More lockdown pottering

I was out on the bench in the dark again when Arthur decided to jump up on me and cuddle in for warmth. It turns out he is surprisingly good at hearing night-time bird calls and was particularly keen on the moorhen which flew around our heads.

Today's pottering involved erecting supports for the mangetout seedlings which are going outside.  I can only grow peas really early in the season otherwise they get afflicted by pea moth. I grow very early mangetout in the polytunnel but by growing outside too I can extend the season.

There's a conveyor belt going on now. We have just entered April Week 3 on my spreadsheet which means a new group of seeds to sow. With space at a premium, some trays of seedlings need to move to the polytunnel to make way. In turn, there are seedlings in the polytunnel ready to go out into the soil. As usual I've not managed to quite keep up so I need to prepare beds for them to go into.

The polytunnel is open during the day now as the chickens and ducks can't go in and destroy everything. This keeps the heat down a little and makes it easier to work in there in the heat of the day. The fine weather continues. It came with coronavirus and has stayed ever since. To be honest, we could really do with a decent day of rain now.

I thought I'd show you a few details from the garden today, little things I notice as I go round. The first is an amazing fungus which appears somewhere most years. It is metallic silver. I know it as moon fungus, but its real name is False Puffball. It is a slime mould. After a few days the silvery coating disappears to reveal a chocolaty interior of spores.
I couldn't remember why on earth I call it moon fungus so I looked it up. The Spanish for this is caca di luna, or something like that, which means moonsh*t to put it bluntly! It's a much better name.




I am trying to increase the perennial herbs that I grow in the veg plot too. I love this time of year when all the perennial plants erupt from their dormancy with lush fresh growth.
These two are bronze fennel and lemon balm. When they flower they'll be smothered in insects.

And finally we have the bee-fly (not to be confused with Flybe!). These seem to be having a very good year this year. They appear like a bee at first, but they are a dumpier shape and have a super long proboscis sticking out the front for drinking nectar. They actually parasitise proper bees. They lay their eggs in their burrows and the bee-fly larvae feed on the bee larvae.

Talking of bees, I got my first sting of the year today. A couple of honey bees had already collided with me and got stuck in my hair this week, but I waited until they disentangled and flew away. But this one seemed more purposeful. It bumbled around in my hair near the neckline for a while before painfully inserting its sting into my head! It got me good and proper, but fortunately I did not react to this sting. It just hurt for a while.


We have settled into lockdown life now. Today Sue held her first ever online meeting with some of the other headteachers in the area. Obviously computers cannot replace face to face contact, but at the same time utilising the facility when schools reopen would save a lot of travel time , petrol and road congestion. One way I deal with the worry of coronavirus is by looking for the positives which could come out of the other end when  people are forced to rethink things in such a big way.

Final news from the smallholding. The geese have gone into proper broody mode. There are two nests in the stable which we rob every day if we can get to them. But often both are occupied and today two of the Embden geese were sharing one nest.