According to the News of the World Apprentice contestant Ben Clarke, 'swallowed a live goldfish in a sick stunt at a birthday bash'. It was part of a table decoration and he gulped it from a shot glass, 'forcing it to die a horrific death dissolving in stomach acid. He could face an investigation by the RSPCA.'
Mrs H cuts up slugs with scissors. I've advised her to adopt a disguise and lay low for a while.
After a torrent of emails, well actually one, and in my capacity as Mrs. H's conduit to the blogosphere, here's an owl update.
The owl box has been improved with the addition of a rooftop patio; this is designed to avoid them falling off as easily as they did last year. This is, of course, assuming they return. Last night when Mrs. H returned from Edinburgh at about 9.15 pm she saw one of the owls fly out from beneath the barn; we know they've been in there a lot during the cold weather as they leave their droppings.
Mrs. H also suggests a visit to Jim Wilson's web site. Jim lives in the Lammermuir Hills and has to be one of the best wildlife photographers in Britain; his owl photographs are both staggering and beautiful.
Yesterday in the garden...
Mrs. H. just came running back into the house saying, "Quick, quick, where's my camera." Next thing she's hot-footing it back down the garden. This was the result . . . as she said, "I didn't think we'd be seeing this."
Last evening the Head Gardener (also known as Mrs H.) brought back these borlotti beans from Polytunnel World. Our cunning plan is to eat what's ready in the garden and work our supper around what we have, rather than what we just dream up and disappear to the supermarket to buy. In the past we've left the belotti beans for longer and then dried them for use in casseroles, but not last night. Mrs. H. remembered a friend mentioning borlotti bean rissotto so she made up a recipe; I could see it involved onion, a small courgette and parmasen cheese and chicken stock, along with the beans. It was absolutely wonderful...actually it was better than that!
This is turning into Mrs. H's blog by proxy. Of course she does most of the interesting things - I just write. Yesterday she came back from polytunnel world and the vegetable garden with our dinner. It tasted as good as it looked....
February is a funny month. People often say things like that don't they? Actually it's not funny at all, it's a very unfunny, dull month, in which everything in the garden and the surrounding hills looks pale and drab. Everywhere you look you see jobs to do. Beds to clear, hedges to trim, beds to dig over, small bits of rebuilding - in fact a horticultural mountain to climb.
And so today Mrs. H. decided it was time to clean the greenhouse and then line it with bubble wrap, so raising seedlings can begin. On the face of it a very good day to do such a thing because it was beautiful here in the hills. It was sunny, still as still can be and warm too. The only problem being that England were in Italy to play rugby (I wish I hadn't bothered). I duly did my bit, lifting the heavy stuff and putting up the bubble wrap. To be fair I did very little, but it reminded me of how much I like being outside doing things together.
The effort is well worth while because not only do we get a garden full of vegetables, but also lovely flowers. Come late June the greenhouse will look like this.
One word about the greenhouse. It is the only known self watering greenhouse in the Lammermuir Hills. Self watering because the, so called, joiner who built it had not the first idea on how to build a greenhouse. Every year we talk about me getting a 'greenhouse job'. That's one that pays enough for us to buy a new one. It will happen, perhaps not this year, but definitely next....possibly.
My father reminds me that Rob Morris asked me what an allotment is following my Digging for Victory post. According to Mr Havers - whenever people call me Mr Havers I always assume they're asking about my father - there was a letter in the Telegraph Saturday last that said.
The Smallholdings and Allotments Act 1908 states that if allotment authorities "are of the opinion that there is a demand for allotments....in the borough, district or parish, the council shall provide a sufficient number of allotments to persons...resident in the borough, district or parish and desiring the same"
Mr H and I had always thought allotments were a post WW1 thing. The term means "a portion allotted" or " a small piece of land rented by a person to grow vegetables on".
Not an allotment but close!
Not that we're expecting a Vampire attack but we've got a bumper harvest of garlic. Mr's H. collected it yesterday and here it is, this morning, drying out. We had some roasted with chicken last night and it was lovely. I assumed that we were too far north to grow garlic - it was only something those clever French people could do. Then we read about a lady in Perthshire who had started growing in commercially on their farm. It tastes just like the garlic you buy in French markets!
Update from Mrs. H. I've got it all wrong. She had read that you need cold for garlic to go into cloves within the bulb so she was well ahead of me - again!
Time for an update on the continuing story of organic vegetables production. We're very lucky to have the space to grow plenty to eat. In Veggie World there's broad beans, Swiss chard, spinach, carrots, potatoes, swede, parsnips, garlic, onions and other things that I'm sure Mr's H will remind me of.
In PTW the tomatoes are at last turning read and the corn is shooting as you can see. The pumpkins and squash are doing well and with some sun (at last) so is the basil. Peppers, aubergines and French beans have all been slow, as have the courgettes - but we're getting there.
