July - in pictures - bantams, flowers and a bit of everything

My little Pekin, now almost fully grown

With her "hubby" Barrie and some of the new lads

Barrie

I thought it was meant to be my swing seat!

And her 3 eggs - she started laying on 31st July. Compared to a normal bantam egg (top right) and small chicken egg, they are tiny!

 

 

A riot of colour

RSPB Reserve at Snettisham

Low flying geese

Rough seas at Salthouse, Norfolk.

I'm still waiting for the luck to kick in......

Pots by the back door

And finally my little stall.

 

June in pictures

The first sweet pea of the year

I love the colours of these ones

My flower bed is filling up

My summer pumpkins are growing well

Morning glory, first time I've grown them

Fox and Cubs - yes I know its a weed, but its also a wildflower and it adds colour to the lawn

I need a bigger greenhouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

The "teenage gang" run around outside now

First spot of rain and the "gang" ran into the lobby.  As we had such a dry spring they hadn't seen rain before!

And finally - our first "chicks" now almost fully grown and lovely looking birds

Lunch, chickens, flowers and weeds.....

Finally I've got round to updating my blog.  I seem to spend every waking hour when I'm not at work in the garden.  My fault - I plant everything in pots or trays and then of course they need transplanting!  My greenhouse is not big enough, windowsills are still covered in trays and propagators....

The first cucumber of the year

I've given over one of my vegetable beds to flowers for the first time and I keep squeezing more plants in.  Hopefully once it all starts to grow a bit, it should be a mass of colour right through to the autumn - well thats the plan, lets see what happens.

The beginnings of a flower bed

I need a bigger greenhouse

The first lot of chicks, the marans are growing well and now live outside, and my "little chick", now know as "Lit-lun" is still as friendly as ever.  As soon as I pick her up she goes straight onto my shoulder.  No accidents so far!  She is with some of the younger birds and loves being outside.

Who needs a parrot!

Enjoying the fresh air

I've just read that I'm an "old school friend" - old..... sulk.  Through Facebook I got back in contact with a few of the people I was at school with and yesterday I had lunch with one of the most talented crafty people I have met in a long time.  I love her blog. http://nicksartystuff.blogspot.com/ Last week another of our "school mates" was over from New Zealand so I met him for lunch too.  Strange how you don't see somebody for many.... far too many years... since leaving school and they haven't changed a bit!

I titled this post "lunch, chickens, flowers and weeds" - well now for the weeds.  I have a back garden full of wild flowers - weeds to most people, which I love.  We don't cut the grass at this time of the year as it looks so pretty.  I have identified my favourite as "Fox and Cubs", part of the Hawkweed family, and in fact I managed to grow some from saved seed.  Another cute flower has intrigued me so finally I managed to trace it on the internet.... Common Vetch... oh.... and its poisonous.  And I thought it was rare!  Still more "wild flower/weeds" to identify...

                                      

They are far too pretty to be just weeds

                                           

Happy Easter..... Chicks

 

The eldest chicks are now 6 weeks old and yesterday they had their first taste of "outside".  We are having unseasonably warm weather, low 70's, and in their covered outdoor run they loved it.

We are waiting for Thursday when the next batch of chicks is due to hatch, all bantams.  I can't wait!

Our lemon millefleur sablepoots are settling in well, and now we have moved the Light Sussex Bantam family in - what an impressive sight they are.  The cockerel is very protective to his ladies and if we give them any treats he makes sure that everyone gets some by calling them over and not eating anything himself till they have all had some.  They are laying well too, not necessarily in the nest boxes - any dip in the ground under the trees is fine as far as they are concerned which involves a daily egg hunt.

My little Pekin bantam I helped hatch is growing well and is as friendly as ever.

I've been pricking out tomatoes and other seedling non-stop.  I've decided to put one of my vegetable beds over to flowers this year for both cut flowers and for collecting my own seed.  At least it should be colourful.

Courgettes and pumpkins are going in today, having bagged up about 15 sacks of mixed ostrich, reindeer and alpaca "manure" at the weekend - hopefully they will grow to record size!

