All creatures great and small

14 Cabbage White caterpillars

Those stoic few of you who visit our blog will know that Coco and I love all things living that come to our garden be they welcome guests or otherwise. 

Some unwelcome visitors are the Cabbage White caterpillars that have stripped our Brussel sprouts almost back to the roots.

Mature Cabbage White caterpillar

But that said, we do enjoy watching the butterflies meandering through the garden and of course the butterflies and caterpillars are part of the food chain and they keep the birds coming to the garden.

Some other pesty critters are the wasps, although despite there being hundreds of them we have remained unstung so far. 

Jarvis

In a morbid kind of way the wasp is a fascinating creature and to those of you who ask 'what use are they?' we would answer, they are the waste disposal units of the insect world.

We have two cats who are prolific hunters of small rats, mice and voles and they regularly leave remnants of mice on the lawn. 

The wasps dissect the remains and take relatively large chunks away with them, they also indiscriminately nibble every apple on our trees!

Bee and Hover Fly

Spider at night

Welcome visitors include spiders and all insects that remove the blackfly, whitefly, and other unwanted guests and of course the bees and hover flies that pollinate our plants.


We've had a few other exciting happenings at the garden,  I mentioned before the very poor quality shed we had delivered and sent back the same day. 

Our Hallgate timber shed

Well our new shed arrived from Hallgate Timber in Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, their website is www.hallgate-timber.co.uk.

Some of you will know that I am a carpenter by trade and if I was going to build myself a shed I would build one just like the one from Hallgate Timber.  The service was brilliant, the quality excellent, the price was good and it feels and looks right.

Sweetcorn

On the harvesting side of the garden we have been eating our own carrots, onions, potatoes, runner beans, purple kale, swedes, radishes and salad leaves for some time now.  But the highlight to date has to be our sweetcorn they are DELICIOUS!!!!!!

Coco eats them straight from the husk having peeled it like a banana.


Plant wise we have now put out our spring greens, which are a special request of Great Nanny Mero.  She has pestered us for ages to get some sown and ready for spring.

We also have some more peppers and chillis growing in the potting shed and waiting for the new poly tunnel to be put up.  It's on my list of high priority jobs to do.  Sadly above High Priority I have an Extremely High Priority list and above that a Very Extremely High Priority list.

Above that is the 'Nanny Southwellski Job list' that Coco and I are working our way through at the moment.  The only trouble is that when we finish one job for Nanny Southwellski she adds 2 more!

On a lighter note Coco's walking is improving every day and she seldom sits down and shuffles anywhere now, this has brought a whole new awareness on us that means we have to move everything to higher ground.

I'm a Nanny! Get me out of here!

When we show Coco something for the first time, be it how to eat a different food, put her shoes on or how a new toy works we generally show her how and what to do. 

Nanny Southwellski thought it would be a good idea to show Coco how to go through the play tunnel. It has taken nearly a week for her shoulder to get better.

How to impress Ofsted.

Get off my sweetcorn!

As this is our gardening blog I need to start this with a topical gardening paragraph: don't my sweetcorn look lovely?

Anyhow, Declan the Ofsted Inspector is an incredibly nice and helpful guy; and 'No' he didn't say we were brilliant and that "everything is great" and "keep up the excellent work". He went through everything in minute detail during a six and a half hour marathon where he didn't stop for a break.all day.

He left us to go to see Roy Orbison, well not the actual Roy Orbison but an impersonator, and gave us homework to do. Sharon's has to be in by Wednesday, mine in by a bit later and I don't think he will wear 'the dog eating it'.

So, how do you impress an Ofsted Inspector, well here's a few don'ts:

     Don't turn up half an hour late at 9.30 when he was there at 9.00.

     Don't ask the neighbouring engineering company if you can borrow an angle grinder; extension lead and a length of stout wire because your keys are at home.

     Make sure that 'Rich is a King and Ray is a Queen' is wiped off the whiteboard, although some frantic rubbing removed most of it before he had a look round.

     Make sure that when the guys say yeah we've put that document in there for you that they really have and haven't cleared off to Blakeney and Cambodia sniggering!

Anyway it wasn't the harrowing experience we expected.  Thank you Declan.

We went to the Brandon House for a meal tonight just Nanny Southwellski and I.  Coco babysat Little Nanny Mero for us and Little Nanny Mero was asleep when we got home.  The food was quite good, the setting an bit too minimalist for me, and the staff unhappy - but it didn't spoil anything for us, we were just happy not to be cooking.

Plenty of room for another tunnel

See this is where I have been quite cunning in bringing the post round to food.  Food means plants means growing means I have another polytunnel on its way!  Yay!!!!!

And what about earwigs?  Are they really good parents?  Would Percy and Parsnip have turned out any different if we had been earwigs?
       

If you go out on the deck tonight you're sure of a big surprise