Friday 25 June 2010

Wabbits revenge



Following on from Sarah's post about catching a baby rabbit in the allotment and releasing it into the field next to the allotment, Cate and I found not one, but two baby bunnies in the allotment on Monday evening.

In contrast to the rather cutsie tone of the previous incident, these bunnies were... how shall I put it...? Um, they were dead. Very dead. They were very, very dead baby bunnies. We found the first severly strangulated by the bird netting covering our peas. Most of it had been eaten. Icky gooey bits were hanging out and Cate had to carefully (and very heroically) cut it free with her pen knife (the bunny that is, not the icky falling out bits, you sick puppy).

Which would have been bad enough if it wasn't for finding another dead baby bunny on the other side of the same pea patch later on that same evening. This one had less bits missing, but was every bit as tangulated and dead as its wee pal.

It's the less cuddly side of allotment gardening I suppose, but what was the motive? Was it jealousy? Revenge? Or perhaps a sickening copycat killing?

*[edit] Sarah thought that the original image of a bunny playing with a hand grenade might offend some of our more sensitive readers, so I replaced it with this one. And if this one isn't quite your cup of tea either, then you might find this link useful.

The lie of the land in June

Everything is growing. Everything. Thistles and all. Here are some pictures. Above, chives, red and green lettuces, jerusalem artichokes in the background, and plenty of weeds.
Cate planting out the new internet-order veg box arrivals. The things you can get on the web these days! Front left the potatoes, to the right the lettuce cold frame. Behind that more lettuce, peas and root vegetables, including the radishes below.
Lettuces and peas - I could have sworn they were planted with enough space inbetween plants, but it seems not! Had better start harvesting every second one soon...
Our first zucchini (courgette) - with a wee bit further to go - and the first nasturtium flower of the year! Which ended up in a salad. Ruthlessly.

Thursday 17 June 2010

wabbits

So, this little one - or its mum - made it into our fenced in fortress of an allotment, and was rustling under an empty compost bag that I picked up to see what's under it. It froze, as did I for a split second - then I grabbed it. Cate and I cuddled the poor thing (that's one impressive heart rate!) and released it in the field with the horses. This rabbit removal method beats being shot by the neighbours, just hope it doesn't come back now!

I wonder how you go about harvesting angora... A quick search on the internet produces revealing before-and-after shots:
Now angora self-suffinciency would be lovely, but I don't think I'll be keeping a razor kit in the garden quite yet...

beans and broccoli


High time the brassicas and beans went out - so Carol, Cate and Sarah put in a long evening in sunshine until nearly 11pm. Brassicas were put straight out into limed soil. Purple sprouting broccoli. Yum yum!

Bean trenches were lined with newspaper (a la Emily) and filled with manure and soil mix before planting the beans, two to a pole.

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Malcolm's veg box

A very excited Cate rang to say Malcolm's veg box had arrived: an internet-order box of seedlings from rocketgardens. Here are the pictures!