To the plot and back...

I have a shed, at last my own shed! (small but perfect for me) I know for most people a shed isn't the start of a promising story but for me it's the start of being able to walk more often to the allotment. When I walk, I think and (some of, thankfully not all) my thoughts end up being written in some form or other.  

So for me, my little shed is the start of a story as well as being the place where my bulky, awkward gardening tools can live, no more fighting to get the hoe in the car...I can leave the car at home. I can walk, think and write all the way to the plot an back:)

My walk to the allotment is stupidly beautiful, the lovely weather we've been having recently has helped too, somehow the sun just makes everything seem better. The walk has it all... woods, a country lane (I guess not strictly a 'country' lane) an ancient abbey, golf courses (they are better to look at than the average football field...if you're not actually into sport that is!) with a view of moorland in the distance, more woods, wildlife ponds which are bubbling with frog and toad spawn at the moment I noticed...slugs take note:) There is also a field of deer, a stag escaped from there today apparently,  my walk has the potential for wildlife drama too! Rutting season is over isn't it? don't really want to come between a rutting stag and his harem:) 

The supermarkets, car garages and the busy roads in between are just there to remind me that I do actually live in a city, but if I walk really fast through those bits I can get back to my country day dreaming. Daft dog is pretty happy too:)  

Making labels...and mess

I wanted some really nice looking plant markers, I know how silly that sounds, plant markers should just be practical surely? No I want practical and pretty. It gave me an excuse to trawl through Pinterest, not that I  ever need an excuse really. There really are some very creative people out there, so I've 'borrowed' some ideas and played about with them...well simplified I mean;)

I want to mark the different varieties of potato that I'm planting out on the plot as well as all the other veg and fruit that will eventually join them out there. I've just got some asparagus crowns through the post so I can label them up too, if I can fit the name Guelph Millennium onto one stick!

I have been using large lollipop sticks and I had some letter stamps from a previous trip I took into crafty land, can't honestly remember what that was but I know a craft fair was involved. Most importantly I got myself some varnish that should, fingers crossed, help make them survive the great outdoors.

Small boy got involved as soon as he saw it had potential for mess too...we had a lovely morning, though I could have done without the black handprints that appeared all over the kitchen!

Broody hens...towering beans...

Betty would make a brilliant mother, I only wish I could let her become one but I really can't have any more hens in the garden, even cute fluffy chicks. I'm also pretty sure biology is against us...there is no way I could have a cockerel. Chris' uncle won't, no actually just can't bring himself to tell us what happened to the cockerel they unwittingly ended up with in their back garden flock...he's still too traumatised by it. So absolutely no chance lady I'm sorry.

 So there she is driven purely by her hormones and instinct, she will sit on this empty nest in her broody state until her imaginary eggs are hatched. I know you are supposed to try to snap them out of their broodiness, there are all manner of methods suggested when you look. One of my go to sites for all things hens is, Lisa Steele's Fresh Eggs Daily, it's a great site with really good advice and also hen recipes... and that's recipes 'for' hens...yes you really can cook for hens:) pretty sure there's some strange irony there!

 Anyway, I have read how to break the broody hen...it's all a little barbaric for me...so I just haven't the heart to do it to her. She gets stressed enough when I lift her off the nest just to make sure she eats and drinks, she chunters continuously and isn't happy til she's back in place. There must be something about the sound she makes that make the other 2 hens very unhappy with her too. Normally they all get along fine, the pecking order is established, there isn't any fighting until one of them goes broody, the others just turn on them and are merciless with their beaks til the poor bird is back on her nest, Betty gets the worst treatment though. I have to keep an eye on them when they are like this so no blood is drawn, hens are funny beasts, apparently they go mad at the sight of blood..I have a spray just incase that acts as an antiseptic and also dyes the wound purple...I really hope I never have to use it, purple hens would just look silly!

She has stopped laying and her wattle and comb are slowly losing their redness. Quite honestly I don't mind her not laying for awhile, if she's happy just sitting there who am I to mess with her and nature? A hen growling at you is trying to tell you something...don't mess with female hormones!

