Rosher.Net

When your veg plot goodies begin to bolt… lettuce, spinach… kale… it’s usually due to wobbly weather. We’ve had some wobbly weather this year alright! And so it was no surprise when the green and purple curly Kale both went nuts and began to flower. The torrential, constany, unending, drought-busting rain – sent in response to several rain dances performed in the local area and perhaps over-enthusiastically – meant we didn’t do anything in the veg beds until it was well past caring.

In fact, the Kale is still perfectly edible, while the flowers have proved so utterly irresistible to the local bee population we’ll probably let it go as a matter of course in future! I went out this morning and counted (at least) nine distinctly different bee families dancing in and out of the ragged yellow flowers, from big black and red bumble bees through various red, yellow and orange honeybees and solitaries.

As the fields turn golden yellow with Rape, and the Hawthorn flowers to signal Beltane is with us, the insect population is also finally waking up! 🙂

In other garden news, we lost the second White Sussex last week. Given that both died at about the same age and no other birds appear unhappy it seems it was end of life rather than disease. More happily, I planted out an Oak that I’ve grown from acorn, into the chicken run where the fertility of the soil should give it a boost! I have a dozen or so Oak and Chestnut

seedlings currently fending off hungry jackdaws, and hopefully they’ll become new saplings in unexpected places in the next few years.