Quel vent!!
We’re currently feeling the might of Tempest Hervé which is primarily over Corsica and our garden. Or so it feels. Or maybe it’s the Tramontane. We have had gusts of around 104k/h almost all day. I started the morning in the greenhouse by sowing lots of tomato, aubergine and basil seeds, but the blasts of wind made me fear shards of glass breaking loose and stabbing me in the neck. Dramatic, I know, but when the entire greenhouse takes a sudden strong lurch to one side, all the window joints scream & my blood runs cold. So I hot-footed it back inside and listened to terrace furniture being waltzed across the concrete.
On a happier note, the hotbed in the greenhouse is now working well and many trays of seedlings are appreciating the heat. The initial temperature of the composting manure was around 10 degrees. After one night it had hit 18C and now, four days later, it is at 55C. It will stay like that for a few days, then start to fall, at which point I will turn the compost and it will start over again.
Now trays of seeds are making the most of the heat. I’d expect most to germinate within about ten days.
I’ve been a bit concerned that something might be either eating or stealing Blucia-the-hen’s eggs. After laying beautifully for a couple of weeks she has stopped. I have no idea why. She looks perfectly healthy and shows no signs of being egg-bound. So I resorted to putting a nature camera in their house. The results are inconclusive. Blucia did not enter the house all day. Brighton-the-hen came in to lay. She was a bit disturbed by the camera, so had a good look and went out. But returned to lay another huge egg a short while later.
The only odd thing that happened was that a robin came in for a while, presumably to shelter from the ferocious winds.
A small intruder.
And finally…… you really don’t need to waste your time digging in bulbs! Look what I found flowering today. I must have dropped a couple of iris bulbs during the autumn and here’s one flowering in among some clover on a pathway.
