A bit behind, some odds and sods

Once again, I've failed to blog for a while. I haven't really had any inspiration to blog, as I haven't done much of anything. I've been feeling really down over the last few weeks, maybe it's a bit of S.A.D, but the days are getting longer, so I should be cheering up now, not getting gloomier. (I can't type that word without a picture of Eeyore popping into my head, everyone likes a manic depressive donkey right?)

Anyway, there was a highlight last week, when I came downstairs and opened the front curtains to see a sparrowhawk sat in the front garden eating the remains of a blackbird. 

The overwhelming response I got when I've shown people the photos I took was "poor blackbird" but I thought the sparrowhawk was beautiful, and it's the first time I've seen one so close. It just sat there under my front wall while people were strolling past on the pavement, probably wondering why there was a crazy women in a dressing gown clutching a camera... It finally flew off with the rest of it's breakfast when a noisy Argos van pulled up and spooked it, haven't seen it since. 

I've also tried out a recipe I found on this blog for beer bread. I don't actually like beer, I was mostly just curious to see what it was like. It seemed to turn out ok from the recipe:

It tasted really sweet while you chewed it, and left a beer aftertaste when you swallowed. Quite strange. I decided I definitely don't like beer though, so I don't think I'll be making that one again.

Lastly an update on the plants. The broad beans are now out in the greenhouse and doing ok, despite being quite leggy. I'm going to start off the remainder of that packet sometime in the next week and see how they go. The tomatoes however are not doing so well, they're in the porch as it's cooler than the rest of the house and I don't think they'd survive in the greenhouse yet (6 panes of glass missing). After the first re-potting about half of them just died. I may have to buy baby tom plants later in the year, depending on how the rest survive... I also need to go through the seed packets again and start some more things off, the peas may be ok to plant now for a start.

I'll try to get back to some kind of productivity anyway, wish me luck.

Baby plants

Well I'm a bit behind on blogging, haven't had the chance to do much at all over the last few days as I've been ill for a week and a half. I've had one of those 24 hours sickness bugs but at the same time caught a chest infection and the combination has had me in bed for about 3 days straight, and then useless for the rest of the time.  *sigh*

Anyway, I can give you an update on the seeds I planted, that were featured in the previous post. They started showing signs of life a week ago, and have now fully exploded.

 

  

 

The potatoes on the other hand, don't look a whole lot different to me at the moment, but they won't be planted out for a while yet, especially as we keep having snow!

First seeds are in

Today I've planted my first seeds of the year into a windowsill propagator (£1.99 in B&M's bargain!). I braved the cold long enough to retrieve the seed compost from the broken greenhouse outside, but where I actually did today's sowing was the living room floor in front of the fire! I used newspaper to protect the carpet:

 

In the black plastic seedling trays in the right of the propagator are my three tomato varieties, Money Maker, Golden Nugget, and Gardner's Delight. Those were the last of the tomato seeds from last year, so I hope they're still alive. In the left side of the propagator I've stood toilet roll tubes with the bottoms folded to hold the compost, they've each got one broad bean planted in them. I prefer to start things like peas and beans in the card tubes, I find it easier to plant them out when they've grown with less disturbance that way.

 

I've also had 3 egg boxes (6 halves) full of seed potatoes sitting about to chit for the last couple of weeks. I decided to buy the variety Maris Piper, as it's the kind I buy from the supermarkets. It's a good all rounder, and I hate new potatoes so I'm not planting any. 

 

 

 

I can't plant anything else now until I've sorted out the greenhouse and found my other propagator and seedling pots, they're in there somewhere!

 

New project, rabbit hutch to chicken coop

I love Freegle (formerly Freecycle). I always keep an eye on it because you never know what people are going to give away. This morning I've been and collected a double rabbit hutch, which is missing the middle floor. So if you wanted to keep rabbits in it it would need fixing, but I want to keep chickens in it, so the floor would have had to go anyway I think.

Here's the hutch, with my dog posing next to it:

 

I hope it's big enough for 3 small breed chickens. If not I'll have to go back to the drawing board, or look at  keeping something like quail instead....

Anyway, the hutch is now sitting in the garage waiting for the weather to warm up enough to work outside, and I have more research to do.....