Rain drops keep falling on your head...

   I am sure I have used that post title before. The rain has just kept falling. Lots of it. There must have been five or six inches of rain over the last seven days and there is more forecast. The ground is more than saturated. There are puddles in the veggie beds that are not draining.

Early Purple Sprouting broccoli

  My eldest daughter has taken a fancy to the early purple sprouting. I have too many childhood memories of purple sprouting and they were not good! So not for me.  I have turned one of the strawberry beds into a tree onion bed. The strawberry plants in that bed had given up and died unfortunately whether due to drought or flood I am not sure. In this bed were also garlic that was probably two years old and was growing rather well and a lot of it. I transplanted the best of the shooting garlic into two rows in my garlic bed. It will be interesting to see how they do. I have hand forked and weeded the asparagus bed and I plan to move crowns from the poly 

Rhode Island chickens

tunnel to the outside asparagus bed.
  Once more I have taken rosemary and sage cuttings in the attempt to propagate them. I have put the cuttings in a pot and I have brought the pot into the main house. It is warmer than the poly tunnel so hopefully I may get some success. We have been eating leeks and carrots from the  garden. Yes, carrots in February. You would not believe it would you? But that is how mild it has been this winter so far.
   On the animal front the three rams moved to next doors back garden have been moved back in with the other three rams in the paddock fields. They have already "hit" it off. Head butting recommences. New arrivals at Watermeadows. I have bought a couple of Rhode Island hens, six months old. Some of our flock is ageing and I believe that some are not laying as well as I would like them to. Once these two have settled in it will be time to figure out who is to be culled!
  I am hoping for drier days to enable me to plant out the shallots and onion sets. It does not look like I am going to get my wish for a week or so!