A Walk Around the Garden

Okay, a quick tour around the vegetable patch as it is at the moment. We are moving the beds around, as all good crop rotators should and so the old potato patch from last year is gettin' beans!  I have set up the first stage of my A-frames for Runner Beans, French Beans and Peas.  The little soles in the forground of that patch are the first of some Broad Beans, they will be joined by some others that are still at the seedling stage.  Assuming that all the seeds germinate there will be 15 Broad Bean plants and twenty each of the two beans and the peas.  I have bunged some carrots in the end of this patch too.  Yep, bunged is the technical term!

Next up is the position of the new patch.  Farm Guy said 'shouldn't we make it one big patch rather than two smaller ones?'  I said, 'You're the one digging them...'  So we are getting one big patch.  The potatoes are going in here.  Are we running late for that? Oh Yes!

After some serious clearing I retook the Strawberry patch from the nettles, separated the million strawberries and got them in order. It now looks as so, the strawberries weren't happy about being ignored over the winter and have told me so by looking very dead and sulky but they seem to be picking up now. I was kind to some of the little 'uns and gave them their own Pop Bottle Greenhouses!

The big tyres that housed the beans and peas last year will this year welcome onions - in the one on the left - and 'salad-y stuff' - in the one on the right!  Salad-y stuff consists of Celery, Rocket and Beetroot, none of which I have ever tried before!

And new to the garden is Farm Baby's Apple Tree. This is just a little tree, it won't get higher than about five feet but it was bought as a celebration tree for Farm Baby and this way she'll always be able to reach the apples!!! LOL

The Chicken Coop Commences...

Well as you may remember, a loooooonnnnnggg time ago we purchased a chicken coop and placed in proud position just north of the vegetable patch!

Chicken Coop Arrival

Well it sat there for a year looking sorry for itself but finally it is bursting into life.  Farm Dad has been working on the pen that will go around the coop itself.  It is going to be large as the coop can hold up to 25 chickens, so we decided we may as well make the run big enough to do the same.  Even though we don't intend to get that many hens or have them enclosed in the run all the time, it was decided that it was better to be prepared for the maximum there is ever likely to be!  No point having to change it all somewhere down the line if we decide to go for more hens, all for the sake of some extra posts and wire!

I have also been giving it a nice coat of protective paint.  As with all paint it isn't quite the colour I was expecting but it is a nice cheery yellow-orange as you can see!  One more coat to go but the weather today put a halt to coop painting! Boooooo!

Meet the Weedlings plus Worst Blogger in World Award Goes To...

I cannot believe it has been SO long since I did a proper post!  I am sorry blogger fans I will try and be more consistent!

Life has been very busy here on the farm with the introduction of Farm Baby.  But she is finally becoming a good age for sitting in the garden and watching the goings on, the nicer weather is also helping that!

We are still without a greenhouse so the living room window shelf is making its return as the seedlings home.  They are of course going all leggy as window grown plants always do, even with turning and a harsh talking to!

But let me introduce the weedlings.  We currently have cabbage, brussels, celery, sweet peas, cornflowers, sweetcorn and beetroot.  The celery took some convincing to grow but it is finally doing something!

The tree like thing in the square pot is a Goji Berry tree that I got with a free offer on my gardening magazine!  So I thought why not, give it a go!

 

The front garden is being transformed into a haven for cutting flowers!  So what have I planted?  Ummm... nothing!  Well, not entirely true, there are some gladioli bulbs for later in the year and Farm Mum and Dad gave some daffodil bulbs as they have literally hundreds of daffies and were having a clear out!  The cornflowers are for the front garden if anything comes of them.  Also I bought some sweet pea seeds for a variety that is supposed to be 'perfect for cut flowers' so we will have to see!

I also tried lettuces.  Winter ones. I planted the seeds.  The container got water logged.  Nothing grew.  We added more drainage holes and tried again.  Nothing happened for weeks and weeks.  But look at them now!

Aren't they great!  Yeah, big and leafy!  Those lettuces... we umm... *cough* bought from the garden centre...

So we now have, something red, some Cos Lettuce and some Iceberg!

As I said above I decided that the front garden was to become the place for me to get my cut flowers, I love them in the house but don't like keep buying them.  However, I have been looking at the area and have decided to make use of it as extra vegetable and fruit growing space as well.  So, any veg (or fruit) that can convince me that it is 'pretty' is getting to go in the front garden too!  The Lavender plants have already made their move and hopefully they will manage to bulk out a bit more than they did in their pot.  I am just glad that they survived over winter at all!

And just to finish off... what on earth is happening here?

This hanging basket was dead last year, and I mean dead!  It would just dry out and there was no way of keeping it damp and the pansies just died so I gave up.  But look at it now!!  I swear it has just been hanging there over winter, I haven't watered it, I haven't added plants, I haven't even thought about it!!  Perhaps I should just fling all my seeds around randomly and leave them to it!  Everything seems to do better when I'm not involved!

Competition Time

Well not exactly a freebie but a shot at winning some seeds - which can't be bad!

http://landoffreebies.co.uk/competitions/win-garden-stuff/win-50-of-free-seeds

Win A Rhino
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