Charlie Vs The Slugs!

It's been tipping down with rain and nothing much is happening in the Minion Garden so I thought I'd devote this blog to Charlie's diligent and often novel approaches to pest control. However, before I begin I will need to further explain Charlie and Minion 1's (as he is an integral cog in Charlie's pest war) unique relationship.

Imagine two very cheeky, very naughty, teenage boys. You know the type.... They're the ones that teachers call 'characters', always up to mischief and never where they're supposed to be but they somehow get away with it because they are amusing and ultimately likeable and 'generally harmless'. These boys will always have a plan hatching and when it goes spectacularly wrong will shrug and announce that 'it seemed like a good idea at the time'..... Got the picture in your mind....OK, now picture that one of these boys is actually a man, aka My Charlie and the other is Minion 1. That's what we're dealing with.

Charlie was, before last year, a stranger to gardening. He took to it immediately but soon discovered with the soaring heights of horticultural success come the lows of calamitous climate and pernicious pests. The most heinous of the latter Charlie soon identified at the common garden slug. Any gardener knows the havoc these slimy critters cause.  However, when Charlie first discovered slug devastation (when they made a feast of his newly planted runner beans)..he took it personally, and so the slug war began.

When an indignant Charlie quizzed me about slugs and possible ways to defeat them I told him of the usual methods of keeping them at bay i.e copper rings, beer traps and going out at night and picking them off the greenery. Little did I know that he would take these ideas and run with them...

I often ponder what our neighbours think of us. We are friendly with the neighbours on either side of us but of the people in the houses that back on to our garden are unknown to us. We did have an encounter with the neighbours at the bottom of the garden when one of our chickens escaped into their garden and we had to go round and rescue it out of their tree. I was 8 months pregnant at the time and we knocked on their door wearing wellies and carrying a cardboard box and a towel. We were very polite and apologetic but I'm pretty sure they thought we were nuts.

Charlie and Minion 1's first wave of attack on the slugs probably didn't do much to improve relations when they took my 'pick them off the greenery at night' idea and gave it steroids.Imagine what these people must have thought when they looked out of their windows night after night to see two men with headtorches on and kitchen knives in their hands crawling around stabbing at the lawn.....I'm amazed someone didn't call the men in white coats.

Even though it was pretty amusing seeing them crawling around in the garden with head torches on it wasn't as amusing as their attempts to rid the garden of cabbage butterflies. 

However securely we netted the brassicas those pesky butterflies found a way in. I'd pick off the caterpillars and try to minimise the damage but that wasn't good enough for the chuckle brothers. Charlie's plan for the demise of the cabbage butterflies was to unleash Minion 1 on them.....He armed him with a badminton racket and instructions to kill anything white and fluttery that dared to approach the brassica patch.... fire and forget. This was the most spectacularly ineffective and highly amusing plan ever. I'd be sitting in the front room and I'd hear a roar of indignation from Minion 1's cave followed by him sprinting through the house holding his badminton racket with a look of steely determination on his face. If you rushed to the window you would be treated to the sight of Minion 1 jumping around madly, slashing the racket in the air and uttering half formed expletives while the butterflies leisurely fluttered up and hovered just above his reach.....excellent :-)

These days, having lost Minion 1 to medical school (see what I did there, dropped it in again, you've got to admit, I'm good) Charlie has scaled operations and is often seen buying value beer in Sainsburys, not to drown his sorrows you understand, but to lace his slug traps in the garden.

Or perhaps that's what he wants us to think and is secretly devising a slug killing robot....I'll keep you posted :-)

Chickens, Part Deux!

The minions all climbed into the Minion Mobile and we all headed off to buy our new chickens. We arrived at the Poultry Centre en masse and had a good look around before heading for the hybrids pen. We chose three hens: A Bluebelle (they are grey-blue and lay light eggs); A Bovan (black with a gold throat, good layers); A Light Sussex (white with a black tail and neck).

After chasing them around for a while. The lady caught them and packed them into a box ready for us to stack in the Minion Mobile to escort them to their new home.

The chickens arrive at the newly refurbished chicken enclosure.

Minons 4 and 5 prepare the house.

Charlie brings the grub. Grandad looks on.

I put the chickens into their new home. This is Jemima the Light Sussex.

And here is the Bovan. Minion 5 named her Rosie.

And here is Lavender the Bluebelle! All three ladies, safely stowed.

