For the last three mornings I have woken up to a ground frost, and today I regret not taking better care of my newly planted pumpkin seedlings  …  they seem to have been doomed from the beginning .. first the mice dug up the seeds and ate them! And now Jack Frost has visited my vegetable patch and decided that the pumpkins are not to be, and has damaged them beyond repair.  Determined to not be beaten in the quest for homegrown pumpkins for Halloween,   I planted out a packet of seeds directly into the ground when I planted my seedlings, so I am hoping they will germinate when the soil warms up, and produce some heavyweight fruits!

On the chicken front, I have had a poorly hen too   Her tail feathers were looking a bit mucky, so I tried to bath her in a bucket of warm water, and then on closer examination, I found that she had louse eggs firmly cemented to the base of her feathers.  After seeking some advice from a fellow hen keeper, I have dusted all the girls with some Livestock Louse Powder and will check later in the week, to see if the problem is under control.  I love the ethos of  the EcoCharlie Garden, and would prefer to use environmentally sustainable products as much as possible, so I researched some methods for keeping chickens fit and healthy, and found that if you add Apple Cider Vinegar and garlic to their drinking water, it works not only as a poultry tonic but also to control intestinal worms and parasites.  My garlic is growing well at the moment so we soon be self sufficient, and I have found a local source the the vinegar  … it has to be live and non-pasturised and not the sort you buy from the supermarkets.

On a more positive front, my rhubarb is immense, and I have been picking it regularly for the last couple of weeks.  This will also encourage it to keep growing throughout the Summer months.  I usually simply roast the rhubarb in orange juice and zest, fresh and ground ginger and a sprinkling of brown sugar for about 15 minutes in the Aga.  the combination of flavours works so well, and the cooked rhubarb can either simply be eaten with a dollop of creme fraiche, or made into a crumble or fool, or used with any other recipe requiring cooked rhubarb.

My next job of the day, is to sow some Cat Clear as I have a continual challenge of the neighbours cats using my front flower bed as their toilet area!  Cat Clear is an Eco-Friendly solution to feline control in all sized gardens.  It works on two instinctive properties of the plants that are grown from seed – odour and texture.

Hopefully the next time I write, the frost should be gone for this part of the year, and I can continue to plant out some of the more succulent varieties of vegetables including some courgettes.