Blow the wind Southerly, Easterly, Northerly and Westerly!

The UK has been blasted by South Westerly gale force winds, except for Grandpa Southwellski's Garden that is.

A bit of ventilation!

Here, upon reaching the garden some of the gusts took a sharp right turn (South East) after the bungalow,  took down our poly tunnel and  then rejoined their South Westerly buddies and went on towards Feltwell.

It was a bit of a blow (excuse the pun) because everything was looking lovely in there yesterday and was the source of much pride for Coco and I.

But hey ho, it will be again once we have fixed it, and if the wind drops overnight that will be our job for tomorrow.

Trevor and the boys!

Our tomatoes are at last starting to turn and I sampled the first ripe one today in a sandwich with our own cucumber and home-made bread, it was delicious and needed nothing else!

Remember Trevor and the boys? Well here they are in out of the wind and safe and well, for now anyway haha haha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

We are still busy preparing and preserving our produce and the next batch of fruit for preserving arrived in the kitchen earlier in the shape of a huge basketful of pears.

It always amazes me how much fruit you end up with once it's actually off the tree.  There never seems to be that much when its growing.

Moon rising over Hawthorns

We also made our fist batch of Hawthorn Syrup which is good for circulation, heart problems, hardened arteries and anxiety and restlessness.  So if I suddenly fall asleep on the keyboar.........
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...d you will know why.

This will go alongside our Rosehip Syrup which has already proven its worth with a cold circulating at the moment, it certainly makes a difference.

A peck of purple peppers

In the poly tunnel we have (had?) a good crop of peppers and chilli's coming on and one plant has peppers that are a beautiful purple colour.

I've not seen these before so whether they will turn red at some point I am not sure.

Now as for the melons, well I am not sure if its was a cruel joke on the part of Focus or if it was the mix up in labelling when I was being ably assisted by my small partner in grime but the melons we planted are now sporting some really healthy looking Cucumbers!  Not a melon in sight!

Never mind, peeled, chopped and put in a bowl with some grapes, cherries and a splash of cream and no one will know!

One of the chicks

The chicks are doing exceptionally well and we have 6 of Brutus's offspring along with 3 Buff Orpington's which are about 5 days younger that the first brood.

Blossom is beside herself and is waiting for the chance to get in the cage with them.

We moved the chicks into the utility room and when I put the dogs to bed Blossom sat there staring into the cage, she was still there the next morning in the very same spot!

She was exhausted all day and didn't even bark at passing dog walkers.

Well that's it for tonight, hopefully tomorrow will see the poly tunnel rebuilt, plants retied and everything back to being good in the garden.  Now for some more Hawthorn syrup!

Congratulations Brutus its a Chick!, and another and another and.......

'Daddy!'

Brutus became a father for the first six times on Monday and the little ones are doing well.

We hatched six of our eggs and have a brood of beautiful fluffy chicks.  Nanny Southwellski has named them all as Spot, Zorro, Amber, Easter, Patch and Copper.

It was a stressful time watching them 'pip' and then break out of their shells, Spot arrived first and the second chick arrived as we were at the official opening of Wideham Farm Equestrian Centre.

Bless their little fluffinesses!

Nanny Southwellski then had concerns that they might have different birthdays as the hours of Monday passed and the last chicks still had yet to arrive.

However all was well and the final chicks arrived while Nanny was talking to her sister Julie in New Zealand.

So technically Julie knew about them being born twelve hours before they arrived.  Oooh too confusing!

We have to do it all again this weekend with 5 Buff Orpington's due!

Spot

It's 4 days since they were born and their rate of growth is incredible, it is possible to just sit and watch them for hours on end, indeed one of us does!

Coco is very gentle with them and knows how to 'call' them by scratching her fingers on the floor.

There will be many many more photos of them on Nanny Southwellski's Flickr page just google 'Southwellski' and it will be there.

One of the many cucumbers!

On a more gardening centred note we are experiencing a glut of cucumbers, be nice to have a few ripe red tomatoes to go with them and perhaps a crisp bit of Pak Choi as well.

The tomatoes are still not ripening either indoors or out although I am sure one of them is starting to change colour.

 I have even hung a ripe banana in amongst the tomatoes, just to give them a little idea of what they should be doing.

Chilli? - put a coat on then!

Our peppers are looking very healthy and we also have the first of our little chilli's making an appearance (its in the middle of the photo).

The bell peppers are growing as you watch them, and we have yellow and green ones, not sure if any will turn red, if they're like the tomatoes probably not.





Outside is quite busy too with the pumpkin plants dying back we can see the pumpkins themselves and we have twelve football sized fruits just starting to turn (tomatoes take note).

We also had two cucumbers as well, not sure where they came from, although Coco was a nifty one for pulling the labels out of the seed trays.

Nanny Southwellski is not sure if she likes pumpkins or not so we will try one and if not the rest can go on sale at the front of the house.

Our weeds are doing exceptionally well especially the nettles, but there is a reason I am not pulling everything up wholesale, well two reasons really.

The reasons are Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal.  They are the joint authors of 'Hedgerow Medicine' a book about just that, remedies from the plants (and weeds) we find in and around our gardens.

However, unlike many other tomes relating to the topic, this book not only tells you the properties of each plant but how to harvest, prepare and use the remedies. I will expand on this in later posts.

Finally, I should say a big hello to Tony and Linda in Tasmania, and to Julie in New Zealand of course.  Who'd have thought Grandpa Southwellski's Garden would go global!