Mrs. H. has just come back from PTW and I can smell coriander wafting through the house (she's making beefburgers). It has an amazing aroma when it's just been picked.
We've had Greater Spotted woodpeckers that feed regularly on our nutfeeder for about the last four years. Every year they bring their young to feed. They are very shy, so getting a picture is always tricky. Mrs. H is clearly future 'Springwatch' material, although I'm not sure I want her consorting with that odd Bill bloke!
Polytunnel World goes from strength to strength. Besides the strawberries, which we've been eating for three weeks now we had our first courgettes yesterday, admittedly baby ones. The corn, French beans, pumpkins, squash, peppers, aubergines, coriander and tomatoes are all coming along fine. The first fruit have appeared on the tomatoes in the pots - the ones we put in early.
The excess of strawberries has meant the strawberry vodka has been started this morning. The strawberries are in a Kilner jar and then covered with vodka, no sugar though as this appears to be incorrect from consulting recipe books various.
Right beside the polytunnel a pheasant has made her nest. It's two eggs short as one of the dogs found the nest, scared off the hen and devoured two before we could get a hold of her. Click on the picture if it's not too clear and you'll see her tail poking out of the grass. Nevertheless I'm going to tell the gamekeeper that they owe us some extra pheasants this year - roll on pheasant pate!
There's jubilation in the house this morning - our first strawberries from Polytunnel world. These will go on my muesli and homemade yoghurt. We have so many on the way that it necessitated the buying of Vodka this week so that we could make some strawberry Vodka
When you garden at 700ft up in the Scottish Hills it's not all flouncy frocks and straw hats. The Head Gardener complained today that there was nothing for it but to get out there and get on with it. This was she returning from Polytunnel World at 5 p.m. this afternoon. A hot shower and a hot toddy will probably do the trick!
I've never really thought about it much before but I now understand why they call them tree surgeons. John Craik our local font of all knowledge concerning trees had come around a couple of weeks ago to check out an old Beech tree that had half its trunk rotted away. "You'll no be hanging onty that'un" Was John's considered opinion. At about 7.15 this morning John called and said "I'll be up the day." "Oh right" said I. I immediately called Dave, our friend from further up in the hills, he's the practical ying to my impractical yang. This last picture shows just how skilful it is taking down a tree, you don't just saw it off at the bottom like they do in the movies!
...today. Just had lunch in the garden, the weather couldn't be more glorious and we saw our Swallows, for the first time, back to nest on the house.
Yellow is not my favourite colour for flowers, with the exception of Primroses. We've had our best ever display on the bank down by the burn. They are stunning.
Has been resolved. The Head Gardener decided we could plant out tomatoes in the poly tunnel.
There may be many more important issues being discussed in the Borders, Scotland, or even the UK as a whole but in our house, when to plant the tomatoes in the poly tunnel is way out front. It's not just as trivial as it sounds, because there are echoes of the great global warming debate involved. The very warm weather of week ago not only helped bring things on in the greenhouse more quickly, but it also plays tricks on the brain.
"I'm sure we planted the tomatoes in the poly tunnel earlier than this last year." Said I.
"No, it's too cold over night, they need to stay warmer than 10 degrees." Said the head gardener (RHS trained no less).
"They'll be fine." Was my typically optimistic ill informed retort. "Look in your garden diary."
"We didn't plant them until May." It said in the diary; she was right again!
Interestingly our garden is at about 700 feet and things are always a couple of weeks behind Duns, which is probably at 200 feet. We are surrounded by hills, which rise up to around 1200 feet in our immediate sight. In the 1500s the abbey at Kelso had monastic farms in the Lammermuir Hills and grew corn and barley on the tops of these hills. I'm not for a minute saying that man isn't affecting the scale of global warming, but there is clearly something cyclical in the whole affair.
The compromise on the tomato front has been to pot up three varieties and put them in the poly tunnel as an experiment. We've got another thirty to forty plants so disaster will be averted even if they get 'knocked back' (a gardener's technical term) in the next few weeks.
Yesterday we went to Dave Lochhead's for a BBQ (In April!) and it was great. Dave's son Jamie and his partner Helen are off travelling to Eastern Europe (parts of the former Soviet Union that we hear about on the news, but I certainly can't spell). Dave's daughter, Ailsa, has just come back from a year in South America - intrepid bunch the Lochheads. Apart from getting a bit of a going over for my gently rapid anti independence stance from the Glaswegian contingent the afternoon passed off without incident.
Until that is Helen's father spotted a bright red bird.
It was a Scottish Crossbill - a bird said to be found only in the Highlands in pine forests (Dave's house backs onto pine trees). You can read more HERE.
