Frogs; it’s that time of year again.

Spring must be on it’s way. On top of the mesh that keeps Miss Heron from having the koi for breakfast, dinner and tea, are little mounds of frogspawn. I’ve been raising frogs since I was about 8 when we used to collect it from the muddy field by our house and bring it back to my dad who used to set up an old fish tank in the garden.  Over the years the fish tank got more elaborate and as soon as I moved out on my own, I built a pond. Again the pond has got more elaborate but frogs are always included. In the first spring we had after I moved into this house in 1991, I went to our local wildlife reserve  with a bucket (this is probably illegal) and my brother who offered to go into the reeds and collect me some spawn. As he gingerly stepped towards the frogs spawn in his jeans and t-shirt, he sunk up to his thighs in mud. Thankfully we got him and the spawn out and this is the result. 16 years later the decendants of those frogs come back and lay in our pond and hopefully feast on the slugs around the garden.

cauli’s, compost and close inspections

Today I potted on the cauliflowers (all the year round and snowball - which if I can get it to grow, will be better as it’s smaller). I didn’t have much luck with them as I knocked the tray off the shelf when they’d started to germinate. When I get a massive ATYR variety popping up with the snowballs, I’ll only be able to blame myself. I think I’ve done too many for the beds so will have to fit them in around the borders. I’ve left these in the H/G for now to recover as it was late when I transferred them but tomorrow I’ll put them back into the C/F.

I also planted some Jerusalem artichokes – no idea on variety as they were from wilko’s. These are in buckets with holes in the bottom as I’m not sure where I want them to grow and I’ve read they can be a little invasive. These are outside. Afterwards I’ve sown a small amount of Little Gem lettuces and flat leaved parsley in pots and left these in the H/G.

This year was the first time we’d tasted courgettes (not mixed with other stuff in a jar or tin that is) and we all like them.  I didn’t experiment or anything,  just roasted them but it’s encouraged us to grow some ourselves and me to see what others are out there. Today I sowed the last of the three varieties ( other names will be here) which was courgette custard white. As the others germinated well and are off and flying, I only put two seeds in the pot and put it in the H/P. As I opened the H/P I noticed with excitement (as I’ve felt with every seed!) that the melons are poking through the compost. They haven’t taken long at all! I would take them out and put them in an U/H now but it was getting dark (and very cold!) when I noticed so I’ll give them till tomorrow

Tomorrow I need to get some compost but not sure where to buy it from. I’m very disappointed in the bags we had from B&Q (although, the seed & Potting compost seems to be OK). When I opened the 150 litre bags, the compost was dry, so dry in fact that if you put it into a bucket and then water it, it floats! I can’t get it to soak up at all. I’m mixing it with some old compost out of the tortoise table which is 50/50 levington and play sand, but I’m almost out and can’t be bothered to keep doing that. I just want to quickly pot things on and I want some decent cheap compost!

Walking along my border on the way to the shd, I saw lots of seedlings popping up but I don’t know what they are. I think I’ll pot them up and photograph them, probably numbering them so I know what’s what and then see what comes up. In the shed I made a close inspection of the Rice & Raisin which looks like it’s still fermenting. I was convinced it had stopped after the lid broke two days ago. Up until then, as I did the daily check and stir, the lid had bowed upwards and there was obvious visible bubbling, now the lid isn’t bowing and the bubbling has slowed considerably. It also smells different – almost off – so I’m hoping it’s OK.

I’m still also on the look out for a silver birch that I can tap without it being accessible to roaming vandals. We have two but both are too young. Our neighbour has one but it’s on the footpath and the locals (mainly children but some of the adults are as bad) wouldn’t be able to walk past a bottle and pipe attached to a tree without prodding and pulling. My parents have a massive (seriously) old (at least 25 to our knowledge) tree in their garden but they seem to think it’s ill because the lower branches are dying and that it won’t take the stress of me taking a gallon of sap. I’m sure it produces amounts way in advance of this and that I wouldn’t do anything detrimental when it’s this age and size, but I wont push it. If ever it did decide to die it would look as if I’d drained the life out of it!

conifers, chickens and cats

Today I got stuck into the garden again after pottering for a while and not really being productive. It helps that I’ve now got a plan in the veg area. My problem is a lack of sunny space and what do with the rest of the garden! I am lucky to have a decent sized garden that could probably fit 3 modern town gardens in it. unfortunately, it is narrow and being a semi-detached, I seem to get the sun on the wrong side, or shade cast from surrounding structures and plants. I never did understand (and would welcome an explanation) how people say they have a north facing garden etc, because surely it depends upon where you stand? My garden faces all directions! The house is in the Northish direction (lets just say north) I have a huge garage on the E side and my neighbours have very large conifers (30ft?) planted against my 6 foot fence on the W side. My garden is very long – in fact I’ll make a plan in excel. It isn’t to scale but I’ll guess it by counting the fencing panels soon. The boundary is marked by a 6 ft high wooden fence and I forgot to say that the garden that joins ours at the bottom, has a massive “shed” that is almost the width of the garden and around 8 ft high. Anyway, enough of that for now, its just to show you what I’m dealing with and it’s easier to describe things if I can say exactly what or where I’m doing it.

First today, I made a start on shredding the conifers I took out a few months ago. That didn’t last long! They jammed the shredder three times and it was taking ages to strip the smaller branches off to shred. I gave up and chopped them up with the loppers with the intention of having a fire later in the evening. Then I decided to make a sort of barrier to stop the chickens pooping everywhere. So I knocked in 8ft bamboo stakes across the garden (between the pond and the chicken pen; see, isn’t that easier to explain with a daigram?!) and attached pea and bean netting to it. I then put an arch that was leaning up the fence doing nothing, in the middle and made a net “curtain” that is tied to the top and uses a little wire tie to open and close. It’s not pretty or sophisticated but it works and the chickens were happily pooping in one area

Later in the afternoon (while I was still pottering about) I thought I’d let the boys out. I know it was only yesterday that they had their second injection but they were only going into the garden. Pepsi was more adventurous and was soon down the garden trying to stalk a chicken. He ran at a couple and surprisingly they ran. Whisper however wasn’t so brave and although he did make it to the chickens, it was only by much cajoling;  he’d take a step and miaow and had to be coaxed before he’d take another step then he’s miaow again. I lost count of how many times he made a bolt back to the house and sat peeping at us from the porch. One day at a time eh?

Oh well, as per normal I have lots to talk about but I’m tired and am going back to bed. I’m only tapping away on here at gone 1 in the morning because heartburn has gotten me out of bed again. My own fault for forgetting my lansoprazole today. Night all

Yet another battery chicken petition

Ok Easter is almost here which means that the chocolate companies are rubbing their chocolate fingers together!

But, how many of us thought of the battery hens when munching away at a creme egg? I suppose many of us thought of their welfare for our boiled eggs but creme eggs? Well I didn’t until now; it never occured to me that they contained real egg or that those eggs came from battery hens. The UK Battery Hen welfare trust have made me aware of this and started a campaign to ask cadbury’s to use free range eggs instead.

In a silly move (with the way the country is reacting to battery farming at the moment) cadbury’s have said that a creme egg aspires to have it’s gooey centre liberated. It ends it’s little “goo-ology” with “Viva freedom!” Yep, right phrase but wrong eggs…

Please add your signature here.

I don’t know why companies can’t use free range. McDonalds have again recieved an award for their use of free range and the promotion of such and Hellman’s have made the major decision to produce all of it’s UK products using free range eggs from February 2008. It’s just a shame it doesn’t make this an international decision.

When you take a look at the condition of the birds and how they are kept, it’s not a hard decision to make.