Meat!

Finally got The River Cottage Meat book today! Been wanting to get it for ages, but couldn't bring myself to spend £30 on it.... got it from amazon for £19...
Hours of good reading, just going to have to hide it from Lisa!

After a Saturday of playing and watching rugby and drinking lots, I was half hoping the rain would come down on Sunday morning, to give me some excuse not to do my jobs in the garden! But I woke up early Sunday morning with the sun bursting through the curtains, so despite the achey bones and sore head, I decided to bite the bullet and get outside!

Managed to get my potatoes, onions and garlic in which was good! The hangover had mostly disappeared after the onions went in, must be the fresh air!

Bit worried about my lack of space in the veg patch now for all the other seeds I have bought, will see what else I can fit in and then think about extending it.

My broccoli and cabbage were looking a bit "leggy" according to my dad, so he's taken them back to his to put in the greenhouse, will start another lot up soon, just incase they don't survive.

Broccoli and red cabbage seeds had come up by this morning, so took them out of the propagator and onto the window sill.
The weekend wasn't the most productive, did manage to plant my new raspberry canes, but that was about it really, the weekend was taken up by the rugby and shopping for house stuff :-(

Just put my Broccoli (Organic, Waltham 29) and Cabbage (Red) Fuego F1 in the propagator. I'm kind of taking over the back bedroom with my veg now... the potatoes are chitting (sp?) on the window sill in egg boxes and the propagator is on top of a couple of boxes. Luckily for me Lisa doesn't come in here very often, so I should get away with it, for a while at least

Took the day off today and in between the rain showers, we managed to put the mesh on 3 of the sides of the chicken run, thanks to Lisa's dad nail gun!
Run out of mesh for now though, so when we get some more we will have the one side and roof to do, then it's just a case of putting it all together!

Been to Wyevale...

I got;
Beetroot (Boltardy)
Runner Beans (Butler)
Peas (Hurst Greenshaft)
Sweet Corn (f1 Sundance)
Cabbage (f1 Kilaxy)
Lettuce (Webbs Wonderful)
Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Potatoes (Second Early - Nadine)

And a Raspberry bush.

Sorted out the raspberries bushes on the weekend, they had some already there, which I have cut back (got rid of the dead ones) and re-fertilised the living ones, will see if they will grow back now. Have prepared the soil for the new bushes I'm going to put in (going to Wyevale this lunchtime to pick some up)

Need to start sowing some seeds soon, got a propagator, so that's a job for me tonight. Also going to try and fence off the veg patch from the lawn, as I don't want the chickens going there when the garden is in full flow.

The chicken run is coming along, all the sides and roof is built now. Need to attach the wire to it now and put it up! Cut down a load of branches yesterday, so I can fit the thing in!

Foxes

Was told by our neighbour tonight that a fox had been sitting in our garden today, until they chased it away.
Although we've always been aware that chickens are a target for foxes, this kind of makes things more real.
I'm dead against hunting, It was a cruel way of controlling them, no reason for it, except for "kicks". I'm sure, being from where I am, I'm suppose to understand why they do it, but I just don't. I agree that foxes need to be controlled, because they are a threat to the free range poultry industry, but there are better and more humane ways to control them. A single shot is far better way than having them chased and ripped apart by dogs.
I don't have anything against foxes really, because they are only trying to survive and we, by keeping chickens / rabbits etc are creating a unnatural "supermarket" for them, but they are predators at the end of the day.

Anyway, we will try to do everything to stop the fox having a chance of our chickens! Once the new run is up and running we should be fine, so fingers crossed until then!

Here are the photos of our snowy St David's day!

Happy St Davids Day!

Woke up this morning to a scene from a Christmas card! Was very impressive (photos to follow)

The cat found it all very exciting and decided to go running and diving in the snow (for all of 5 minutes until she got too cold!)

The chickens, on the other hand, didn't like it at all and refused to leave their house for ages. Put some nice warm porridge for them which they liked, but they don't like the snow at all!