July update

It has been very, very dry so far this summer and the garden and the allotment are suffering a bit, despite The Under-gardener doing his best with the watering bucket.  The potatoes and onions on the allotment are really struggling, and virtually none of the sweet corn germinated.  The July apple drop has been more than usual. Lots of tiny apples lying around on the ground.

The salad boxes which I've put in the driveway are doing rather well, though.  Of course, they're much easier to keep watered.  But we've got three boxes of various salad leaves, one of parsley, one of pea shoots and another with tiny beetroot in them.  Our lunchtime salads are quite delicious. I've stopped growing mustard and cress and broccoli shoots in the window for the time being.

The flower garden remains horribly over grown ;-(

Those of you who have known me for a very long time may remember that when we lived in Beaufort I came home from a church fete one year with a goat kid. I named her Aphrodite - but found that every time I opened my mouth to talk to her, I actually called her Ariadne.  In the end, I decided that the goat really wanted to be called Ariadne and gave in.  Ariadne she was.  The same happened with the chicken formerly known as Marjoram.  Every time I went to speak about her or to talk to her - out came Coriander.  I gave in quite quickly this time.  I obviously had her name wrong.  Coriander it is.  So we have Parsley, the brown chicken with the white coloured bum; Coriander, the brown chicken with the brown bum, Schnitzel the black chicken with the lower beak longer than the upper, and Kiev, the black chook with the two beaks evenly lengthed.  They've settled in quite well and now let me pick them up (Parsley doesn't yet) and stroke them.  And Schnitzel and Kiev are laying.  We mostly get two eggs a day.

The Under-gardener has done an amazing job up on the allotment.  He's been digging and digging and digging.  The whole of the bottom bit, which was ploughed in the spring, has now been dug over by hand.  It's ready now for fruit trees and bushes to be planted in the designated "fruit" area in the autumn.