Onions, Bees and finally......little piggies!

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The first onion harvest drying in the sunshine.
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 Firstly, thank you for all the brilliant tips on the Kohl Rabi.  I must admit as soon as I read the words 'coleslaw' you had me hooked.  It was going to be a kohl rabi, carrot and onion coleslaw, but just when I was going to nip out to the poly tunnel to get some carrots the heavens opened and as the chickens and pigs ran for cover I thought 'sod that for a game of soldiers' (real Manchester talk there!!), and the coleslalw was reduced to just kohl rabi , finely sliced red onions and a good dollop of mayonaise....and it was gorgeous.  We tried the kohl rabi just sliced on it's own to experience the true flavour too and it's lovely.  I'm a convert, thank goodness I have some more coming on in the cucumber bed.  I'm going to get some more seedlings in to before it's too late.  Next I am going to try one of Shaheen's ideas, maybe the veggie burgers first and then it will just have to be the cheesy coleslaw suggested by Ted and Bunny.

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 A quick action shot taken yesterday while I was harvesting the onions from their tyre.  In the next two tyres we have Borage, grown for it's glorious flowers and leaves.  The flowers can be tossed into salads, or candied and used to decorate cakes, so both edible and beautiful and the leaves can be used to make an infused tea that is excellent for the kidneys.  Bees LOVE this plant and the honey you get if they are your own bees is divine.  When you have Borage growing in the garden the bees leave you alone to get on with the gardening preferring instead to feast on the delicately flavoured nectar.  They were visiting and visiting all the time I was working on the tryes yesterday so I decided to get some pictures.

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I love this quote about Borage -

 'Those of our time do use the flowers in sallads to exhilerate and make the mind glad.  There be also many things made of these used everywhere for the comfort of the heart, for the driving away of sorrow and increasing the joy of the minde. The leaves and floures of Borage put into wine make men and women glad and merry and drive away all sadnesse, dulnesse and melancholy, as Dios corides and Pliny affirme. Syrup made of the floures of Borage comforteth the heart, purgeth melancholy and quieteth the phrenticke and lunaticke person. The leaves eaten raw ingender good bloud, especially in those that have been lately sicke.'   Gerard.

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Spellcheck went wild on that one!!

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And finally, at last.....some shots of the new piglets.

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 Martha has had a tough time, it's her first litter and she had thirteen in total, so a large first litter. Although the births went quite smoothly I don't think she felt well and she slept and slept, nature making her do what SHE needed.
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 After many mishaps, with the little piglets being left to their own devices slightly longer than they should have been, and some getting squished because they did not move to the safe edges of the arc when mum moved around, she has now settled down with the six that have survived, they are feeding well and seem to be very lively. 
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Martha is still resting and taking things very easy but she is learning to be a mum and all that that entails.  Hopefully the little family will now go from strength to strength.

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Off to build a Broody House now, if Lovely Hubby doesn't hit his thumb with the hammer too many times I'll try and take some photos!  Hope the sun's shining on your weekend too, have a good one.

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Sue xx