June is upon us and the garden is thriving - we've started getting a good supply of strawberries (which I'm freezing to make jam once I have a good supply), raspberries, blueberries and blackcurrants as well as a few little apples, which were very unexpected as this is the first year. Our broad beans are also battling through the aphid infestation and have started producing beans so I'm hoping for a good summer crop. Add to this our mass of potato plants and sneaky jerusalem artichoke that I must have missed when digging them up last year, and we have the potential for a good vegetable-y summer!
We've now had our ex-battery hens (Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch) for two weeks, and what a difference it's made! When they arrived they were very scraggy looking but they're looking much better already. This is them on their first free range in the garden and this was a week ago:
Since then they have got even more feathers. Romney has asserted herself as the ruler of the roost with Dym and Hyth occasionally fighting for second and third but, apart from one day last week where they fought like mad, they've really settled down now and seem to be getting on well. We've also had over 2 dozen eggs since they arrived, with 3 on most days it seems.
On another, although quite different, chicken related subject...Last week Matt ordered some chichen livers from the farm shop so that he could make some pate. He ordered 400g which cost the princely sum of £1.80 and made 3 good sized pots of pate! All very exciting although perhaps not that good for our waistlines. When we went to the farm shop today the woman asked how we had been getting on with it and was delighted to hear it was a success. It's so lovely to be recognised in the farm shop - makes us feel like we've really made it in Tonbridge - and amazing that we manage to do most of our shopping there every week. Something we always hoped for but never expected would happen.
In the house we've also been busy and, during our week off a couple of weeks ago, we pulled up the carpet, sanded and painted the stairs and they do look lovely. It's slightly frustrating that there is a hole in each step because we could happily keep them without carpet but as it is I think we're going to look at a runner for it.
That's all I can think of for now without babbling on about the garden so I'll sign-off and take some more photos for my next post.
We used to have those stairs in our old terraced house. Very steep! I sanded them down and painted them. We were going to get a runner but struggled to get them in the right size (they all seem to be 80-90 cms wide) for the narrow stairs. In the end we got an ordinary carpet but they trimmed the edges to size. It cost us about £200 as opposed to £600 for a runner. Also, walking up and down the stairs is quite noisy for the neighbours with no carpet.
ReplyDeleteThey are incredibly steep, which is fine until I've had a couple of glasses of wine! We've been having trouble finding one that's small enough too. We have a traditional carpet maker in Tonbridge so hopefully they could do the same for us (trim one down), thanks for the tip! I think we're going to try to get a British wool carpet, if it isn't going to break the bank!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the blogging fraternity and good luck with your posting. Also a warm welcome to Kent and to Tonbridge in particular. It's not a bad town really, even if some ofhe pople do drive you up the wall from time to time!
ReplyDeleteThanks Paul! I completely agree - I love Tonbridge but I often find myself thinking that it has so much "potential" to do more! Hopefully with more people like us there it'll go from strength to strength eh?! ;-)
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