Garden photos

 Cherries! Almost fully grown, but there's no sign of them turning red yet. Must buy tree nets.

 Uh oh, an apple cordon that's growing at a 90 degree angle because all the fruit is forming at the top..

 The strawberries are mostly being protected from birds this year. These little beauties were hiding under the enviromesh :)

 Potato flowers

 Mini cucumbers! I really hope these are going to grow into fruits. They do look slightly bigger than they did two days ago..

 I have a new plan for the future chickens. I think the best option is a walk in run at the bottom of the garden (here, in place of the shrub and along the fence) with an Eglu coop inside it. I'm hoping to have this in place by my birthday (August 31st)!

 Blueberries!

Fattening plums

Well, I was wrong about the blueberries. The things that withered and died were the flowers. They've left hundreds of little green berries in their wake. Blueberry muffins are on the horizon after all! Hooray.

Our first strawberries are beginning to ripe, but typically something is eating them. Birds, I think. It's so frustrating. I always forget just how frustrating growing our own can be over the Winter, and each Spring I sow seeds and plant seedlings with 'oh it will be fine this year' thoughts and it never is! It is still fun overall, though. I think I'm at that annoying stage where I seem to have been growing things for ages and I'm getting very little fruits of labour. I'm sure things will pick up in another month or so.

We have rats in the garden. I've known about them for a few weeks but was using the 'ignore them and they'll go away/the cat will eat them' approach to pest control. The cats murdered 3 rats for me and then gave up. The little blighters are helping themselves to the guinea pig's food and have even gnawed a hole in the top of the compost bin and stolen anything that looks tasty. I've ordered some bait boxes and poison blocks. Otherwise I can just tell that we'll be in for a Summer of rats stealing all our vegetables.

And in other news, I think I've decided to get chickens! I'd like one of these for ease of cleaning:

It's an Eglu Classic. I REALLY like the look of the Cube but sadly I think it would take up too much space. I could keep 3 hens in the above, although I'd like them to be free range when I'm at home, so I'll need to protect my trees and veggies from them. I'm sooooo excited at the thought of having our own eggs. I think I'll be waiting until the end of August/beginning of September because we'll be away a few times over the Summer and I don't want to leave brand new hens behind. This will also give me a chance to save, something that I am not very good at when I have access to a credit card!

Bloody caterpillars

This is what they are doing to my apples. :(

Garden update

Things are coming on well. My greenhouse is full of seedlings..

The things on the floor are sweetcorn and beans, and they're threatening to take over the world. I think I may have to plant them out at the weekend and hope the temperatures stay as they are (or above!)

The fruit is growing very well, although the blueberries are all withering and dropping off the bush, so I think I need to plant a little friend for them.

Sunset apples

 Scrumptious apples

Strawberries

Not so baby plums

Alpine strawberries. These have done SO much better than I ever thought they would.










 And in other exciting garden news, we ate our first cabbage of the season yesterday, and it was so yummy that even the girls cleared their plates! The others aren't quite as 'solid' in the middle. I hope they'll fatten up soon because I need the space they're in for the epic corn.