It was an odd week, with The Funeral on Monday and falling temperatures and even, over the last couple of days, a weird phenomenon where water falls from the sky to make the ground moist rather than me lumping watering cans around!
Today I have lifted more of the potato crop and set it to try in a covered but open barn space. We have also sown a bit of the grain we feed to the chickens as the price is going up and we need to scrimp and save a bit. I picked a courgette today and there seem to be 5 more aubergines developing on the plants, but production is slowing down noticeably now. With cooler weather and now we are past the vernal equinox, it is not entirely surprising that the summer crops are starting to flag.
So here are the potatoes in their drying rack - those on the left were dug up last week and have had the small and blemished ones removed for immediate consumption, while those on the right are what I dug up today without any triage. Then there is the bed where the grain was sown. The brassicas are looking a lot larger than when they went in - fortunately!! The chard is doing well, and you can almost make out bean pods!
We had to cover the seed bed with wire net to prevent it being used too much as a cat toilet, but it is bound to be used as a rolling around zone assuming the rain doesn't continue!
In the garden area we mainly defend things against cat bottoms and let nature take its course with any other visitors. We have a pear tree in the garden that has been loaded with fruit this year, and we know when it is ripe as it falls off. We do a triage before the chickens are released and John has a couple of barrels of burping brown goo which will be distilled early next year. We had hoped to add some of the pears from the trees by the Meadow, but there never seemed to be any on the ground, while the ones on the tree remain fairly hard. Well, the trail camera gave up its secrets during the week as the batteries needed boosted, so I took the opportunity to clear the SD card. The camera has been pointing at the pear tree to see what is going on.
Badgers like pears.
It's probably not entirely unsurprising that boar rather like pears too!
The pine martin is actually trying to pick the pears off the tree though.
There's lots of deer and badger action, a hare and more from the pine martin but you'll have to wait until next week for that!
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