Third Compost Bin . . .

I managed to get the third compost bin put into place today.

Having experienced the unpleasantness of rats moving in to the first one, I now make sure there is wire mesh underneath them right from the word go. This was almost the last of the mesh we got for the chicken run - there is only a little bit left now, after us thinking we had bought far too much. Nice to know we didn't waste our money.

The first bin I got (extreme left one) was from somewhere like B&Q and cost me over £20. You will be very happy to hear that our local council started "selling" bins last year for a fiver each - with a cap on two-per-household. I am not sure why they cap it - there have to be more people NOT wanting them than there are people wanting more than two. .  you know? Seems to me they could be a little relaxed for us interested lot. I was totally wrong in my anticipation that the bins would be "spit-through-and-tiny" - they are actually really quite good - and as you can see they are bigger than the one I bought.

YAY!

It wont be long before this one fills up a little and beds down into the mesh, making it too difficult for the rats to move in to their des-res.

The first bin isn't quite ready for emptying though. Am not too sure what I'll do when the third one is full. There is something very wrong about the idea of putting the valuable chicken poo in the green collected bin and "giving it away"! I may have to acquire two more bins. . . I'll show you a photograph of Iain's face when I announce that to him!

Here is a lovely shot of one of the apple trees this evening:

If you believe the amount of buds on the trees, this is going to be a bumper crop. Fingers crossed for that - we really enjoyed the apples last year.

EEEEEK!!!!

Remember the three silkies we got at the last poultry fair??? The three girls I insisted on getting? Couldn't go home without buying these girls?

Guess what I heard this morning, not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES in the space of ten minutes.

COCK-A-DOOOOODDDLLEEEEE-DOooOOOooOOOoo (with appropriate flapping of wings).

EEEEK! Anyone willing to give a home to a silkie rooster, just coming back into feathers after a moult and has lovely green-male-looking tail feathers?

Please?

Soggy Garden . . .

I should have known that if there were clouds like this on the way home, the garden wasn't going to have escaped.

And right enough, the back garden was totally swamped.

This is the area that we are due to cordon off as a second part of the chicken run. I am really becoming quite down-heartened about the lack of real gardening I can get on with, now the chickens have a total free-reign over the place. I have plenty of seeds for vegetables, sweet pea, even pea plants that I bought at the Farmers' Market the other week. They are all sitting in the greenhouse waiting to be planted out. There is NO point in even thinking about it while the chickens can savage anything that dares pop its head up.

Rather than turn this part in to a vegetable garden and then fight to keep the chickens OUT, we have now decided to turn this in to a run and have the rest of the garden to the HUMANS! But, that was before we realised that it is only suited for ducks.

You don't think this looks deep? Look again:

Unwanted House Guests

I heard a startled squeal from the direction of the garage the other day. Iain came into the kitchen with the advice we ought to keep the garage door closed for a wee while as a mouse had just lunged at him from behind the washing machine. It was a very bold mouse as Iain had the hoover nozzle in his hand at that moment.

Funny as that story may be, I am not one bit amused at the mouse (x how many plural?) which has decided that the greenhouse is the latest des-res. During the winter I noticed that the plastic greenhouse frame had been gnawed at and later saw that there was a hole chewed right through on the greenhouse door. I set traps and laid bait. No - I am not one bit interested in catching humanely and then letting them go to start all over again. Dead! Thank you very much.

I finally found one lifeless body a couple of months ago but a. it wasn't going to be the only mouse in there was it now?! and b. much of the damage had already been done no matter how much of the bait they managed to eat.

The first vandalism I noticed was in the pots. The one with the leftover tomato plants had a whole warren-tunnel system in the soil. Then I noticed any pots still in the greenhouse had at least a hole, if not a tunnel. Then I realised the plastic bin I keep new B&Q compost in didn't have its lid on properly. Big mistake. Not only was there a tunnel system in there but the soil the wee sods had dug out was all over the place, up the shelving, over the floor, and all over the spades and tools.

Today, I spent a while rooting around, in and out of the greenhouse and decided to use some of this compost to build up the bags of potatoes that seem to be going very nicely - we will be able to keep a small country in potatoes after planting only three bags with chitted seed potatoes a while back. I transferred some of the compost from the big bin to a wee one, only to find bits of plastic in it. Torn bits of plastic. And more. And some more. And . ..  huh uh. I think the little blighters had taken a whole bag - not a shopping bag - a thicker plastic than that - down into its tunnels and then had sat, patiently shredding it up in to nice little itty bit pieces which they then used to keep them nice and warm during the chilly nights. If they had asked me I could have nipped out and put the kerosene heater on for them too - maybe even a hot water bottle! DUDE! I can hardly use this compost now - it certainly can not be mixed with anything that is going in to the garden - I can stick it in with the potatoes, knowing that when they are lifted the soil is contained enough to be able to be dumped. Am not one bit pleased with mice.

Oh. Did I tell you about the seeds? Would those be the seeds they have eaten after chewing holes in the packets? Or would those be the seeds that they have eaten out of the seed trays that I only sowed last week. Every day I go in to the greenhouse I see another neat hole in the seed trays.

We are never going to have any peas at this rate are we?

I think the only way we will rid ourselves of these pests this year is to take an industrial-strength flamethrower to the whole greenhouse.

-.-

Sunny Shots

Here are a couple of sunny photos I took after work today. After a rainy day at work, we came home to find the garden was drier than it has been for a couple of days. As I finished off a few jobs round the greenhouse, including hosing down the slippy flagstones outside it. I looked up to see a couple of chicken-sized silhouettes coming at me down the path. Chickens are the FUNNIEST things you ever did see when they run at you.

Buffy actually jumped up and pecked at my hand this evening, when I wasn't looking and made me jump! It hurts when they peck at you unexpectedly!