Playing Catch-up Again

I’m not sure why but if I miss a day on the blog because I’ve not much to write, the next day seems to be overfull! So here goes. This first bit got missed out when I got distracted by the kitchen floor being under an inch of water.

I thought one of the cats had moved the mole that I’d found the other day but no, there were now 2 dead moles on the lawn. I can’t say I’m not unhappy about their departure, as a look at this picture of the lawn will explain why. Sadly it isn’t just this area but another couple as well, but there is no way I could put down one of those hideous mole traps that are in the garden centres or the smoke bombs that guarantee poisoned moles in 48 hours.

I’d also picked up one of these patio greenhouses when buying the potatoes on Monday. My house has small windows – keeps the cold out in winter and the heat out in summer – and no windowsills as the windows all open inwards. So nowhere to grow my seedlings until I get a poly tunnel sorted out. This can then move into the polytunnel as extra shelving. I won’t be putting the plastic cover on it until I need to. I learnt in the UK that tensioned cold plastic just disintegrates if you have a hailstorm and while the weather is OK at the moment I can remember back to last year when it was snowing and hailing.

The tree pickup was quite successful yesterday. I’m still 58 ash trees short and will be picking them up next week. I’ve now been told that sweet chestnuts don’t grow round here, but I’ve seen some in a wood close by, so am revising my planting plan to include Field Maple. If the chestnuts fail to establish then I’ll replace them in future plantings by the maples.

Today it was back up to the planting area to mark out a couple more rows and I spotted these fungi on the way. The first was in my neighbour’s wood and is about 15cm across.

The second lot are growing in the middle of the field on the rotting remains of the maize harvest from two years ago.

On the way back down I saw this wonderful mullien on the bank of one of the ditches. It’s at least 2.5 ft across if not a bit more so I’m expecting quite a flower spike on it this summer.

And last but not least I have to show you these. My first attempt at growing leeks. I should have earthed them up a bit more but the soil is a bit clayey and once the first rains started it wasn’t really possible (my excuse and I’m sticking to it). Leek and potato soup is on the menu for the week. So very many thanks are due to Sue and Jeanne who very kindly planted out my seedling leeks, along with many other things, back last spring.