Those Pesky (but delicious) Bunny Wabbits!

As I mentioned in my last but one post, I had planted my broccoli into larger pots. Soon after I had done this (the week before Easter), I got called away to Ireland for a few days. All the time I was away, my hundred or so broccoli plants were outside on the ground soaking up the rain and thriving - getting used to their new pots. THEN on the morning after I arrived back, we had an visitation - well more like an invasion - in the form of little fluffy, twitchy nosed, leg thumping, breeding machines... yes.. Rabbits. Lots of the cheeky little ba****ds. Last year when we moved in, the first thing our next door neighbour's boy said to us was "If you have any trouble with rabbits, just let me know and I'll sort them for you". If only we had listened - as this year we are reaping the results of last years "aww look at those cuties". We've got several families and they all seem to be in warrens beneath the summer house and the chicken house. Needless to say, my broccoli was eaten (all of it) and I went from Watership Down fan to follower of Elmer Fudd overnight. I got our next door neighbour's kid on the case and he has to date trapped and shot over 20 rabbits - one of which my wife skinned (first time - and did it very well), and we had it casseroled on Easter Monday. THOSE WHO EAT MY CROPS BEFORE I SAY SO GET EATEN!

Dyke 2010

This week heralded the beginning of this year's mammoth task of keeping the dyke manageable. As I spent way too much time last year on the dyke - bordering on the obsessive, I've decided to only keep the garden side of the dyke mowed... as well as a foot or so on the verge beside the road. The bloke down the road from here keeps it this way an although the road side of the dyke is left to nature, it looks like it was left deliberately instead of looking totally neglected. I have the longest dyke in the street - in total measuring well over 100m and compared to most households down here, I'm the only person working on it. I'm working full time this year too.. and have a greenhouse full of crops to tend to.... and have half an acre of landscaping to finish... and have over an acre of lawns and nearly half a mile of flower beds to attend to.

**News Flash** Just been informed that my new 10'x10' metal lockable shed will be delivered this Saturday afternoon... This will be going down at the end of the garden, beside the big gap in the fence at the back of the greenhouse. The fence will soon be filled in down there as part of the big landscaping plan already well underway. The weekend before last, I hired a minidigger (yet another digger!!) - a really small one this time to dig out the path to link the path at the back of the summerhouse with the path at the back of the greengouse - through a series of twists, turns, bends, raised (mountainlets)(soon to be planted with groundcovering shrubs. and trees. Moving the soil was so much easier this time round than the time Rob did it in December. It was dry for one thing.