I am knackered. My sleep is going haywire and it’s been taking it’s toll on me.

And this post is a bit of a show and tell!

Yesterday though, I actually *finally* managed to get down to the allotment. Thankfully Mum had been down two or three times since my last visit, and it wasn’t in too bad shape. I weeded around the onions (because as all onion growers know, it’s vital to keep them weed free), hoed between the potatoes and started reeling in the blankets of chickweed that were threatening military dictatorship of my plot.

I was met by another nice surprise - we have a raised asparagus plot on our allotment. We snapped a bit off but it was tough as old boots and some stalks had already gone to seed, but nice to know for future reference. I already have a tonne of asparagus growing here at the Smallest Smallholding in the flower borders, but I let it go to seed because it’s so striking. Speaking of going to seed, the rhubarb had grown about 3ft since I last saw it, and was starting to flower. I pulled out the biggest leaves from the base in the vague hope that I’ll still be able to harvest some of the more tender rhubarb in the coming weeks…

All is going ok here. I’m still horribly behind with my sowing - sweet peas are so late now that they’re going to have to be sowed directly and I’ll hope for the best. I’ve saved some old squash bottles and cut them in half to make mini cloches, to try and protect the growing sweet peas from the clutches of enquiring hen beaks. The broad beans are coming along nicely though, despite also being about three months late. Cabbages - Primo and Kilaxy - are both coming along nice and despite being left outside in their seed modules have evaded the beady eyes of the woodpigeons.

My super duper early Tendersnax carrots are actually coming along quite nicely in the pots. I’ve been pricking them out two or three times a week, but I’m still sure I’ll only end up with enough carrots for about 2 meals. My directly sown early Nantes (I think? Still yet to put in labels) carrots are pushing through. They’ll be a bit of an experiment this year as I haven’t put ANYTHING of nutritional value into the soil yet. I might try and feed them as I go along…bit cobbled together but that’s just the way I seem to work at the moment. The tomatoes are going great guns in the conservatory, aubergines are coming along VERY nicely, and my other mystery seed trays are doing ok. The lavender and rosemary cuttings have been a bit of a disaster though, I think I neglected to water them enough and now I only have one surviving specimen of each.

The rabbits - or The BunBuns as they will be know as from hereonin - are getting through a bag of curly kale every day. So I think it’s time that I hunted down a packet of seeds and started to try and opt for the cheaper option of growing my own. Thing is, it probably won’t be ready until late autumn/winter. Oh well. There’s always next year. Trouble is, I am starting to run out of space, so I’m going to have to dig out yet another veg plot here. I haven’t even got around to finishing digging the other one yet. Hence why no parsnips or sweetcorn in the ground. Oh heck - HELLLLLLLLLLLLLP! My uncle has a turf spade which may help my plight, but it’s the digging out of the rubble (I still shake my fists at the builder that thought it was a good idea to bury it) that takes an age.

So on the agenda for next week (and yes, it’s late, I’m working at Lucy speed):

• Finally sow sweet peas direct (wildlife magnets)
• Sow sweetcorn in trays
• Sow butternut squashes (might try grow bags even though I intensely dislike them)
• Think about growing parsnips (and actually sow if have space)
• Get the last of the blasted potatoes in at SS (and enjoy very late crops of early and maincrop potatoes)
• Put in a few remaining onion sets (my version of successive sowing/growing)
• Get down the allotment and Weed for Britain

I think I need a new motto - “Better Late Than Never”

More pissy weather this week then. Hasn’t exactly been conducive to a lot of work. I haven’t been near the allotment for ages and I fear that Mr Mole has wreaked havoc with my onion sets and potatoes. Oh well, I never was really that bothered about planting in straight lines.

Urgh, the chicken saga continues. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m actually spinning around on some level of Dante’s spiral of Hell and damnation when it comes to grappling with sick hens. Oh of course, I’m being melodramatic. They seem ‘ok’ today - Yoko is in better spirits, having had a really good day on Monday, and then a couple of crap days. I think the breakthrough in sunshine today is helping. She has one or two days of baytril left, then we have to assess. She could be going in for a bit of a risky procedure to try and drain off some of the egg yolk in her abdomen.

