Beautiful buzzard

Though I am currently trying to warm up by the wood burner (it's colder than expected out there) Luke and I have been watching the lone buzzard, way high in the sky, glowing golden in the late afternoon sunlight. Whilst the jackdaws flew past like eerie black sludges across the blue, the buzzard; higher and silent in the sky hardly moved. Just a fluttering of the wing tips before he glides away into the wood. Beautiful.

Here comes the sun (flowers)

We found two sunflowers which have come up in exactly the place we planted some last summer. We had pulled up last seasons plants so it was an added bonus to have two healthy plants in their place.
I also took the seedlings out of the conservatory and planted them up in the rough patch behind the chicken house. We are going to scatter wild flower seed there (and hope the wild birds don't eat them) as it doesn't need good soil. Next year, after a fence has been erected there, we'll possibly grow peas, sweetcorn or gourds there but this year we hope to have a nodding barrier of chocolate sunflowers in the late summer. At present the plants are only an inch and a half tall and look so tiny in the rough ground but sunflowers are great at looking after themselves and fabulous to introduce children to gardening as you feel you can almost see them growing.
I banked up Luke's potatoes and looked out of the conservatory three quarters of an hour later to see the cat using the newly turned soil as a litter tray. Splendid. Out with a bag and all was well again (it's an added insult having to bag someone else's cat's litter up after they have left their own garden looking good to use  yours, isn't it?). Two weeks after Luke planted his Trail of Tears Indian beans I was suspicious as there is still no sign of life so Luke dug around one of the canes and could not find either of the black shiny beans he had planted. Upon searching around all the canes he has still not come across any hidden treasure - the beans had vanished! He has planted some more and so we will keep an eye out for the first hint of green breaking through the soil. Watch this space! He did find a bean bang in the middle of the potatoes though. Possibly the birds scratched them up and flicked one into the potato patch?
Every plant had a good watering and then it was in to eat red velvet cake and drink tea. A lovely Sunday tea-time treat.

Geoff Hamilton Rose.

Here's an early morning pic of a Geoff Hamilton rosebud.

The clashing corner in the long border

This is the view of the corner which until two weeks ago was orange with tulips.

Me, watering the garden.

Colour in the garden

Time for me to be quiet and let the garden speak for itself. Clematis buds still to unwind, the pastel border, aquiliega, a rose and my latest purchase.

The new arrivals.

Well. It's been a while! I left you on the eve of getting new neighbours who we knew nothing about. We'd asked the old neighbours, “Do they have a dog?” and the answer was, “All we know about them is their name” so we just crossed our fingers and hoped for a reclusive couple who had no pets. That way we wouldn't have the expense of putting up a fence between us until we'd had our summer holiday.

As we set off for work our 'old' neighbours were outside. We'd said our goodbyes the night before so we wished them well and went to work. Eleven hours later we came back to brand new neighbours. There were pots on their front lawn (so they are gardeners) but there was no sign of them so I nipped around with a pot of narcissus which I had just purchased, said to a teenage girl that we were the new neighbours and just wanted to welcome them and then I went indoors. Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and we opened it to a smiley couple who introduced themselves as Nick and Linda.

Refusing our offer to enter we had a cheerful chat on the doorstep for ten minutes before they went back to their unpacking. They told us they had two children and......, yes, a dog.

Now I love dogs and would have one myself if we weren't both full time but a dog, two roaming chickens and no fence is a recipe for potential disaster. Milo (the dog) was being brought back tomorrow and so a fence was briefly discussed as in, (them)“We've got a dog so we'll have to put up a fence,” (us), “We've been meaning to put up a fence for ages so we'll do it”, (them) “We'll go halves then”, (Luke) “No, we'll pay for it” (me – under my breath) “Shut up Luke, halves will be great”.

