Early morning mowing saw a coal tit in the lane hedge, yesterday a blue tit in the hazel. Also a butterfly yesterday reddish brown with eyes on the wings - Peacock. Today three smaller brown butterflies dancing in the air together - moving to quickly to get a good look.
Weeded in veg beds and around ziggerat, nothing showing yet.
Thunder and then rain so in tunnel listening to the rain sound amplified by he polythene drum and bird song in the trees by the stream.
Planted second batch of tomato and aubergine seed, cucumbers (both ridge MarketMore and long Telegraph).
Celeraiac is showing in the seed tray - tiny tiny plants for a big root to come. 3 melba melons up and 2 of the Aurua (F1) and two out of 3 hurricane squash.
First batch of toms don't seem to be thriving.
Old Greengage and Dittisham Ploughman plums have blossom. Both apricots have leaf. Honeyberry flowers starting to show and saw some bees there - bumble and one small black bee like I used to have.
Today I tackled the Loganberries. Cut out dead canes, tied in the loose ones and trimmed some down, weeded around the bases - I seem to have two main clumps - did I originally plant 2? - plus some self rooted extensions at the east. I cut and dug out a couple of extension roots and put them on the extra bit of wire down from the corner - suspect they might not take as they only rooted last year and not very much - the ones that are growing well seem to take off in the second year having spent the first year attached to the parent.
Today, Eilidh's birthday, I managed to get back over here to do some work including planting onion sets - a row of red and a row of white with 22 in each, shallots - not quite enough to do a row, so 18 of them plus a couple more red and a couple more white sets in the row. All on 6" spacing with 12" between rows.
Today I attacked docks and marsh grass with the ditch blade. Found a very wet patch down near river in NW so dug a hole 2 spade blades deep about 5m in from fence and it promptly filled with water. Clay at the bottom so could be a possible site for a pond. Dug out a bit more to see what happens.
Just planted in seed tray in the tunnel Nasturtium, Melon, Ridge Cucumber and Aubergine.
I have started reading Oliver Rackham's magnum opus "Woodlands". Published in 2006 it was his last work - he died in 2015 - and is a summation of a lifetime acquisition of knowledge about trees and woods.
His "History of the Countryside" was fascinating and this one seems very readable as well.
Another dusting of snow over the weekend - quickly gone here on Monday (it was only a dusting) but still visible on the distant hills of Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor today.
Dug over more of the veg patch and cleared some left over piles of grass clippings from a day's mowing last week.
Planted in seed trays/small pots Celeriac, Savoy Cabbage, Italian Courgette, Bush Courgette, Butternut Squash, Galia Melon and Winter Squash.
Dug out a possible flower bed around the sundial and put in a couple of sprouting tubers from No4 garden (possibly lilac - long pointed leaves). Also planted half way between to two Red Cedars a fir seedling found in garden - presumably from the fir trees on the corner of the factory entrance in Dutson Road.
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