Garden Update April

 

Decided to start my garden diary early this year. As you can see the vegetable garden is not looking too bad. Although you can't really tell from this photo we have planted two sorts of potatoes, and some onion sets, and carrot, parsnip and beetroot seeds. Our black plastic covers have worked a treat, and I think it may be worth getting a few more next winter. I have high hopes for this year, because of the extra fertilisation from the chicken poops. 

We lost one chicken over the winter, in a rather mysterious way. We heard a kerfuffle in the afternoon, and the chickens had jumped the garden fence, and although right very to the house Nugget was gone. Babs had jumped up on the fence and was making the noise. No sign of even a feather, but we suspect either a fox or maybe a stoat. So the chickens are leading a slightly more confined life in a bigger run, with only supervised outings in the garden.

The strawberry bed had almost disappeared in weeds, but a bit of work and they have reemerged. I was really pleased to have got a lot of new strawberry plants from runners, which are planted in a trough in the polytunnel. High hopes for these, but maybe won't get much fruit until next year.

We have quite a lot of seedlings on the way in the polytunnel. Peas, broad beans, and a lot of things like squash, courgettes etc. The village plant exchange has already begun, and I am excited to see what my round climbing courgette plant becomes.

We have planted out the runnerbeans a few days ago. I am a little worried out this, because of our experience a few years ago, when there was a late May frost and we lost all our beans. So checking the weather forecast and keeping everything crossed.

Tamara Way Stage 4 Part 1 - Gunnislake to Horsebridge

As we set off on the next stage of our walk, I was very much hoping for bluebells. I know they are around, but we didn't see many. Lots of lovely smelling wild garlic, as well as other wild flowers along the way.

Our route this time was quite often not alongside the river, but we caught glimpses. There was lots of lovely woodland, evidence of historic mining, as well as some interesting villages that we had not been to before.  

We enjoyed passing through Chilsworthy, Latchley and Luckett. Given my interest in knitting we were admiring this lovely decorated phonebox in Latchley, when a nice lady arrived to update the decorations, and told us they were having a party next week to officially open the defibrillator it now holds.

We enjoyed seeing lambs again, and rescued this black beetle from the road.

Luckett Village was also very pretty

We finally arrived at Horsebridge, and this was the view from the bridge, which we crossed back into Devon. We then had a bit of miscommunication with my husband, who we were hoping would be there to pick us up. Very hard to get phone coverage, but there was a handy phonebox (blast from the past) and lemonade from the Royal Inn, which got us through the long wait.

We didn't manage a whole stage again, but are planning to walk more frequently now the weather is improving.

Knit4Monarchs

I just thought because of the date I would reshare this video, which surprised me 9 years ago. I can't imagine that monarch butterflies are still not in need of some help. Please watch the video right to the end, as you will then find out that the best thing you can do if you live in areas of the world where the monarch is endangered is not to knit a home for a caterpillar but to plant milkweed. #gotmilkweed The next best thing would be to make a donation to the David Suzuki Foundation. 

So although knitting a chrysallis will not directly help monarchs, it is a very cute and fun thing to do. It was a very gentle April Fool joke, along the lines of a similar one to knit a coat for a penguin. It is quite funny to think I was a bit of a joke in Canada. 

I was really happy that my pattern was used in this campaign to raise awareness of a serious problem.