CUT FLOWERS

There are lots of flowers around at the moment - lilies are a wonderful sight and scent in the garden this month.  I like Lilium regale best, as it’s very robust, with several blooms on each stem. It will grow from seed very readily and bulk up to flower within a couple of years.

I've been picking flowers quite a bit this week - for end of term and for the pleasure of picking - most perennials benefit from having their blooms snipped off as it saves them from the bother of making seed, a process that saps their strength (like having children).  Annuals need picking regularly or they will consider that their job is done and stop flowering.  If you don’t want to deplete your border of blooms while it’s in full swing, pick off the flowers as they fade - dead-heading will help the plant, either by encouraging more flowers, or directing energy to other parts.

HATCHING NEWS

                              

Egged on by a friend at the Wealden Times fair (“What’s six pounds for a bit of excitement?” she said to tip me into my purse) I bought some fertilised eggs and popped them under our broody hen. We placed bets on how many would be cockerels (there must be a natural law that guarantees more males than females, which is decidedly unfair in the chicken world).  Twenty one days after purchase five little heads poked out from under their stepmum’s feathers.  They are very cute, but it’s hard to catch them for a cuddle as their mum flies at us with much maternal flapping and squawking when we go near.  It’s too early to tell what sex they are yet, so we’re saved from the cockerel question for the moment.

Even more exciting, but at considerably more expense than £6, is the  imminent arrival of Meg’s puppies.  Our chocolate Labrador is due to give birth on 27th July.  My excitement is tinged with a little trepidation, as I’m her birthing partner and it will be the first time for both of us.  Let’s hope she’s not as fiesty as the mother hen over her babies when they come...

KALE CRUSADER

I love kale - the look of it, the taste of it and the fact that, for a member of the fussy and temperamental brassica family, it’s incredibly easy to grow.   I’m sure it would prefer the rich, firm soil that cabbages and the like need, but it will put up with less comfortable conditions, the pests that make a beeline for the other similar crops seem to leave the kale alone (or at least, until last), despite it being very nutritious.  Add to that the fact that it will withstand the coldest of winters, not bolt in these very dry days and it seems near to the perfect vegetable.  The downside is that not many in my family will eat it.  I am on a kale crusade at the moment though and will try my best in the next few months to convert them - I’m going to have to, as most of the veg patch has been given over to it...