Our four amber link chicks arrived yesterday. They are just over three weeks old so very much still babies, but they've got enough proper feathers already to keep themselves moderately warm, so no need for a heat lamp. It's still too cold for them to move out into their new chicken coop home just yet, despite it being past the middle of May. So we've got them living in a big box in our hall until things warm up just a bit more.

They're still very small

It was a nice afternoon we had yesterday though, so I let them explore the coop until it looked like they'd had enough excitement for one day and were ready for a little shut-eye. They seemed happy enough. They can certainly eat already and as long as there's chick crumbs about they don't seem to care where they are.

Our eldest son Blake's chilli plants are all out in the greenhouse now and doing well, those that have germinated that is. Sadly the bhut jolokia seeds never did. I don't know why, we used John Innes seed compost and did everything right but these things sometimes happen. His cayenne, scotch bonnets and twilight plants are all doing well however, and the cayenne are already producing their first flowers.

The cayenne pepper has pretty little flowers

There are only a couple of flowers blooming at the moment, but there are many more developing so Blake is quite pleased. Tomorrow I'll be showing him how to use a fine paintbrush and a delicate touch to pollinate the flowers as they need a little help being in the greenhouse away from natural pollinators. Then we can watch the peppers grow.

The scotch bonnets are yet to flower

The scotch bonnets and twilight plants haven't developed any flowers as yet. They seem to be slower growing than the cayennes and are still quite small. But they're the important plants as far a Blake's concerned, the cayennes not being nearly hot enough for the sort of lava-like sauce he intends making at the end of it all.

It was the end of September last year that I acquired some wood from a neighbour and declared that I would use it to build a chicken coop for our garden. By December I'd managed to get as far as moving the three-quarters finished job into its final position where it's been sitting looking forlorn ever since. The weekend before last saw some progress though; we bought four chicks. So now I'm having a bit of a panic.

There is still a way to go, but it's looking good

The chicks were only three days old when we first met them, and they are being kept under lights until next weekend so they won't be moving into their new home until then.

As luck would have it, we've just had a wonderful couple of days with wall to wall sunshine, so some good progress has been made and the coop is now very nearly ready to house our new family members. I hope, after all the work that's gone into building the thing, that it all meets with the chicks approval.

They are hybrid birds called Amber Links, which are said to be happy, docile creatures. They are also said to be reliable layers but we'll have to wait for a few months before we know for sure. It was my original intention to buy point-of-lay birds at around eighteen weeks, but acquiring them as chicks means that they will quickly adapt to living in the coop.

So, only a week to go and we'll have four birds living in our garden. At that point I'll take some decent photos of the coop to show you around properly, and of course I'll introduce you to the young ladies just as soon as they're settled in.

We've planted-out our runner beans at the allotment, Scarlet Emperor, sixteen of them in total. That should be enough to keep the family happy through the summer, with a stock-up for the freezer and a surplus sufficient for a few jars of green bean chutney.

I set the rows east to west, in-line with the prevailing westerly winds. As you can see, I've wrapped a wind-break belt around the beans and added diagonal braces to my canes.

Hopefully off to a good start

Every year sees casualties at the allotments where the wind has got the better of a row of runner beans. Although setting the rows in-line with the prevailing wind makes a lot of sense, there's no guarantee that said wind will respect your efforts and not blow from some wholly unexpected quarter. Wind can be devious like that. It's wise therefore to take a defensive approach to the building of runner bean frames. Belt and braces, that's the ticket.

We finally got a dry day to plant out our January sown onion seedlings, which we transplanted into forty-cell trays six weeks after sowing. It's at times like this that I really appreciate our raised beds, the ground would be water-logged without them. I spaced the plants six-inches apart and, fingers crossed, they'll end up using all that space by the autumn. Well that's what I've heard about onions sown from seed, here's hoping.

Ready for the big wide world

A dibber makes short work of transplanting

Last autumn's Japanese onions are doing well

Meanwhile, in another bed on our plot, the Japanese onions we planted last autumn are already starting to form bulbs. So, fingers crossed and with a following wind, we should be all sorted for onions later this year.

We've 'ad what they call a little spot of weather 'round by 'ere. The water butts in our garden are nice and full now, as is the pond. And so is the big field down the road where they play rugby at the weekends. Water polo might be a better bet. We saw it coming, as the image below so ominously illustrates. Debs is busy using string and bamboo canes to quickly support our broad beans against the approaching onslaught.

It's a hard rains are gonna fall...

I took that photo about eight days ago and I've hardly been back to the allotment since because of the weather; that is until this morning. The beans have taken a bit of a knock.

Leaning to the west

Our local winds here in North Somerset are predominantly from the west to south-west. Those dark clouds in the first photo are seen coming from the north, which meant that the broad beans were sheltered by our shed. Unfortunately, the wind continued moving clockwise until it was firmly from the east and gusting to over sixty-knots: that's when the damage was done. It's not too bad though, my broad beans will survive. Several other allotmenteers were not nearly so lucky.

The wind has died down for now, but there is plenty of rain still about and plenty more forecast for the week ahead. It can be a hard old game, this allotmenteering. So anyway, You'll not hear me complaining about my slightly-wind-blown broad beans.

We been having quite possibly the wettest day of the year so far, as the forecasters anticipate a month's worth of rainfall in just five days. So it seems a bit strange to be standing in a puddle, in the rain, filling a watering can from one of our garden water butts. It's for the greenhouse though, which still needs a good wetting every few days whatever April decides to throw at us, and it's surprisingly warm under that glass.

Lots of stuff growing

Those seedlings will all be planted out, either in our garden or down at the allotment, over the coming weeks. Then there will be just tomatoes, cucumber, sweet peppers and our son Blake's chillies growing in the greenhouse. It will be quite crowded again in a couple of months when they all get bigger.

I've got to sow some more sweetcorn and butternut squashes soon. Neither have germinated for some reason, possibly because it was still quite cold at night when I first put them out into the greenhouse. I hope they can catch up, I'd be lost without my butternuts growing to giant size in the allotment compost bin, and we all love freshly picked sweetcorn.

It's only about three weeks since I published a blog about growing three Maris Piper seed potatoes in a sack in our garden. I originally buried them in about four inches of 50/50 soil/compost mix (circa 10cm), and about a week ago I added a further four inches as the sprouting potatoes where already breaking the surface. I have just added another four or so inches to cover them yet again. They're growing really fast.

Time for some more soil

I will keep adding soil until the sack is pretty well full, at which point I'll allow those poor shoots to develop into proper plants. I can't wait to see how many spuds this method eventually produces; a good sackful, fingers crossed.