 Lisa Steele says it is bad for a hens health to allow her to continue to be broody and 'contagious' to the others and she is by far a more experienced hen owner than me (like Buzz Aldrin v Buzz Lightyear) but I'm just not hard enough.

 I make sure that they eat and drink and aren't bothered by the other hens whilst they do and they all came out of their broody states last year without any ill effects that I could see. And yes they all went through it one after the other so in some respects it is contagious or perhaps just inevitable. Perhaps if I had a bigger flock or was very reliant on their eggs I would be more inclined to try to stop them going broody, or if she went on too long. It is my own fault for choosing a breed known for broody behaviour, some breeds aren't quite so hormonally driven. A lesson in hens that I have learnt a little late...

Meanwhile back in the house the beans are telling me something completely different...'get us out of here...we're going for the sky and nothing is going to stop us!' Except frost I should remind them. I keep getting lulled by the occasional beautiful warm sunny day and then like what happened the other day we have such a hail shower that it settles like snow. Not good for young mollycoddled beans so I have moved them to the half way house. Actually one of those cheap plastic greenhouses that does the job for now until my dreams of a proper grown up greenhouse come true. 

When the shed gets put up at the allotment I'm planning to make some cold frames to go along its sides which should be another answer to the problem of what I do with all these seedlings I've got scattered around the house at the moment! Well when I say I will make some cold frames, I can see Chris roll his eyes and reach for his drill...I hope:)  

A gooseberry named Careless...

The shed arrived yesterday!...yipee! We didn't have enough time to put it up though sadly. Chris for some reason thought we'd need longer than an hour...can't think why we always manage to get our massive tent up together without too many problems/arguments/tears/blood...a shed can't be that much harder can it? 

But anyway we had a free day today so it seemed sensible to give it a whole day and not rush it, but as all great British plans we got well and truly rained off. I think we could have bared the rain but small boy in rain on an allotment that turns into a slippery mud slide was just an ask too far. So my little shed is lying gracelessly under tarpaulin til we get a chance to to put it up. It will have to wait til after the Easter weekend now because we have family coming and easter hunts to organise, the house is awash with chocolate:)

Yesterday with the time I did have with the sun shining brightly (ha) I watched a real life buzzard flying over the allotment which I got almost as excited about as the crows that were dive bombing it. Funny, that as beautiful and amazing as I found it to see, all the poor crows saw was big trouble.

When I stopped being all David Attenborough I also managed to plant my strawberry plants that I bought last year for the bargain price of 50p a plant. I got a few different varieties that cover the early, mid and late fruiting period but then I started to wonder about pollination, like you do and got a little puzzled. If a bee (hopefully a few) comes along and pollinates one plant then moves onto the next which is a different variety do the runners from that parent plant then become a mix of the 2? Will it still be an 'Alice' or will it be a 'Honeoye-Alice' (or whatever combination) will I have confused strawberries? Does it really matter as long as the bees come along and do their thing and we get strawberries at all? Apart from making nonsense of spending quite a long time (almost an embarrassing amount of time) searching through the sea of strawberries to get the mix of plants I have. Oh I have so much too learn!

I also planted a gooseberry bush that I bought from my local city farm which has a great little garden centre (as well as a fantastic cafe!) I've been going to Heeley city farm for years, first when my big boys were young and now with small boy, the only difference being middle boy was terrified of the pigs, small boy loves them with a passion. It is a true test of parenting quite how long you can actually stand and stare at a pig before you have to resort to cafe cake bribery:)  

I still have a bay tree that I bought from the the farm when my eldest boy was tiny, it has moved (in its large pot) with us 3 times now and is still a beautiful and useful tree all these years later. I don't know if the little gooseberry will last as long as that but it is called 'Careless' and how could I resist a plant with a name like that? I don't even like gooseberries...well I am trying to retrain my taste-buds, I don't think I like gooseberries but I've never had my own gooseberries. I quite fancy getting a red variety at some point, somehow red fruit appeals more to me. But for now a gooseberry named Careless and a strawberry like Alice will do me fine:)

Right better get those eggs hidden before I'm tempted to eat them all myself...