More excitement in the garden this week as the first of the strawberries started to show. We think every one of the strawberry plants will fruit again this year. They’re getting on a bit now, so it might be their last year. That means any runners that shoot off this year need to be captured and pegged down, so we have new plants next year.
We also saw some new life in the garden. We already have lots of garden birds plus a few crows that nip in at this busy time. We really ought to try getting pictures. The other birds we have include:
- dunnock
- robin
- chaffinch
- goldfinch
- greenfinch
- blue tit
- great tit
- long-tailed tit
- house sparrow
- starling
- wren
- blackbird
- collared dove
- wood pigeon
- greater spotted woodpecker
- magpie
There’s another tit as well, but I can’t remember if it’s coal tit or marsh tit.
In the front garden we also get song thrushes, and there are peacocks and various waterfowl in the village. We’re lucky enough to have a clean and healthy duck pond.
We have grey squirrels that have started to venture into the back garden and last week we started to get rabbits too, both of which have always been in the front garden.
But while we’ve always had the occasional hedgehog, this week we had a family of 3 – mum and 2 hoglets. I was letting the dog out one night and had to keep him indoors while I went to have a closer look. Once they’d scurried off into the hedge, I let the dog out, who barked a lot when he picked up their scent.
Back to the portable garden and, sadly, we think we’ve lost 2 of the new tomatoes that came last week. They’re still standing proud, but they look a bit… brown. The others all look like they’re very happy.
Aside from watering the pots, the only other job that needed doing this week was earthing up the potatoes. The poet did that last week and within a day they needed earthing up again. he did it again at the weekend, and – again – they pushed through really quickly. The earth is at the top of the pots now, though, so that’s that. Fingers crossed they do well and start to flower.
So that’s all from us for this week. How’s your garden growing?
