A few weeks back we planted winter pea plants, variety Twinkle, and with this warm weather recently, they have started growing well- so well in fact that they are twining themselves together. According to the label that came with the mini pea plants, they are self supporting if planted in a block together.
This certainly seems to be their habit from observation, but they are also pulling each other over, so we decided to put in pea sticks, which are tall twigs, to allow the peas to climb- they should reach 50cm in height when fully grown.
We were going to go to a local hedgerow and see what we could scavenge, but remembered that the hedge at the edge of the green, which was cut in such a way that the stems were bent over in an interwoven style, by being partially cut through, and this allows side shoots to form and grow upwards.
Normally these shoots are trimmed back by the local authority to maintain a neat height, but not been done yet, so these became the source of our pea twigs.
Now we have a little forest of twigs sticking up from the raised bed, looking like they are ready to repel any invader. Hopefully the peas will begin to climb these instead of each other.
Whilst walking to the hedge, we had to stop and pick up more walnuts. The last few weeks or so has seen many of the walnuts falling off the trees (four of them) at different stages. Each tree has a different walnut size or shape. Currently we are finding mostly large walnuts, but another tree is dropping very small smooth shelled nuts, and another has medium sized nuts with an orangy tint to the shell.
We collect them to use for cooking - to make cakes to raise money for the local church, but we especially collect them to prevent the squirrels burying them in our lawn and flower beds. We have had a squirrel invasion twice in our roof before now- but I have worked on plugging the gaps over the years to stop them getting in- seems to have worked in the last few years. They hang around our area precisely because of the plentiful supply of food.
The squirrels have poor memories, so often don't dig the buried walnuts up- some are found by rooks and crows, but many start to sprout and grow and if they get a toe-hold, can be very difficult to dig up as they throw out a long tap root which makes pulling them or digging them up a chore.
Rosie had a pleasant surprise this morning on her walk- a cat ran across her path, that always get her excited, followed closely by a monkjac deer- not sure if the two were connected, or just both spooked by an approaching dog. Luckily she was on her lead, as she pulled me along in an attempt to get to one or both. The deer must have jumped the gate to the cemetery as it was long gone, and the cat did what cats do and disappeared.
Also in the garden today, was covering the potato plants with fleece in an attempt to stop them getting frosted- they were supposed to grow and be ready for Christmas harvesting, but the warmer weather has made them grow rapidly and despite constant earthing up, the growth has exceeded the capacity to protect them with soil anymore.
And to round it out daffodil bulbs have gone in to the front garden beds ready to give a show of colour next year.
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