July polytunnel

Apricots have been very good this year, This photo is on July 8th when the first apricots are just starting to ripen but there are still quite a few on the tree now.

 Alfie eating an apricot in the big tunnel. The raspberry canes, which surround the tyre sandpit, cropped very well this year and are just about finished now.

 Alfie and Tivon digging in the big tunnel. I have given up hope that the carrots planted alongside the tomatoes have any chance of surviving boys digging. Good news though, only one tomatoe plant has been irretrievably lost to boys play!

The big tunnel, grapes, tomatoes, a bare patch where Alfie digs, lots of self-seeded nasturtiums and.....


Not a pet rabbit, a pest rabbit!

Nectarines in the big tunnel. I think I have not thinned them enough.

Potatoe onions drying in the big tunnel.

Alfie shovelling sand into the tyres in the small tunnel.

Figs in the small tunnel. It has been a good year for figs, and Alfie asking for "just one more fig" gives me a chance to do "just one more job", several times over.

The little chicks are getting bigger. They are currently living in the small tunnel, eating fallen peaches and pests, having dust baths and generally eating or flattening everything!

Honeybees on Nepeta, Callistemon, Alliums and Marjoram.

Honeybees are on Nepeta / catmint.

Nepeta.


Alliums.

These are ornamental alliums...

 ...but the leek flowers are busy too, July 22nd.

Callistemon / bottle brush. The wasps like the bottle brushes too but there are not so many wasps about this year.

The Marjoram is a hive of activity.

  Borage

 Clover and blackberries have an excellent flow this year.
In the garden the bees are still on the Rosebay willowherb, Echium and poppies.

Butter

Ambers butter, just after turning it onto the board before it is worked.

A recent article in the Home Education Network newsletter referred to how many questions young children ask during home-based conversations. (Young children, according to the study, average 26 questions every hour!) As I was contemplating this, Tivon, who was eating a sandwich and is no longer SO young, asked "Why is Amber's butter so yellow?". I answer, because of the fresh grass in summer. This is followed by Tivon asking, why is shop butter not so yellow? and several more questions.... I don't always have the answer.

A bed (bath) of thyme.

 We used this bath to mix our clay when filling the workshop walls in with wattle and daub.

It has been empty for almost a year and I finally decided where to put it. It is a large volume to fill and I was looking for a very free draining medium to plant thyme into. 

So after filling the bottom with stone and broken pots I put in a thick layer of birch sticks which were cut down 2 or 3 years ago and topped this with a mix of soil, compost and grit.

I had raised thyme plants from cuttings and divisions, after planting they had to be covered with netting to keep the hens from scratching them up.


... after a few weeks I removed the net. Alfie finds this bed / bath perfect for driving his tractor through!

Honey harvest.

 This yielded several pots of honey, a few good pieces of comb honey and a tiny amount of wax. I didn't take any honey last year, (the bees first year here), instead I allowed the colonies to build up (without sugar feeding), all 4 colonies building all their own combs and getting through winter, the bees having started from small numbers last May and June. 

 This year has been very good weather for the bees so far. I have had a few swarms which I have hived to make new colonies and so far I have harvested a little honey from 2 of the parent colonies, the bees will overwinter on their own honey and we will harvest any excess in the late spring. 

Honeybees on Leek, Echium and Rosebay willowherb.

Leek in flower in the veg. patch.

 Echium "blue bedder", honeybees have been collecting pollen..

 

Rosebay Willow herb, Epilobium angustifolium











Honey bees are also on the Borage (Borago officinalis) and poppies in the garden.

Kittens and chicks.

 On June 25th our 16 chicks hatched, and on June 26th this little kitten found a home with us.

 

On June 27th, (after Angus was given a few hours to digest the idea of 2 kittens), a second little kitten was brought home from the animal sanctuary. These are to be our barn cats (although currently spoiled house kittens!) with the job ahead of sorting out our rabbit trouble.

Chicks being lifted out of the incubator and put straight under the heat lamp on June 25th. We have had trouble for the last year or  two with magpies stealing the eggs from our broody hens, so we have been lucky enough to borrow an incubator.

We have named them Wattle and Daub.

This is Daub having  a little rest in the chicks area!

Yesterday, July 3rd, Amber our Kerry milk cow had a heifer calf (pictures to follow), it is all birth and mischievous young ones here at the moment. The garden is mostly planted and the house is a mess (no photos of messy house to follow)!