Quack!

I'd like to share these lovely photos that Katie and I took yesterday of the ducks that live across the road from home.

There's been four sets of ducklings born so far this year although sadly one set didn't really make it past a few days. The second lot are more-or-less adult sized now and very, very cute. You can tell them from the adults by their yellow legs (adults have orange).


2 days old

This new lot of ducklings arrived two days ago and belong to a calling duck we named "Mental". We named her this when we first moved into the house as she makes an awful lot of noise (as calling ducks do) and has serious "mental" moments chasing other ducks around quacking at them furiously and often crash landing when she flies around the place! She's not a particularly good mum either and often abandons her little ones when there's a potential bread snack around or when she decides to have one of her "moments". Hopefully these ones will do better than the last lot.

"Mental"

There are plenty of "Mental" style ducks in with the pack, but somehow we can always distinguish the real "Mental"!

Veggie update - lots of progress

Tomatoes (indoor) and Chilli plants are beginning to flower. I'm amazed at how much taller the tomato plants are indoors compared to the two planted outside, even though the weather has been glorious lately.

We also have the distinctive mauve flowers on our self-seeded potatoes which have taken over the onion plot so much now that I have to part the leaves in order to find the onions. The potatoes grown in the black bags from The Potato Council are still flourishing although I've had to water them up to three times a day during the hot weather and there aren't any flowers on them yet.


The onions are looking fine, but small. I didn't have much hope for them from the start as they'd taken so long to get going, but they should be OK. Small is beautiful (and flavoursome).


My pride and joy is the peas. I'm so glad I decided to plant them and have actually sown more (having watched the River Cottage program recently where he liberally sowed peas rather than carefully spacing the seeds out like I'd done). I read somewhere that eating the peas once the pod has been popped is one of the biggest pleasures of home grown foods - so right. I think doing this is higher up the enjoyment stakes than digging up potatoes. I wasn't sure when to actually harvest the peas and didn't want to pick them too soon or too late. Having Googled Kelvedon Peas I read that it's best to harvest them sooner rather than later as the peas are much sweeter. This seems to be true in my opinion. I discoverd some very fat pea pods and found the goods rather bitter compared to pods that are plump but not bursting.



I've also plucked up the courage to try growing sweetcorn again - hopefully I'll do better than last year. The reason I've found some spare space in the veggie plot is because the little cabbages I grew went to seed and then promptly got eaten by the chickens! Nevermind, I'd rather have sweetcorn than cabbages.

Not such good progress - cabbage

OK, so I did this as an experiment and you never know, it may end up OK in the end!

The cabbage I planted out were mini offspring from a shop bought white cabbage that had started to sprout. One of the five that I'd planted outside had started to flower so I can only guess it's gone to seed. We shall see what happens with the other four.

Progress - inside

The seedlings for the purple sprouting broccoli are slowly growing, but I think they are more-or-less reading for planting on outside.


Lovely tomatoes. Have planted on four strong seedlings (and two more outside). They'd grown so quickly in their baby pots I couldn't let them wait any longer for their permanent home, which, like last year, is in the conservatory kitchen taking up one end of our work surface. Hope the return will be as good as in previous years.


I have three strong chilli plants in good size pots lining the windowsill. No sign of greenfly just yet! Need to read up about picking off certain leaves to make it a bushier and healthier plant.

Progress ... outside

The beans have been added to now so there's three different variety of beans in there. One lot are dwarf from last year's supply and the other two varieties are from a friend so not sure what they are! I grew quite a few seeds indoors which turned out to be the perfect amount in the end as I had to replace a couple that had been completely destroyed by something or other - most probably the hens. This is why the "keep out" netting is back around them. Although I've just finished planting these out, the second lot are exactly the same size as the first lot. Hope they liven up soon - perhaps the ground is a little too cold for them. At the end of the row I've put in a couple of tomato plants as they were surplus and I didn't have the heart to get rid of them!


Planted out two pumpkins which had started off indoors. Had to replace one of them as it was looking pretty dodgey. Luckily I had a healthy spare still on the windowsill. Both have grown quite well since the wetter weather. These are planted in a thrown together raised bed with last year's compost, which I've read they love. Their leaves are going a bit yellow (I've noticed this with the first lot of beans too) - will watch what happens.


Look at these pots and plastic bags of potatoes - all doing fabulously - just need some flowers now. Wonder if they'll be white or purple.


Peas are gradually climbing, they are now up to their fourth line of supporting string. Getting lovely white flowers now too.


Garlic is looking good and strong and the spring onions, sown between the rows of garlic and also in their own section, are beginning to look more settled in their new positions.

Easter cactus and lots of yellow

Katie's Easter Cactus flowered a week after Easter; it looks fabulous opening up during the day and closing at night.



The scent from the Wallflowers is fabulous. They are planted under the conservatory windows so the perfume wafts in when the windows are open.


Katie bought these mini tulips last year as an "end of range" so we didn't really know what they'd look like. When they came out a week or so ago they were a real surprise with their feathery edges and beautiful sunny colour.


A simple Dandelion nestled in a pot of other goodies. We have loads of them all over the garden and although they are looked on as weeds they are actually very pretty and also handy for my rabbit who adores the leaves (in small quantities).


Our Primulas have been wonderful this year. We got quite a few from a friend who gave Katie some unwanted hanging baskets with rather sad looking Primulas already planted in them. I took them all out and just left them with all their soil around them and then planted them up about a month or so ago. I'm really pleased I didn't just bin them, they have brightened up the garden big time.


Cheating abit here as the Violas are not quite all yellow. They look lovely under the trees and have self-seeded since last year so we have double the amount.

Potatoes

The potatoes which we received from the Potato Council are growing well. The photo was taken a week ago and the plants have all grown quite a lot since then. I needed to add more compost to the bags today.