemon basil, sweet genovese basil (Uncle Tom Cobberly basil..) and Giant Prague celeriac. Also I transplanted more Ethel Watkins Best and First Poly tunnel Money Maker tomatoes. There are now seventy transplanted to pots tomato plants with lots more to come! First lot of Iceberg lettuce has been transplanted again in the poly tunnel as it really is too wet in the outside garden. In the outside garden the garlic, onions, tree onions, parsnips and shallots are growing away quite happily despite the rain. The average air temperature is now around 10C day and night hence the mad burst of growing going on.  Hopefully it will stay there. Could do without so much rain. It has been a mild and wet winter with a mild and wet spring. Hopefully summer will bring some sunshine!

Quiet before the next rush?

   I opened up this page of this week blog, opened up my gardening log gazed down the entries for the last week and saw...hardly a thing! So I took myself off to look at my weather log. Yes, some rain, some wind, some showers but not a lot done! I notice weeding on one day. Yes that was a large bed I weeded and it took the better part of a day to do. I notice also that I put my guttering back together after the gale we had. Not gardening though. So what did I do in the garden beside weeding? Pulled radish from the poly tunnel (they are now coming in nicely, including my follow on sowing), cut purple sprouting, pulled turnip swede and sowed another row of radish in the poly tunnel. Not a lot really. Umm. Oh, the tree onions are now growing rapidly as are the shallots and onions.

   On the animal front no lambs yet. Hopefully there will not be any! The female duck is now laying one egg a day and the chickens are getting back to form laying on average six eggs a day. Still not as good as it should be what with some thirteen hens. That is a another job to do. Sort out who is laying and who is not!

   So there you are. A short entry indeed.

First duck egg