New Blog Address

The Family Blog
John has set me up a new blog. I will continue to add to this copy the posts from the new one to here for anybody who is still reading it. The new address is http://www.johnstevenson.co.uk/blog/ . Hope you still enjoy reading no matter which site your reading it from.

Short But Sweetcorn

Letting The Girls Out

Most mornings when I go to let the chickens out I never see anybody else, and some mornings, like yesterday it can take an hour to walk from one gate to the other after talking to everybody. John the secretary was waiting at the first gate for the container to be delivered to the retainer plot yesterday. We had a chat about having two classes from the Blurs school in to see the chickens and how the allotment should have better links with the school. Being my normal short morning visit I let the girls out and made to leave. I then bumped into chicken George who was planting flowers in a bed along his fence. I stopped to see how he was and said hello to the man with the fancy dog when he came by. Then nearing the second gate I saw Jeff from the school and finally found out what the containers stuck in the ground were for (show potatoes).

Preparing Sweetcorn Field

Last year we had 60 sweetcorn plants at the top of lotty with a path in between the two plots and called it sweetcorn alley. This year we have decided to plant even more sweetcorn as it lasted nowhere near as long as we wanted it to, and instead of sweetcorn alley it will be called sweetcorn field. having finished everything I needed to do at home I made my way back to lotty in the afternoon to carry on with the planting that we started on Saturday. Once again by the time id finished chatting I only had around twenty minutes left, so I got stuck straight into what I was doing. As soon as the greenhouse door was opened and id gone to the hut to find the seeds the chickens were straight in there. I tidied up the floor a few weeks ago, so I was quick to get the chickens out before they made a mess again. After going shopping on Sunday we now have plenty of compost an seed trays, so I could plant to my hearts content. Firstly I picked out all of our sweetcorn seeds and there were exactly enough seeds to fill three seed trays, totaling 120. It was getting a bit late by this point but I was determined to get a little more done and hastily popped in a few shallot seeds.

Not wanting to go back after picking up the Blur from school meant having to put the chickens away by myself. The Blur is usually a big help with this but on my own I have to prepare well. I take a slice of bread which lures the girls (and boy) down to the run, then while they're busy eating I go round to the front of the coop and lay three canes between the fence and ramp to form a small fence. I round the chickens up the other side of the coop and being slightly puzzled by the little fence they hop straight into the coop. This usually work fairly well, but yesterday the cockerel decided it wasnt going to stop him, so he hopped over taking two of the canes with him. Luckily this was still enough of a barrier and the girls went straight in. The cockerel wasnt too much of a problem as once he'd seen the girls were all in he hurried in there himself. Seeds planted, chickens put away and everything put away I made it to school right on time. I will be back there this afternoon as I still have a long list of seeds that need planting this month, and the sooner they're done the sooner we can eat good, free food again.

Lots Of Planting

A Bit of Shopping
After a bit of breakfast at McDonalds we popped into lotty quickly to let the girls out then headed off to the farm to get a few supplies for the chickens. This time we also had to pick up some chick crumbs as we have eleven eggs incubating at home and they'll be needing food when they (hopefully) hatch later this month. Back at lotty with everything put away I made a start on cleaning out the coop and took the first load of soiled straw up to where John was making a fire. It wasnt burning as well as we'd hoped so I had to wait a while before carrying on with it. The chickens had a bit of fun hopping in and out of the coop from the open side panel.

More Planting
Last weekend we planted three rows of potatoes, two of carrots and two of beetroot which felt good as I was worried we wouldnt be getting everything out soon enough. Having had a quick look at my monthly seed planting spreadsheet I found that so much of it was due to be planted this month. So while I was waiting to get the wheelbarrow back the Blur and I went into greenhouse one to decide what we would plant today. Seeing that there was a packet of cucumber seeds the Blur thought we should plant them first. We wanted to plant some sweetcorn but as we'll be needing around 100 we have to go and buy some seed trays too plant them in as we do not have enough individual pots, and it would take too much compost.
Having just bought a bale of straw the Blur put our blanket over it and made a comfortable little seat for us. While I filled the pots, watered and covered the seeds the Blur wrote the labels and put the seeds in each one. So we now have cucumbers, yellow courgettes, green courgettes, Italian and beefsteak tomatoes, pumpkins and peas all potted up in greenhouse one.

The Trouble With Chickens
Whilst the Blur and I were inside, John was outside preparing a bed for more strawberries. He came into the greenhouse a few times to get more plants and ended up with around 32. This done he went into the hut and returned to find the chickens scratching about on his strawberry bed. Not wanting them to get demolished by the chickens he made a cover using some canes and netting, but unsurprisingly Penny who can wriggle herself through almost any gap to get what she wants was in there like a shot. I bought a bag of onion sets this week so John took the planting of these as his next job. After digging over another patch he let the chickens have a little scratch around in it before planting. Once they'd moved along he raked it over only for Rita to start playing around on it again. It was nice to see the cockerel joining in with them this time though. John did manage to get the onions in though and we now have 50-60 planted along with the others that we have done from seed.

Some Little Jobs
As well as the planting there were a few other little jobs to be done. Firstly I gave the shed and food bin a bit of a tidy up as there were empty bread bags and food containers in there. I also raked up the straw by the compost bins as the girls had been kicking it about (I think making a mess with straw is one of their hobbies). John watered the seeds in greenhouse two and weeded around the broad beans which have shot up this week. We also had a game of piggy in the middle with the Blur. Having been stuck at home most of the winter she told me she was looking forward to being able to spend more time at lotty running around when its a bit warmer.

Never Ending Work
Having eggs incubating at home means we are going to need a new coop to accommodate them. We have a pallet which I can use to make the base and a few other parts and tomorrow hopefully we'll get the other wood I need to finish it. The new coop at home will also house the cockerel as and when needs be as he is not supposed to be living at lotty. We have a long shopping list of lotty items, one being chicken wire so I can extend the run upwards so the chickens cannot escape, and alot more compost if were to get everything we want planted. I have Karlas class and the other year five class coming to lotty to see the chickens next week so I need to have a bit of a tidy up and write down what im going to say to them.

Its been a lovely day, and the weather was pretty much on our side even if it could have been a few degrees warmer. Thank you John and Blur, I look forward to the fun were going to be having as summer draws closer.