This weekend felt like a bit of a repeat of the last one, with one day spent working our way through a tiny part of the to-do list, and one day off on another hike to try out some new pubs.
The kitchen garden is starting to get there now, with the final beds planted out with kohlrabi, kale, cabbages and most of the leek. Expecting a poor germination rate (they were old seeds) and in anticipation that various garden visitors will help themselves to our seedlings, we planted extra and so have spares ready to switch in. I’m determined that this year we’ll actually get some vegetables! We’ve already had a lot of plants bolt – mostly the leftover spare plants we kept from last year and planted out in the spring – although the lettuce and radish from this year have also bolted and are really only good for pesto and stir fries now.
I had hoped to pull the bolted chard and lettuce up and replace them, however the discovery of butterfly eggs on the kohlrabi and kale (and then on the broccoli that was supposedly already covered) meant it took twice as long to check them all and remove any leaves with eggs on. Hopefully I got them all – and maybe some of the eggs will still survive on the leaves in the compost. We moved the second vegetable bed cover up to the kitchen garden and covered the last two beds; and I put a finer mesh insect net over the first cover with the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage in. Somehow birds are still getting into the cover so this may put a stop to that too!
Our wildflower patch is starting to grow – and from what we can tell they’re mostly flowers too (with the odd weed thrown in for good measure). There seem to be a lot of poppies, which is quite impressive since we can’t seem to grow poppies anywhere else!
We’ve added a couple of extra things to the games room too – two more bar chairs for anyone playing pool, and a cute wooden decoration. Our guests love the space with the pool table and the projector and the views, and we get lots of great feedback about it, so we’re keen to make it a really special place.
And finally – we spent Saturday on another pub hike – this time heading South to try out two new pubs that we’ve not been to before. We started with the longest leg out to The New Inn in Kilmington near Axminster, then out to Wilmington to The White Hart, before heading back via The Tuckers Arms at Dalwood and The Kings Arms in Stockland as our final stop. The route we took was probably a bit too far to repeat – especially the stretch out to Wilmington and back, but it’s always good to try new places and they were pretty reasonable venues. We were all pretty exhausted by the end of it!
Ley Farm Cottages 