Chicken update

...now they're getting on fine. Lola stopped laying for a few days, maybe in protest at this new creature in her space, more probably, because of the hot, hot weather. She gives little Pegs the odd peck every now and again, usually when Peggy gets in her way or has a treat that Lola wants, but Pegs seems to be holding her own and there hasn't been a repeat of the incidents which led to them being separated. Hoorah!

Anyway, back to allotment business... Popped down there very quickly this evening to dig up some potatoes for dinner, and also picked a load of gooseberries (the berries of geese? where did that name come from?) and a dozen of the very first raspberries. Mmm.

Last week Phil gave us some of his left-over sweetcorn plants, (who in their right minds has left-over sweetcorn? You'd find a place, surely?) which was great as we had a million gaps to fill. They all seem to be doing fine, as are two small pumpkin plants he also gave us, and two cucumber plants which mum gave us - only one plant germinated out of three spots, each one had at least three seeds in! Not a good year for cucumber, squash and courgette, I think we're going to have to buy two or three courgette plants.

Also saw a million ladybirds on the broad beans, no doubt attracted by the blackfly which haven't seem to have been affected by me squirting them with soapy water last week. So now I'm going to look up varieties of British ladybird and see how many we can tick off.

Longer visit for weeding planned tomorrow.