Hogs, Holly and more…

I was tidying up the kitchen the other morning, glanced out of the window and there on the lawn was this little hedgehog. It was daylight and it didn’t look fat enough to survive winter. I called Lucie because she has an affinity to hedgehogs and she was round like a shot. It was decided that “he” needed feeding and so for the last few days Lucie has been putting meal worms down and I’ve been adding dried cat food outside the back door. After a few days it is apparent the little fella is getting choosy because the meal worms are being eaten but not the cat food. Let’s hope he puts on weight and he finds somewhere warm to hibernate when it starts to get really cold. I shall spend the winter months worrying about lifting logs from the log pile just in case he’s sleeping underneath.

Midweek Nick, Dave and I removed the dead Holly trees from alongside the drive. Nick did the technical work of assessing where to cut while Dave and I pulled on ropes to make sure they didn’t fall on the neighbours fences.

Within an hour the trees were down and cut into lengths. I spent the next 3 hours shredding the brush. It’s amazing that these large piles of branches shred down into about 4 barrow loads of chippings which then get spread onto the path that runs between the trees.

As the last of the crops are coming out of the ground so I’m planning the vegetable plot for next year.

It helps to know where everything is going and to make sure I have crop rotation although I did read that onions should go into the same area, year after year. No potatoes next year because they take up a lot of space despite growing different varieties they don’t last well.

I’ve already put in my garlic using some of the corms from this year’s crop. It was a suggestion from a friend and it certainly worked last year.

While I was planning what to sow and where, I thought I ought to order my seeds. A few years ago one of Jane’s friends recommended using a company called Seed Parade. The seeds arrive in plastic bags with a simple label. They are not expensive or at least they are far cheaper than the packets in garden centres and they are high quality. Last year I didn’t buy from Seed Parade and had serious germination problems whereas I’ve never had failures from them.

I did make the mistake of ordering onion seeds but I’ve decided to sow them in the potting shed now and then transplant them in the spring. Last year I grew shallots from seed and they were puny so I’m wary of making the same mistake twice. Time will tell…