A new venture - hatching chicks in an incubator

As I've got more time at home now that I no longer work at the Garden Centre, we have decided to finally start something we have been talking about for a while.

We have got a couple of incubators, bought some fertilized (hopefully!!) eggs and are now on day 4 out of the 21 days till they hatch.  We can't wait!  The garage has been partioned to make a special "chicken" area, and we are buying some new coups for them.  We want to eventually breed rarer chickens ourselves and sell them as either point of lay or as fertilized eggs.

At the moment we have Pekin Bantums and Marams in the incubator.  I love the really dark brown Maram eggs and look forward to rearing some hens.  Lets hope they are not all boys!

I've also been busy planting seeds and so far have a couple of trays of sweetpeas, broad beans, parsley chives.  My early peas went in the propagator yesterday with some french beans.  I love this time of year

Knitting and a bit of this and a bit of that....

How can it already be the third week of January?  This month has flown by so far.  So much to do in the garden but I am waiting for the weather to warm up/dry out a bit!  I am still picking sprouts and carrots which survived the arctic blast a few weeks ago but can't wait to get started with this year's planting.  My potatoes are in egg boxes "chitting".

Neil has been busy making bird boxes - they look very professional and hopefully we will get some birds using them this spring.

My hyacinth bulbs have now come into flower, a sure sign that we are heading towards spring.  They were meant to be planted outside and I was late buying them so I thought I would try them in water and they have grown really quickly whereas my bulb designed to be grown in water is still only a shoot!

Even the chicken run from the old house has had a revamp and is now going to be the summer residence for the rabbits.  They are rapidly outgrowing their existing hutch and this will give them much more room when they can't run loose in the garden. 

 

I've been knitting hearts over the past few months.  A few I have given away as presents but have now made some more ready for Valentines Day.

The small newsagents shop where I work has agreed to let me try and sell them.  Fingers crossed.  

I've also been knitting lots of fingerless mittens and am now working on some fluffy chicks.  Small projects seem to suit me better as I no longer have the patience for knitting garments.

I'm still trying to learn to crochet but its coming on very slowly - its much easier working with two needles rather than a hook!













 

Getting there...

Over the weekend it was decided that if we didn't get the house painted outside then we would probably not be able to do it before the winter.... and the thought of another 6 months of the outside looking shabby was enough.

I didn't do any painting though I did seem to spend a lot of time holding the ladder.....





The chickens had the run of the entire back garden (though not my vegetable garden..) and they loved it, especially when they discovered the bird seed I had previously scattered around the bird table.


I had a good clear out of plants in the garden, the courgettes and outdoor tomatoes are finished and so my compost bins are full.  I've picked the first sprouts though they really need a frost.  And I dug up the last of the potatoes, leaving some which had already sprouted.  Hopefully I will get another flush of potatoes during the winter.

The front of the house has now been stoned and we need to choose a "feature tree" to go in the remaining grass area.  I have my eye on a couple, just need to decide.  My favourite at the moment is the Cornus Contoversa Variegata.  Think one would look just right and give a good colour contrast with the existing laurel hedges.

It also needs a few pots full of plants to soften the area, its like a huge car park at the moment!  And poor Michael has trouble getting his moped through the stones - they will flatten in time.

Its starting to look like a kitchen! At last.

At the weekend we started putting the new kitchen units together, and finally my new Rangemaster cooker could be moved into the kitchen.

Trouble is, its rather large, very heavy, and proved to be wider than the doorframe!

After taking off most of the packaging we finally got it into its new position.

I've always wanted a "range cooker", and can't wait to be able to use it once its all connected up.

The electrician comes back today to put in all the plug sockets and light switches, plumber comes next week to sort out the radiators and boiler, so we are getting there!

And finally, back in the spring when the weeping willow tree was given its brutal haircut, I was convinced it would never look good again, but I was proved wrong.  Its looking wonderful, and I can see that it would be a good idea to put a bench underneath the tree, an ideal spot for reading.