Weeds, weeds everywhere!

At lunchtime, I headed down to the allotment with a vague plan of watering seedlings and feeding chickens. Several hours later, covered in dirt I realised I had not only lost track of time, but had been rather productive!

I always check on the chickens first and I was greeted enthusiastically at the run door by Mavis, Bonny and Foxy. Honestly, you would think these girls have never had treats or been fed the way they go on! I mollified them with some treats and refilled one of their water bowls. Over in the other coop, I found the girls happily digging into some weeds which had been thrown in for them. Of course, I couldn’t go into the coop without being tripped up repeatedly or deafened in the process. Eventually, I made it to the food bin and threw out a handful of corn. It’s a simple way of having enough space to walk and to give my perforated eardrums a break, assuming you make it to the food bin in one piece…

Next I headed to the greenhouse to check on our seedlings. Cliff has kindly been watering them too which has thankfully meant the majority of them have survived. They still have a little way to go before being potted on or planted out. But I’m feeling really positive about our chances this year!

I decided to start weeding Geoff’s raised beds. He has kindly lent us a couple over the past few years which guarantees us some crops as our plot floods whenever it rains. The weeds also specialise in growing around the raised beds and in the gaps between the slabs on the paths which make it difficult to remove all the roots. By the time I had filled the weed bucket five times over, I had managed to clear two of the beds and the path between them. The next four buckets saw the last bed and path cleared although the raspberry bed needed some more work.

Pausing to review my progress, I realised the clouds had darkened and it looked like rain. I went for a walk around the site, disturbing Dolly who was on sentry duty outside Cliff’s shed. She really is a gorgeous dog and should be the poster girl for Duracell batteries – she runs everywhere and never tires!

I spotted a new entry in Cliff’s chicken coop which surprised me. It appeared to be a racing pigeon! Apparently it had been lost on site for several days and Cliff had found it hiding under a wheelbarrow on his plot. He fed it and brought it into the run to protect it from the many cats who regularly hunt on our site. We’ll have a look at the wing tomorrow to see if there is a phone number stamped onto the underside of the wing like when we found Charles during lockdown in 2020. Hopefully we will be able to reunite the racing pigeon with it’s owner.

With the rain now beginning, I headed back home, pleased with my progress and planning on my jobs for tomorrow. Well, assuming that it isn’t raining…