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

Time for something different.

Sprouting shallot

Propagating sweet potato

  I spoke to soon! No sooner had I written that the onions and shallots were not showing any signs of sprouting up they pop!
  My early crop of Little Gem lettuce that I am growing in the poly tunnel  under a cloche is having varied success. One or two have not taken and one or two have been munched! I have replace them.
  Just to amuse myself I am trying to grow sweet potato this year. The photo is on one tuber cut in half and suspended by cocktail sticks in a jam jar of water. I have placed the jars above my wood stove where it is warm so fingers crossed! It should be possible to grow them although they may only produce small tubers. Time will tell.
  This spring I have decided to create a new rhubarb bed. I will move a root from the old bed in the hope that it will transplant. I have some rhubarb seed to sow. It will be amusing to see if they grow. I have also decided to move the asparagus from the poly tunnel to the outside bed. This will fill in some gaps in the outside bed and give me back space in the poly tunnel. While moving them I found that one had started to sprout!
    On the animal front my brother in laws' Indian runner ducks have produced an egg. First one. It is also that time of year to 

Indian Runner duck egg

 start off the meat chickens. Five white meat chickens bought along with two cuckoo moran birds, hopefully both hens to add to the egg laying flock. 
  More seed sowing done. Beetroot, lettuce and a several varieties of cabbage. 
  I demolished the bonfire pile only to find a mouse in the middle of it. It must have thought is nice and warm when the fire was going!
  As I come to the end of this blog the weather has changed from sunny to drizzle. I need more dry days!

Early spuds in!

Bonnette Noirmoutier, Belle de Fontenay

   19th March and the first early potatoes are in the ground with a one third row of second earlies. Varieties: Earlies - Bonnette Noirmoutier, Second earlies - Belle de Fontenay. I have grown both of these before the Bonnette variety two years ago. The bed looked quite nice until the chickens decided that my earthed up rows were too good to not scratch flat! Chickens!
Following on from the previous I have now planted Corolle potatoes,  had a bonfire and started to mow the grass for the second time.
   In the poly tunnel I have had a couple of volunteer tomato plants which I have now put into pots. First sowing of 18 Jour radish is starting to fatten up. I have transplanted Little Gem lettuce into a poly tunnel bed and covered them with a cloche. They are small but hopefully they will pick up. Tomato seeds are starting to germinate particularly Ethel Watkins Best.
   There is still turnip-swede, cabbage and early purple sprouting in the garden. No sign of the onions or shallots sending up leaves but they are putting down roots!
    There is much to do!

Spoke too soon

  Would you believe it! The border fork that I bought for my grandson turned up. When we unwrapped it the fork was a spade! Good grief! The firm I bought it from were very good and have promised to send me a fork but it will be up to two weeks before it arrives.
   On the weather front I guess I spoke too soon. The rain has returned and the ground once more became too wet to work. Despite that I have managed to weed one bed in readiness for planting Bonnette Nouirmoutier early potatoes. These potatoes are sown in February where they originate from and are one of the earliest varieties to be harvested. I grew them a couple of years ago and their foliage is quite attractive and the potatoes are really nice.
  Once more I look back over the last week and see far too many empty days in my garden log. The major items done were to clean out the duck and chicken coops! Picked some purple sprouting which is doing rather well and cursed the chickens who have taken a fancy to scratching up my onions and shallots which I notice are putting roots down.
  As always there are lots of jobs waiting to be done and the more March marches on the longer the list gets! The grass is looking like it could do with another cut. It will need to be a drier before I can attempt that. The narcissus are a picture.

  Nothing much going on on the animal front. Chickens are being chickens although I am hopeful that egg production may be picking up (famous last words). 
   It is interesting to see how the grass has grown and how much the sheep have kept it down. In the photo the dark green is grass that has not been munched by the sheep.
   As I conclude this blog there has been a frost this morning, -2C, (Tuesday 8th March 2016) but now the sun is shinning and I must get on!