Trees

Despise the warning that Earth was going to be hit by solar flares, we are still all safe and sound. Don't you just love all these doomsday fear-mongers? Warnings that electricity and computer networks could be affected failed to materialise, still a good way to control people is by fear .
We have a friend who owns a restaurant and he would like to produce his own eggs and rabbits to use in his restaurant, however it would seem that he will not be able to do so. Eggs have to be Bord Bia certified and as for the rabbits it appears that they can only come through a registered game butcher. When did rabbits become game? The powers that be are quite happy that something destined for a restaurant table has been produced by a faceless entity, has then been transported many miles to a packing station or a slaughter facility, handled many, many times, before arriving at either a retail outlet or the customer. this is apparently 'safe' food, as all the right boxes have been ticked. The world has gone crazy. I know that I would prefer to eat something that the restaurateur has raised his self. He can tell me what it was feed on and how it was cared for.
Well, all the trees are now planted, until the next lot, Simon has decided that he would also like to plant some silver birch, this again is a tree that responds well to coppicing, we still have not had time to pick up the ash trees that a friend has offered us.
The seedlings have rather got ahead of us, but all broad beans have now been planted. We have some in the tunnel just coming into bloom, some seeds planted directly into the garden and ones that I had done in root trainers. These modules are great, they open up and clip together, when the seedling is ready to be transplanted you just flip it open and the root stays undisturbed. Made from durable plastic they should last some time. We always plant a lot of broad beans as we like to eat them when they are very young, pod and all.
The sweet peas that I had planted into modules could wait no longer, so today I planted them out into the containers where they are to bloom, I just hope the lovely mild weather continues with no sudden frosts, it is rather early to plant out sweet-peas. I just love this plant, with the wonderful colours and perfume, both bees and butterflies love them, and for me I cant have enough of them, along with lavender, again, a plant that bees and butterflies love.
The spring bulbs are looking lovely, tiny little jonquils, so beautifully perfumed and the vivid colours of the crocus, the early insects love them and they are full of pollen.
The first flower bed that we made when we moved here also has a fine crop of mushrooms. This bed was created mainly from mushroom compost as the previous owners of the cottage had had many tons of large stones spread all around the cottage, it keeps mud at bay, but is not very helpful if you want to plant around, so false beds had to be created. It has worked very well, and we have had free mushrooms all winter long, a sign of just how mild it has been.