In the absence of a greenhouse or poly tunnel at the moment, my kitchen is turning out to be a reasonable substitute. The windowsill is full of tomato, herb and scabious seedlings whilst the dining table is the current home of the spinach, Dahlia, leeks and some peas and sunflowers. I spent yesterday afternoon potting on the Dahlia, pea, sweet pea and tomato (black opal) seedlings. The temperature outside has really dropped again in the last 2 days so I’m grateful of Ashley’s homemade cover for my seedlings. I’m desperately hoping that this isn’t going to be another cool, damp summer…
Last week, I spent an afternoon at a garden centre with my Grandma and bought some plant packs. They were being sold off for £3 for a pack of 6 plants – 50p each, I can’t resist that! I don’t even know what all the plants are, I just know I like them! After potting them up and organising my ‘verticle grower’ (Ashley made it for me a few years ago from scrap pieces of wood – a bit cheaper than the £100+ being asked in the shops!) so it looked pretty, Penny discovered that she could climb it to eat the pretty pansy’s and other flowers…. I wasn’t happy. And of course, once she started, nothing we did to try and deter her would work. So the chickens have temporarily lost access to that part of the garden whilst we work on a solution. Unfortunately, the solution so far seems to be getting rid of the chickens. We have been considering this for quite some time now; as I’ve said before, we often feel that we don’t give the chickens enough room and it’s not a stimulating enough environment for them. Friends of ours (who give us the land for our allotment) have kindly said that they can take them in, they have lots of chickens already and have plenty of space for them.