Hello again - I hope you're enjoying some of the lovely sunshine we've been having.These beautiful flowers appeared on the blackberry bushes at the lotty last week and surprised me with how lovely they are. The middles look almost like little stitches - so pretty and delicate. Actually lots of beautiful flowers are appearing on my plot. I will share more with you about the lotty in a minute, but first,  I want to introduce you properly to my girls as promised in the last post.

Firstly there is Pearl - she is the boss, cheeky, very nosy and top of the tree as far as my three go.She's very confident and eats out of my hand. If one of them is going to give me the run around it's Pearl. She's already gone walk about once and when it's bedtime she's the one that jumps on the coop and won't go to bed!! Here's a better picture of her. She's got a fancy collar as you can see. 

Dorcas is the friendliest one. She's fairly docile and was also the first to lay an egg.

Then there is little Ruby (On the left of the photo)  who was quite nervous when I got her but is coming out of her shell, so to speak! She gets picked on by Pearl. She's not laid an egg yet and I think she's the youngest.

I got some rings in different colours to put round their legs so I could tell them apart but within half an hour, I could tell who was who, as they have such different personalities!!
They arrived less than a fortnight ago and I can't imagine being without them now. They have laid a total of ten eggs so far which is not bad going since only 2 are laying yet.

The pleasure they give me far outweighs the cost of setting up. They have a fox proof pen, an eglu to sleep in and they are really easy to look after.

  Now, for anyone who's interested I am going to give you an update on my lotty itself. There's quite a lot to show you as June is a serious growing month and everything is starting to romp away.

The majority of planting is now done

The broad beans are flowering nicely

I planted a little herb garden

Parsnips, beetroot and radishes

Early potatoes in bags

Second early spuds and maincrop behind

Strawberries starting to ripen 

Lettuces coming along

The garlic is nearly ready 

Shallots growing well and 

splitting into lots of bulbs

All the fruit bushes are going great guns now

Masses of tayberries awaiting ripening

The onions seem to be growing ok

Carrots ready for thinning out 

Kale perking up a little now

Cherry toms in their hanging baskets

Two of the 12 larger variety tomato plants

Sweetcorn ready to be planted out tomorrow (I ran out of time today!)

There are also two squash plants, two courgette plants, sugar snap peas,  leeks and swedes under netting which don't make for great photos!
So there you are - thats the lotty round up. Its a steep learning curve but its really good fun. I would recommend it to anyone! x

Textile update

  

I have been sooo busy with moving house and the lotty I have again neglected my little blog and my lovely followers - sorry! As promised on my last post, a while ago now, I want to share with you a project I've been working on. I have long admired embroidered felt work which I had seen done by others and I had some felt which I made a couple of years ago but wasn't brave enough to machine embroider on. After a session on the machine at the Seaside Stitcher's group I decided to just go for it. It was really a nerve wracking at first but fun once I got going and I loved stitching the grasses. The poppies were pretty random on the original piece but came to life when I started the hand embroidery. Then I added the other french knots and a few bullion stitches etc to represent wild flowers.  Here's a closer peek.

I was really happy with the results as it's something I have wanted to do for ages. Now all I need is the time to make more felt and experiment with different ideas!!

I'm afraid there's not been too much sewing done lately. The allotment and the new additions are demanding most of  my attention at the moment - but I will leave that for my next post! Here's a little taster.

The girls

Hope you are all enjoying the better weather. Pls leave a comment if you stop by. Thank you xx

Lotty update

I thought it was time I updated you on what has being going on at my little plot recently. Progress is rather slow due to the sheer amount of rain we have been having. Most of my soil is still pretty wet and cold. So apart from adding a few more garlic bulbs the work has mainly been maintenance and starting growing off at home. I am totally inspired by this blog I have discovered written by a Yorkshire man who grows amazing produce and who has a great sense of humour.  I am completely addicted to his video updates now and am using them to give me an idea of when I should be planting outside.

These are my little ones for you to see...........

Garlic

Tomatoes

Baby broad beans

Potatoes chitting away nicely.

There are quite a few garlic bulbs planted now at various stages. The elephant white in the above photo is growing wonderfully. I just hope there's been enough frost to split the bulbs.

The tomatoes are growing a little leggy as I have no supplementary artificial light and I have already mixed up some cherrys with some larger varieties when moving them around! I hope I'll be able to tell the difference as they grow as they look the same now!

 Eight out of nine broad beans have germinated and are growing slowly but surely ready to go in my cold frame when it isn't windy enough to blow the frame down!



I have been getting to grips with my new favourite toy - the power drill and made up my cold frame ready to use, hung up a hanging basket ready for tommys in the summer and  fixed a frame which had been damaged in the storms. Who knew how much fun it is to fix stuff?? I had nearly as much fun as when I power washed my eglu go for the first time.

A lovely friend helped me by weeding my strawberry plants and doing some digging in of the rotted manure I put in last autumn in my potato beds courtesy of another lovely friend's horses!!

I decided I had rather too many strawberry plants and I needed some of the room for my broad beans and for a little herb bed so I am in the process of transplanting the extras into pots and distributing them to various places and people. I still have a good number and you can see I have covered them with a fleece cloche to encourage them to grow a little quicker ( Photo at top of post) 

I've weeded my fruit bushes and fed the soil with potash. The tayberry, raspberry and blackberries are budding nicely and the currants seem to have survived my planting !

I have almost finished preparing the beds for the early pots/ the broad beans and the shallots/onion sets which I have all ready to go in as soon as the soil warms up.

So it's getting exciting now. The weather appears to be improving a little so hopefully next time I write about the lotty it will have planted a few more veg and herbs.

Hope you enjoyed reading my update. Next time I will be posting about some of the textile and sewing projects I have been up to! Thanks for visiting me. x