Bank Holiday at The Beehive

It's finished! My dad has been here again this weekend and he and Mr Beehive have managed to secure one day of sunshine to finish the deck, just in time for bank holiday tomorrow and more forecasted rain! However, sun will come and sit on my deck with a nice cool drink I will! I think it'll look rather lovely with my hammock on there!

 Do you see what we'll have in full beautiful blue glory in a few days time?... Our own bluebell field.
The previous owners of this house put a lot of time into thinking through the planting of bulbs seasonally. From January through to early summer, this particular bed is just a mass of colour from aconites and snowdrops through to these beautiful bluebells and later on, aquilega. We've done a lot with this bed to try to remove the hideous couch grass that took over whilst we had tenants in for a year and finally this year we may get to appreciate it once again.

 And this is the new temporary home for our broody. We have tried all sorts to get her out of her funk, but after at least 2 weeks of trying, we have decided that the kinder thing would be for nature to take its course. I have no idea how this will turn out, but with the help of some useful websites (www.allotment.org.uk) and some more experienced friends, we now have her in her own space sitting on six aracauna eggs. We have no idea if these are fertile as they come with no guarantee and/if they'll hatch or she'll mother them. We have our indoor guinea pig cage and an infra red light on stand by just in case she decides that she's not cut out for motherhood after all, but fingers crossed she will be.

Oh ho, look greenhouse! That's a much better image for you.

So, a change for plans for my strawberries this year. Last year we planted out a plot of around 10 plants. The yield was around 10 strawberries! (That may well be an exaggeration!) The chickens decided in the autumn that the plants tasted rather nice, so we ended up with no more plants, no big deal really. They're truly more trouble than they're worth. Yes, it is nice to eat a homegrown fresh from the plant, however, after you've taken second dibbings to the slugs and the birds, it's hardly worth it. On a visit to the Edinburgh botanical gardens a couple of years ago I remembered a slightly more novel way in which they'd planted a few strawberries. So today using left over decking wood and other bits lying around, I cobbled together this frame for a growbag encased in hessian sacking. I now have 10 plants in a fraction of the space that was used on the ground and the slugs are in for a hard time if they're getting up there. The birds are still laughing, but once I get my fruit cage installed, hopefully it'll be egg on their faces!

Finally these two girlies have enjoyed the rare bit of early May sunshine today, a run in the fields this morning and then some cute nose rubbing with the guinea pigs in their run on the grass this afternoon, coupled with some chewing of wood cut offs from the decking - it's a fait accompli if you're a dog!





Have a lovely bank holiday whatever you're doing.