They have spent today in the upstairs of their house. This apparently helps them imprint on their new home. Tomorrow morning we'll let them out into their run. Well, we'll try. There is a ladder that drops down but the last three were such thicketts we had to escort them up and down the stairs for several weeks until they finally got the hang of it. Let's hope these ones are a bit brighter. A busy weekend for the minions. We will let you know how are new arrivals have settled in next weekend!

Wiggly Worms

There's a really cool eco website called Wiggly Wigglers. It's kind of like Lush for gardens and has some brilliant products for helping the average 'good life' gardener. I once bought a compost corkscrew tool that has made mixing my compost bins a breeze and it's one of my favourite bits of garden kit. Here's a link to their website if you're interested:

http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/

I've always wanted one of the Wiggly Wiggler's wormeries. For those who don't already know a wormery is a composter. It consists of trays which you fill up one at a time with kitchin waste and the worms turn it into lovely rich wormcaste compost. As an added bonus liquid or 'worm tea' accumulates in the bottom of the composter and is a fantastic free fertilizer.

My wormery arrived at 8am this morning. As most Minions were still in the land of nod, and Charlie was looking after Minion 6, it was left to Minion 5 and I to assemble it:

This is the 'worm bedding' we had to put it into warm water to break it up.
This is what the worms live in until you start putting waste in.

Charlie brings the workers a well earned cuppa.

Minion 5 added the worms. She wasn't squeamish at all.
 Minion 1 would have screamed like a girl.

Minion 6 has a nose!

The wormery in its new home, undercover by the back door.

By 9am it was up and running! By which time a few more minions had dragged themselves from the pit. At 11am we left Minion HQ to replace our chickens.....

A Minion Free Weekend

Charlie and I were minion free this weekend (except for little Minion 6 that is) so we decided to get stuck into our HUGE list of garden jobs. The weather, i.e torrential rain, has kept us out of the garden a lot more than anticipated for this time of year so we find ourselves quite behind at the moment. That's the trouble with gardening, there are often very narrow windows in which to get things done.

This weekend's list of jobs included lots of planting and preparation for next weekend and the arrival of the chickens and the worms...yes I said worms :-). We had to dodge the rain a bit but we're quite pleased with what we managed to get done.

Firstly, We wanted to extend our strawberry patch and plant some gooseberry bushes. We had a trip to one of our favourite garden centres (as well as having a lovely range of plants and trees, they do really great gluten free cakes in the coffee shop) and purchased compost and 4 gooseberry bushes. On our return we dug over the area; laid weed supressing fabric; planted the gooseberry bushes and then ducked inside as the heavens opened. On Sunday, (after a trip to another of our favourite garden centres) we covered the fabric with bark chips. Here is the result:

We are really please with our fruit section now. There are strawberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, a cherry cordon and a plum tree. Not bad!

Elsewhere in the garden I was determined to sneak a few flowers in (Charlie thinks flowers are a waste of good vegetable growing space). I got a lovely hanging basket of fushia and planted a few pots up with nemesia and stocks....don't tell Charlie :-)

Charlie was hard at work in the chicken enclosure laying a few slabs and reseeding the grass. We planted sweetcorn and leek plants and put up supports for our peas (which are growing very slowly. All in all, a productive weekend. Tonight our garden looked like this:

 Next week, the minions return, and we will be introducing our new chickens and setting up our new wormery!

Out-foxing the Foxes

So we lost our three beautiful chickens to a fox. Rest assured that their lives were brief (Oct 2011-May 2012) but very happy as they were spoilt rotten. We are determined to get more chickens but the trouble is, now the fox knows where we are.

Foxes are great climbers and diggers and really hard to keep out. We've had some excellent hints and tips for detering them including hanging bags of human hair around and 'marking' our territory :-). However, we are not willing to risk more hens so we decided to make a concrete base to put the house on.

This is not ideal as it's best to keep them on grass but we will put lots of straw and interesting things in the run to keep them happy and hang up fresh greens for them. They will also be able to run about the enclosure when one of us is in the garden (which is pretty often). The advantages to this method are two fold. First there is no way a fox will be able to get in to the hen house if it is closed. Secondly, it will be easier to house them in the winter when grass does not replenish. This winter they spent moving around the lawn and the more eagle eyed of you may have spotted the rectangular bald patches in the grass. 

Charlie hired a cement mixer. We employed ALL the minions. It turned out to be a fun day.

