Time flies!

   If anyone is out there reading my blog apologies for being a couple of days late. No excuse, just forgot!
   Transplanting outside the poly tunnel continues at pace. Aubergines, Waltham butternut squash, 8 ball courgette, Green top Swede, Noire de Crimee and Cocktail Clementine tomatoes, Great Lakes and Little Gem lettuce, Troubadour and Blacktail water melons. Other jobs done: tied up the Gigante runner beans as they were reluctant to wrap themselves around the poles; first garlic dug up -not quite ready but very close; resowed sweet corn only to discover that I had bought animal maize! Darn. 
   In the poly tunnel the tomatoes and both varieties of cucumbers are growing really well.  More lettuce transplanted also although lettuce is now being transplanted outside the poly tunnel so I will use the space for something else as they are eaten. I have now transplanted some basil in between the plants. Basil and tomatoes go well together. My crop of cabbage is looking good and will start to be cut.
   There is much to do, far too much. It will  not be long before I can dig up the early potatoes. They are in flower and I noticed that the sugar snap peas are starting to show flowers. The good old grass needs cutting again but the weather has turned hot and humid. 
   On the animal front all is well. The Sussex hen continues to sit on her eggs and the lambs are growing. I managed to break my sheep shears just as we started to do the ewes. I have managed to borrow another set so hopefully we can crack on. The time has come to process the meat chickens. We have three cockerels out of the eight birds we have, annoyingly the two Maran's are cockerels. 

Transplant time!

   Looking back over my garden log for the week I have done a lot of transplanting! Wautoma cucumbers, cocktail clementine tomatoes and jalapeno peppers to a bed in the poly tunnel, sweet peppers to larger pots, butternut squash and courgettes to an outside bed!

  Of course there was the compulsory grass cutting, edge of bed cutting and weeding! Gaps in the bolotti beans and coupion french dwarf beans were sown with more seed. There has been a fair number of bean type seed that have not germinated this year probably I think due to the cold wet earth more than anything but some have been taken by slugs.  I think I need to replace my bean seeds with fresh ones. Another section of garden bed sow with haricot vert. My daughter said grown more beans this year. Ha! If only she realised what she is going to get!

  My feathered friends (not!) the chickens have discovered my beetroot and have eaten every single leaf. You just would not believe it! I am going to have to keep any more I sow covered up. 

  On the animal front my daughters adopted chicken, Henri-etta, was killed by a neighbours dog. She had wandered into their garden and the dog was an ex-hunting dog and was only following its instincts. Still, upsetting. Sheep shearing season has started with six rams done to date. Only eleven ewes to do! I cannot remember if I mentioned it before but one of our chickens has gone broody and has now been sitting on what may be fertile eggs for some ten days. Time will tell.

Sheared Rams

Estimated twelve inches of rain!

   The weather has just be terrible. Lots of rain. We estimated we have had at least twelve inches. As you can imagine the ground became saturated to the point that water was just running away on the surface and the beds were turning into liquid mud! To add to that we have had thunder, lightening, heavy rain and hail stones!

Rain storm and hail stones

   Despite the bad weather I have managed to get on. In the poly tunnel Great Lakes and Little Gem lettuce has been transplanted and Mammoth basil transplanted to pots and also amongst the Galina tomatoes. Wautoma cucumbers have been transplanted to one of the small beds. Kyoto Green Leaf onions has been transplanted to the end of a path as an experiment. These are Japanese bunching onions and I want to establish a colony so that I can transplant them to an outside bed. The tomatoes are now requiring to be tied onto their guide strings and it is a daily job to look for side shoots. 
   In the outside garden I have transplanted more tomatoes along with butternut squash and courgettes. There is plenty of weeding to be done! The grass what with all the rain had grown so long that I have had to mow it with the bush whacker. Least I managed to get down by the river as well. 
   The asparagus is now all but finished. I continue to pull lettuce in the poly tunnel but the radish is now also finished, least in the poly tunnel. The early new potatoes are in flower so it will not be long before I will be digging them up. Only seems five minutes since I planted them.
   On the animal front the sheep and lambs are fine. We have lost another chicken this time to a neighbours dog. Our chicken wandered into their garden and was attacked. She was used to dogs and did not expect to be attacked. Another chicken, our Sussex, has gone broody and is currently sitting on nine eggs. I do not know if there will be any chicks as our cockerel's are only little blighters and I am not sure if they are capable of completing the act!