Hailes & Gardening.

Saturday was another busy one!

I was out of the house before eight thirty and headed over to Evesham to collect Bubbles.  We then drove over to Hailes and had a splendid morning clay shooting.  The weather was absolutely glorious and it is one of the most attractive shooting grounds that I have ever visited.  From the stand at the top of the hill there are splendid views north west across beautiful countryside towards Dumbleton and beyond.

I had a couple of appalling stands, but, overall, was reasonably pleased with how I shot. My score was 52/96.*

Clay shooting consumed the morning and first task of the afternoon was to plant a row of second crop potatoes.** I've not planted spuds so late in the year and it'll be interesting to see how they perform. If the packaging is to be believed we will be able to have Charlotte new potatoes with our Christmas Lunch.

30% and I then headed out towards Powick. We have set our hearts on a water feature comprising a mill stone with a bubbling little fountain at its centre. 30% had found a local Architectural Antiques dealer with a potential stone and we were off to check it out.  When we found the dealer we were surprised to see that it was a house that we had viewed about four or five years ago when we first put The Pile on the market. At that time we rejected the house because it was very close to a busy road and this time we rejected the mill stone because it was cast concrete, rather than the real thing ... the search continues.

Back at home I returned to the greenhouse and planted some Durham Early Spring cabbage in seedling plug trays. These will be grown on, transplanted in to pots and will be planted out in the veg patch later in the year.  They will spend the Winter under cloches and should provide some lovely Spring greens by February.

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* The Hailes shoot is twelve stands with eight clays at each.

** Maris Peer and Charlotte varieties. Ten seed potatoes of each. The Maris Peer were planted at the end of the row closest to the path through the veg patch.