Pattie laid a tiny ‘wind egg’ (a bit of egg white, aka albumen, no yolk laid in a shell about the size of a large grape) three days ago and hasn’t laid since. Apparently wind eggs (also known as cock eggs, since people once thought cockerels laid them, and fart eggs - can’t answer that one) are fairly common. But the problem is that Pattie hasn’t laid since. I have read that it can be something to do with coming to the end of a ’strain’ of eggs, and that it may take them a few days to get going again. But Pattie refuses to perch at night. Before Yoko comes in, she makes a beeline for the nest box, intending to settle down for the night. Cue the big bad Yoko who, thanks to her sterile EYP, needs the nestbox, Pattie is pushed out. At the moment Pattie is refusing to perch, which is worrying.

More worrying!

I had the rabbits out and about the other day. The hens were not too pleased, as they spied the rabbits charging about. Yoko assumed a rugby-type stance before pecking Smudge on the head for getting too close (I think Smudge was just coming up to investigate), and when Smudge did an about-turn and charged off, she was met by Maureen and Pattie. Pattie flapped her wings and both she and Maureen jumped on the poor wabbit. Chickens are so vicious sometimes. There’s no way I’d leave them out there unsupervised together. Smudge was fine though, I think she was just having fun running around under the hedges. She and Snoopy were doing lots of investigating.

I also brought them in last night to meet two of my cats. The other two live upstairs, they’ve sort of paired off and have their own private routes in and out of the house. Tortoise and Tom, the downstairs cats, weren’t too sure about bunnies charging around the living room. Tortoise is a moody mare sometimes, and she got in a right huff and grumbled as she waltzed off to the kitchen. I swear she was pouting. Tom is a lovely scallywag, totally in awe of Tortoise, sometimes nothing else in the world matters. He can be a bit dim and scatty, and didn’t seem bothered by the rabbits. Not even when Snoop worked out a route up onto the back of the sofa. Eventually they all settled down together, and by 11pm everyone was crashed out in the living room.

Right. Enough about animals.

SEEDS.

It’s going well!

My early Snowball Turnips have come up trumps - they’ve germinated really quickly under the fleece tunnel, so I’ll be pricking them out very shortly. Aubergines are going really well, although a couple withered and died in the seed tray. Peppers popped their heads out of the soil a few days ago, and the tomatoes are going great guns.

My rosemary and lavender cuttings are also establishing themselves, although the rosemary seems to be doing much better. I might try and take larger cuttings of the lavender, and give it another try. i sowed trays of Cosmos too. Last year the flowers lasted right into November, when the bees were still out. They are fantastic for colour, height and most importantly, attracting and providing food for bees. The bees and butterflies could not get enough of them last year. I thoroughly recommend them. Try growing them in seed modules, transplanting to large plots (about 2 or 3 per pot). Wait until they’re fairly well established and quite meaty in the stems, and then plant them out. I did this last year and they were poker straight, strong and lasted for months.

The Tendersnax carrots are doing well in the pots, but my seed scattering skills are not exactly desirable. I sowed most of them in a big cluster in the middle. I think by the time I’ve pricked them all out, I’ll have about 5 carrots per pot. Not exactly a veritable success. I’m still undecided about growing carrots in pots. I don’t think I would recommend it, unless the pot is massive, and unlike me, you are actually able to sow thinly.I suppose you could just harvest tender baby carrots instead. I might try that.

Garlic and super early onions are doing ok too, although the super early onion sets were put in late, so should really be described as fashionably late.

Oh, and I have still neglected to label anything I have sown. I’m too lazy to find a pencil or a waterproof pen. So I am relying on my somewhat currently patchy memory to recall what is what and where.

Well it wouldn’t be a typical week at the Smallest Smallholding without a poorly hen and some baytril thrown in.

