…put up a chicken shed? Answer, five: three to move it, another to bolt it together and one more to make us all a mug of tea. And very grateful I am too. Not only do we have a palatial home for the yet-to-be-acquired chickens, but the potting shed now has some light coming in, as the chicken shed panels have been propped up across the potting shed window for weeks, blocking the light. The chickens are multi-purpose; egg layers and garden pest consumers for me, egg layers and roast chicken for Dave(I’m a ‘fishetarian…’). He tells me he’ll do the neck-wringing when the time comes – we shall see! Here’s the shed moving trio in action – I’ll post a picture of the finished shed tomorrow.

Some very welcome visitors are turning out despite the continuing bitter east wind, in particular a group of students from the Welsh College of Horticuture. They all seemed to enjoy it, and I certainly did, so hello and thanks to you all. After a month of cold easterly winds, westerlies are forecast from Wednesday with accompanying milder weather. I can’t wait and neither can the plants.

Now, let’s talk abuot auricula Primulas. I never paid much attention to these until my avowedly non-gardening other half, Dave, looked over his newspaper during an auricula feature on Gardener’s World a couple of years ago and said ‘I like them…’. So I’ve paid them a bit more attention since then, picked up a few here and there and found a few on the nursery. If there are any auricula fanciers out there I’d really appreciate help with some idents. This one is an alpine, pale yellow centred with no meal, and a deep violet outer petal edged in a paler violet. The photo is a good representation of the colour.

April 19, 2008