Anyway, we waved them off with the bottle of wine I'd also bought them and sighed with relief that although it wasn't quite the result we'd hoped to (no dogs) we couldn't have a nicer couple next door. Now we just had to wait and see what this beast was like.....,

This 'beast' arrived home the following day – all fourteen inches of him! Milo is a sweet little dog but as with lots of small dogs, has to make himself heard. We had let the girls out into the garden for their later afternoon tour which we've always done when we return home from work each day. Their run is plenty big enough for them to live in, in fact commercial hen houses that size would be marketed as big enough for five large fowl (we only have bantams which are smaller) or up to seven bantams. We do however love to see the hens tootling around the borders, pecking the grass around our feet when we are sitting in the garden with a cup of tea then them ducking through the shrubbery to visit Jack next door who delights in them rushing over to meet him (mainly because they are hoping to be fed). Both Luke and I are complete pushovers when it comes to the chickens. It's our responsibility to give them a good quality of life and whilst safety is paramount, letting them wander around the garden whilst we are with them is a joy to us all. Until you've seen a garden brought to life with an animal wandering through it, be it a chuntering hedgehog making his way through any slugs he can find, a basking cat curled up in the sunniest spot or a fat chicken smashing it's way from A to B in the most direct line which usually means straight over my newest plant you won't quite get it.

I'm sure when my Mum reads this she thinks, “Indulgent pair, those chickens will make a mess of Sue's new garden” and she is right to some degree – in fact we have chicken wire circling my delphiniums because the ladies have developed a taste for their tender shoots and have stripped one in a matter of moments BUT the fun we get from seeing them popping up our side of the shrubs or watching them dust bathe in the greenhouse more than makes up for any loss due to greedy chickens. Their droppings are also great for the compost.

Anyway, back to Milo. Nick came out in the garden without warning and of course the dog was racing around chasing his ball and generally having fun. All well and good but we had two chickens pecking around the lawn and no fence. Now Jack's cat is identical to our old cat and the chickens knew that she wouldn't bother them. Therefore they aren't worried by black and white cats and just that day I had been sitting in the garden with Jack's cat on my lap and the chicks at my feet. Before that I had the three of them next to each other looking up at me. A dog though, however small is a different creature and who can blame him? Our chickens have only met one other dog, a big collie who went out in our garden once the hens were safely tucked into their run. They have no experience of dogs which in some respects right then was a good thing as they weren't frightened. Luke, on seeing Milo next door grabbed a handful of seed to entice the girls back into the safety of their run but then made one dramatic mistake. He did what he always does and ran up the garden to get the waddling hens to follow him. It's their routine and always works but of course to a little dog it's running and shapes and fun.

Milo did come over again yesterday, he can't help it, he's a puppy and not aware that there is a boundary between spaces. In fact I was on my knees in the border when his little snuffly head came through the hollyhocks and we were nose to nose but this time he didn't bark. Progress.

Yesterday, in preparation for the boundary being pegged out, I lifted the tiny pea shoots which I planted over a month ago and would have made a fine show in situ. I prepared the ground between the shed and greenhouse as it's a bright airy space perfect for peas.

I had dug this over earlier in the year but we'd done nothing with it. We do have the water butt and the compost bin at the end of the run but once I'd moved the myriad of pots lined up along the greenhouse and put the final bit of staging out the way it was clear to dig over again. I turned the compost out of the compost bin gave it a good turn over to mix it up and incorporate some air and then forked it back into the compost bin. An army of ants were disturbed and raged around the black soil, busying themselves saving pellets that I've not identified yet.

I forked over the length of soil where I would be planting the peas, exposed a trench ready for the soon to be uprooted pea shoots, watered it well and then sadly dug up the inch high peas from the place where the fence would be going and immediately replanted in the prepared bed. I also took the precaution of popping in a dozen or so new peas in case these fail. I think I will add some more today just in case. Having watered again and adding the pea sticks which will form a frame for them to grow up I could do no more. They will either get over the shock of being disturbed and replanted or they won't . The area for the fence though is now ready to be pegged out and I just hope the men get on with it soon and we can all relax about our animals being loose in their respective gardens. It's something we knew we would have to do eventually so maybe Milo has done us a favour though I hardly think the chickens think so.