Yoko has developed a respiratory infection, something she’s prone to because of her egg yolk peritonitis condition. She has a small amount of fluid in her air sacs anyway, but the amount of fluid has increased and she’s sneezing and coughing quite a bit. We noticed this a couple of days ago, but typically it was a weekend. We rang yesterday and got her in to see our vet today - so she’s getting 1.2ml oral baytril once a day, administered in a few juicy grapes that she gobbles up. She’s also having a diuretic to try and get rid of the excess fluid. She seems ok in herself - out and about, doing chickeny things and eating well, so fingers crossed she’ll get over it. She’s actually improved since yesterday, which is a positive sign at the moment. If the antibiotics don’t nail the infection (apparently baytril is one of the fastest acting antibiotics), then they’ll try a paediatric-like nebuliser to ‘mist’ her with.

So yes, more vet bills. I did say ‘cautiously optimistic’ didn’t I?

Today however has been quite productive. Last night we spent the evening burning all the bindweed, sticks pulled out of the old compost heap, and stuff that’s too big to go through the chipper, and today I was fired up for more. After the rain had been and gone, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. After a short stroll around the place, I found myself out there in my pyjamas, working away. I have a tendency to start picking at something and then get really involved. Rich requested that I actually get properly dressed (I was stood at the gate talking to him in the kitchen, neighbour walked past and inwardly marvelled at my rain mac, pink cat pyjama bottoms and wellie-shoe combo), so I did. Sort of. A quick change into trackie bottoms and a vest top - yes, it was that warm. I did a bit of a Charlie Dimmock though. And I wouldn’t recommend it.

Anyhow, I digress.

A few months ago we salvaged some bricks that were going to landfill. They were rescued from our local lower school, where they formed the well-trodden path of many a child, including me. It seemed mad that they were going to the tip - they were in tip top condition. I’d already laid some as a path inside the greenhouse, and as a small paved area just outside it to put pots on. I had quite a few left over, and I’ve been using them to outline the new larger veg plot. Thing is, I’ve got halfway round and realised that I haven’t got enough to do the whole job. POO BUM! I’ll have to subsitute with some of my (different coloured/shaped) freecycle bricks. It’ll look crude (rustic, in my language), but it’ll do it’s job.

Anyway got a few canes up, planted out the 4 broadbeans I’ll trialed in the pots (done very well, thanks) and put in enough for a small crop around the rest of the canes. At least this way I’ll have a longer spell of cropping, having staggered their planting. Although, if I was really clever, I’d have put all the remainder beans in at more intervals. Now I’ll have a few followed by a glut. That’s if Mr Mouse,or Miss Hen, or a naughty little kitty cat doesn’t get to them first! It’s my first year growing beans, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Also sowed in two small rows of early turnips by the beans, simply because I couldn’t work out where else to put them. They should really have gone in a lot earlier to make the most of their early-ness. But I like to fly by the seat of my pants (ahem) and live life on the edge. They need to be kept moist to prevent woody flesh, so I hope this year I pull my socks up where the watering is concerned. Would help if I could rig up a couple of extra waterbutts, but unfortunately personal finances don’t allow this. And waterbutts on Freecycle are like gold dust.

Finally, as dusk descended and the light faded tonight, I forked the ground around the growing onions. The soil is so sandy that it develops a sort of ‘crust’ that isn’t particularly permeable for rain. So I gave it a good turn, taking care not to disturb the onions or their roots.

A better day than I had anticipated.

Hurrah!

But I’m not quite sure what they are.

I think I know which ones are the Peppers, but not sure about the others. Aubergines? California Bell Peppers maybe? The labels blew away you see… that’ll teach me for taking shortcuts!

Ah well, makes it all that bit more interesting I suppose!!!! Also, in light of me being a typically moody woman (girl? woman? young lady?), and Rich being a bit lax with his vocabulary, I’ve re-introduced the Swear Jar. You have to pay £1 everytime you swear. Bloody and crap are allowed though. It’s just a way to get us to be more polite and expand our vocab a bit more - e.g. “get out of my way, you pugnacious, truculent puny hedge-born malcontent!”.

But let’s face it, seeing as it’s my invention, Rich is the only one that’s going to end up paying. Last year I think I made about £11, which was probably spent on cat food or chocolate. Or possibly crisps too. Sorry Rich, I’m a rubbish girlfriend sometimes.