 Patio
peas should be ready to harvest within five to six weeks.
There are some very slim-looking pods so it's time to start feeding
the plants once a week. Barbara put five plants around a 12 inch
pot with twiggy sticks to support them.
This courgette and the garlic
aren't looking too good. I've been wondering why four of the five
garlic plants have keeled over and failed to grow but today I notice
that the courgette plant is covered in a thick layer of fine dust.
This is the one patch of open soil left in the veg beds and I guess
that the pheasant has been dust-bathing here.
 You'd
hardly recognise our resident cock pheasant as the glossy, puffed-up
grandee who strutted about with his little harem of females a couple
of months ago. Over the last week he seems to have had a serious
attack of feather mite which have nibbled away his neck feathers,
giving him a scrawny appearance. No wonder that he needs a vigorous
dust-bath. The females may be sitting on eggs now.
I put our small cold frame and some chicken wire over the end of
the veg bed. He'll have to join the sparrows in their dust-wallow
in the flower border. 
Sparrow dust-bathing holes in the flower border
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