A very exciting day today on the allotment as Ethel laid her first egg - not her first ever, obviously, as even I, who fainted in any science lesson which dealt with reproduction, know that the egg comes before the chicken - but this was her first in my incapable hands.
I was very pleased that I'd worked out her constantly clucking, worrying and weird 'looking at walls' behaviour meant she was looking for a nest box. Alan was less impressed, pointing out that the fact I'd deduced that a hen might want to lay an egg as the first option wasn't really all that amazing.
She seemed more than happy with my makeshift 'Haribo' sweets cardboard box, filled with lovely soft hay, and rewarded me with a gorgeous turquoise coloured egg (see above). I was lucky enough to be at the shed right at the 'egg laying moment' (insert small fanfare) and, judging by the racket she made afterwards, she was equally chuffed with the whole affair.
I thought I'd take a few general shots of the beds to show how we're progressing, and a lot of the hard work on planting and weeding is literally bearing fruit now. Evidently the docks are well and truly into the paths and burning/salt had little effect. You can see above the difference in the hand weeded path to the left of the picture, but that took about 4 hours and was backbreaking. I think the chances of me wanting to do it again or finding anyone else mad enough are pretty slim.
I have a new volunteer, Maria, who is looking to do something practical after work, and she's already proved herself to be a brilliant digger/weeder on Wednesday evening so I hope she'll come back again soon.
We've got more leeks in and the potato and brassica beds have been weeded. At their last Greenfingers Club of the year the children sowed some sweetcorn, hung up their flower pouches (and made a few more which are now in the polytunnel), helped with weeding and also planted some more brussels sprout, which apparently most of them like to eat! We also had a bit of a taster session, with fresh picked rocket, peas and spinach going down a treat.
A few more adventurous (and dare I say it, slightly mad) children decided the various different mint plants might taste as good as they smelt. Needless to say, they decided it was much better to stick to sniffing them.
A hen having an afternoon siesta.
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