Apples and mud

I just bought (or ordered) some apple trees. I am very excited. I have never planted a tree, let alone one as, well, edible, as an apple. And I ordered THREE! They won't be dispatched until mid Nov at the earliest, since they need to be dormant, but still...

I have ordered:

Crispin

Redsleeves (you'll have to scroll down a bit to find it)

Saturn

We have been promising the boys that we would plant apple trees for them, but it has taken us a while to get to a house we are planning to stay in for a while, and also to figure out where we are going to put them. But I have now 'bitten the bullet'... Can't wait!

In other garden news, I have bought some garlic and red onions to go in the garden, since we are supposed to put them in now. The soil isn't too wet as we are lucky to have good drainage here, but I think I need to put in some paths, because I am just treading all over the soil that I want to be planting in, which isn't good for it.

I haven't been to the allotment in a week because last time I went there it was just mud everywhere. Worse than it had been before. Incredibly bad.

We need to get to the builders yard, buy some drainage pipes, gravel and dig ourselves a drainage ditch. Or a pond, which is what our drainage holes have turned into for now! Not great. Thing is that it's a catch22. Too wet to dig, and it's too wet because it hasn't been dug. Ok, so it has rained a lot, but our neighbours (who have dug over their plot already because they got it in spring)haven't got this problem.

So there you go.

Harvested the borlotti beans. Not many of them, but they were lovely. Will grow them again, but just more spread out so they can actually grow!

Oh, and we found a huge mushroom in the garden. Don't know what kind or if it's edible or poisonous. Told the boys not to touch it, but would have been fun to try eating it if we had known it was edible. Always rather fancied doing that, but was way too scared/sensible.