Weddings and Weedings

Lord Lambourne dessert apple

Gosh. After a fabulous family wedding in Dorset, lots of visitors plus looking after the craft section at the Cricklade Show, the house seems rather empty. Or rather it’s the calm before the “now let’s catch up on outside jobs” storm…! Wandering out to the veg plot to see what’s going on found a glut of tomatoes and courgettes plus a humongous number of weeds. Can’t even see the leeks properly for chickweed! Hangs head in shame. Apples are doing well though, ready for picking in a couple of weeks. As for the garden, well it seems to have survived fairly well for complete lack of attention – planting mixed borders and letting the shrubs and perennials do their thing has really made a difference to the weeding workload. However, nothing like putting on the gardening gear, rolling up the sleeves and getting to it. A couple of days solid on the job and we’re back on track. Tomato soup though – there are only so many ways of making it #needmorerecipes 

Learnings: Sow fewer tomato seeds next year!

Happy as a Pig...

The sun is shining and it’s hot and muggy here. Where better for a pig to be than flat out in the wallow? They have truly changed from delightful piglets into pigs with the most disgusting habits. Peeing in the wallow and then drinking from it is nothing unusual!  They are around 4.5 months old now and eating 8 or 9 scoops of pig nuts morning and evening. 

Meanwhile the lambs are munching their way through the grass. So peaceful watching them wander round their paddock. Less inquisitive now but they do come and say hello when I’m working on the veg plot next to them. They’re starting to look like sheep now, rather than lambs, which is good. Brownie is still small, always will be, but that’s OK - he’s healthy.

Learnings:

Enjoy the tranquility of summer and take time to watch.

Always best to stand back when the pigs climb out of the wallow, before they start to shake the "mud" off in all directions.