Gardening has been on the back burner of late, what with the weather and my increasing workload, but in between rain showers I grabbed
the opportunity to get to the allotment and harvest a few bits and bobs. The garlic had succumbed to rust and
the leaves had yellowed sufficiently to warrant me digging them up.
This was the first year that I had
grown garlic en mass and despite a rather wet and cool season, not always
conducive to good growing on clay at the bottom of a slope, the garlic had faired
pretty well. The Elephant garlic given too me
by a fellow plot holder seems to have faired best, producing the most amazing
big bulbs, which I can’t wait to bake and eat with Camembert and sourdough bread. This particular garlic has been grown at the allotment for many years and as such it's likely to be optimised for the site. ‘German Red’ also appears to have
enjoyed the growing season, producing consistently large bulbs that are rather
pokey!I must remember not to eat
a large amount of raw, freshly picked garlic in future as large nibble resulted
in agonising heartburn and streaming eys.
The
others: ‘Albigensian Wight’, ‘Lautrec Wight’, ‘Picardy Wight’, ‘Solent Wight’, ‘Chesnok
Wight’, and a Purple Heritage variety all differed in size and had generally
mixed results but I'm putting this down to the weather.
Cleaning the chicken runs was also high on the agenda, after all it was starting to look
like the chicken equivalent of a muddy Glastonbury, minus the middle classes, experimental drugs and the rock stars, or is that rap stars nowadays? Of course, my girls don't go in for that sort of behaviour, preferring to beautify themselves, bitch and lay the most gorgeous eggs. It’s pretty hard
to gauge appreciation from a chicken at the best of times but I’m almost certain they were chuffed
with their new deep layer of chip and the goodies hiding therein.
Food appears
to be modus operandi with this bunch and after a quick scout around the
Gooseberries I found quite a few tasty morsels for them in the shape of our beautiful
friends – the now defunct Gooseberry Sawfly larvae.As dependable in their arrival as they are for their taste,
apparently. Every year these gorgeous little beasts rip through the Gooseberry foliage like there's no tomorrow but they cause little damage if caught early enough. I just choose to recycle them and make eggs.
Chick had her (I'm being optimistic) first ever taste of this seasonal delicacy and appeared to enjoy. She's is now mingling with the big
girls, as you can see from the above image, but she still requires some protection from Sophia (step-mum) as lead bully McGee, also pictured above, is not averse to the odd passing peck. She doesn't appear phased by this, however, and is a very bold little
thing. A few more weeks living in
her separate coop and then I’ll consider popping her in with her aunts permanently.
Don't forget that you can still enter to win £50 of gardening vouchers and buy yourself a little something, after all you deserve it!
