I fell asleep among the flowers, for a couple of hours...

Is there anything nicer than strolling through an English meadow on an early summer afternoon?

This one is scattered with Oxeye Daisies, Buttercups, Vetch, Cow Parsley and a host of other native wildflowers and grasses. I could happily while away an hour or two on a picnic blanket in the sunshine listening to the gentle hum of the bees and watching the butterflies idly flitting from one bloom to the next.

Even Wolfie, my two-year old German Shepherd, paused to admire her surroundings.

First harvest from the vegetable garden

We've harvested the first of our new potatoes from the vegetable garden. We planted our seed potatoes, an early variety, back in mid-March and they seem to have done really well, despite taking a battering during the recent high winds.

It's the first time I've grown potatoes myself and I'm really pleased with the results. We'll enjoy these this evening with lashings of butter and some fresh mint from the herb garden. Pulling up a couple of roots of potatoes has left me with enough space to plant a few extra Leek plants, which we'll be glad of later in the year when there's not much else in the vegetable garden.

We've been harvesting Rocket and Lamb's Lettuce for the past few weeks, as well as Chives, Basil, Lemon Balm, Oregano, Rosemary, Mint and aniseed-flavoured Fennel tips, which are great mixed into a salad. The salad and herbs have done really well and we've had a near constant supply; it's weeks since I've had to buy any from the shops. The trick is to sow salad seed at regular intervals so that you have a continuous supply through the summer months.

Our Beetroot, Radish, Onions, Garlic, Spinach and Peas are all doing well, but my young Squash, Courgette and Bean plants have all suffered slug damage. More about that later...

Comfrey: A beautiful and useful wild plant

I love the vivid blue of the flowers on this Comfrey plant. The colour is strangely exotic for a native wildflower, yet the tiny bell-like blooms give the plant the appearance of a typically English cottage garden plant. Comfrey likes to grow on riverbanks and other damp, grassy spots, and is abundant at this time of year. You're likely to see a range of different hues, ranging from the deepest pink to a soft mauve, right through to this stiking cobalt shade. 

As well as being very attractive, Comfrey is also an extremely useful plant. For centuries, it has been used for medicinal purposes and, when applied topically in ointment form, is said to speed up the healing of broken bones, sprains, fractures and bruises. This explains why it is sometimes referred to as 'Knitbone'.

It's also an excellent fertiliser for the organic gardener. 'Comfrey tea' is made by rotting the leaves down in rainwater for a month or more. I dilute the resulting liquid (at a ratio of 15 parts water to one part Comfrey tea) and use it to fertilise my tomatoes, although it's great for all fruit and vegetable plants, and even your hanging baskets, pots and tubs. Comfrey can also be added to your compost bin to add extra nitrogen and speed up the composting process.

Did the recent thunder storms cause our hens to stop laying?

At this time of year, with the longest day just over a month away, our eight hens are usually at their most productive. So we were more than a little surprised when they suddenly stopped laying last week. Egg production dropped from five or six eggs per day to as few as one a day or, sometimes, none at all.
Wondering if the coop had been invaded by red mites - a nasty parasite that plagued our hens last summer - or some other pest, we gave the hens a health check and the coop a thorough clean-out, as well as sprinkling some red mite powder in the bedding. Thankfully there was no sign of anything sinister; all our hens appear to be in rude health. This made the sudden lack of eggs all the more puzzling.
It was only when my husband, Jonny, ran into another local chicken-keeper that we discovered that our hens were not the only ones to have stopped laying.
It became apparent that the problem was not unique to us, so we began to look for other explanations. The penny dropped when it was mentioned to us that thunder storms can have a detrimental effect on hens - we'd had powerful storms, with thunder and lightening, the week before. A bit more research revealed that, when healthy hens suddenly stop laying, it's usually because they've had a shock of some sort. Several websites and forums that I've looked at appear to suggest that thunder and lightening frightens hens, disrupting their laying patterns.

Thankfully, two weeks after the storms, egg production is now picking up again; we had four yesterday and three the day before. Looks like we'll have to sound-proof the coop next time a storm is forecast!