First they laid the hardcore (courtesy of a kind lady on freecycle) and, once Minion 1 stopped going on about his guns, bashed it all down to make a secure base.

Shaun showing off his 'guns'...oh dear :-)

After the first load was poured, Minion 1 and Charlie fully realised how long it was going to take but they soon got into a groove and construction moved on at a good rate. Minion 1 originally had the job of raking the cement but was soon usurped by Minion 5 whose technique was far superior ;-).

Minions 3 and 4 were employed bringing sand in from the front garden. They did their job admirably until they disappeared and were subsequently found asleep in the front room (though I'm pretty sure Cricket was feigning as he had a big grin on his face).

Here is a rare sighting of Minion 3 in the garden (even if it is his back) as he came out to offer everyone lemonade. Minion 6 is in her manager's tent surveying proceedings.

By the end of the day we had a masterpiece of a concrete base (pic in the next post) and luckily the rain held off long enough for it to dry. We just have to tidy and reseed the enclosure and we are chicken ready. Watch this space for the arrival of chickens part deux!

We Love Freecycle!

So the 2011 season ended with a few additions to the garden including a lovely cherry espalier we purchased from  and planted next to the chicken fence.

Soon 2012 was upon us and so was the very happy arrival of lovely Minion 6 aka Milly May. Whilst on paternity leave Charlie built a beautiful raised bed on the patio area out of green oak sleepers which he treated with tung oil. Here is a picture of the finished product and Charlie and Minion 5 planting it up for the first time.

After all the torrential rain we had during April (hose-pipe ban...pah!!) which flooded the garden three times...we decided that raised beds were probably the way to go. Having spent all the garden budget on the oak sleepers, they aren't cheap!!, we found ourselves without the funds to buy anymore wood. It was around this time that Charlie discovered the joys of freecycle.

If you are unfamiliar with freecycle it is this fantastic website where you can get rid of all your old unwanted tat and pick up other peoples tat that you actually need. There are lots of weird and wonderful things on there, it's really worth a look. Someone had old scaffolding boards in their garden and Charlie swooped in and picked them up and another 2 raised beds appeared.  Our neighbours Sharon and Neil very kindly donated some top soil too. By jubilee weekend the garden was looking like this:

The lovely bunting was made by Emma McGill of 'Hooray'.

While he was in the DIY mood I asked Charlie to build me an Auricula Theatre. I've always liked Primula Auriculas and used to grow them. They are quite a specialist flower and were very popular in Victorian times, sometimes exchanging hands for a week's wages! It's traditional to display them on posh covered shelves (they're not keen on rain). Charlie got an old bunk bed off freecycle which he took apart for wood, a bit of slate from our neighbour Terry who is a roofer, and a pot of green paint and this was the result:

Isn't he clever!!

We are nearly up to date now. Just a few changes have taken place since jubilee weekend. The most important were the fortifications to the chicken enclosure. Sadly, in May, our poor chickens fell foul (pardon the pun) of a nasty fox :-(. Determined not to lose the next lot we had to come up with a cunning plan!.....

Charlie's Chicken Coop (2011 continued)

With our garden growing away Charlie decided to build a chicken coop himself (he loves his DIY). We got the plans from ebay but Charlie pretty much ignored them and did his own thing. It was really good fun watching the coop take shape and Minions 1 and 3 got involved with the process with the varying levels of enthusiasm that can be expected from teenage boys. As I was pregnant with Minion 6 I was the official chronicler of the event and kept the team motivated by shouting encouragement from the shade of the apple tree. Here's how the coop took shape:

Charlie says a prayer to the gods of DIY

Minion 1 gets on board but soon loses interest and goes off to play xbox

This, apparently, was the hardest part of the whole project.

Cricket (aka Minion 3) doing some sterling work.

Cricket didn't realise what Charlie was up to until it was too late :-)

So by the end we had the most beautiful chicken house ever. Charlie was very pleased with the results. He erected a fence around the coop to keep the hens off our veg. It kept the hens in but, sadly, didn't keep the foxes out :-(. More about that later.

Meanwhile our seeds were all growing. The runner beans and broccoli were going great guns and we ended up with a pumpkin the size of a small dog. We had some sweetcorn and would have had more if the sun had come out a bit more often. The courgettes were disappointing though and the Aubergines never appeared. Not bad for a first try though.