Busy week on the plot for us & the Chickens

Was a super day today, the sun even came out a few times.
But we have had a busy week, it was school half term & my wife (a teacher) got busy planting the following seeds:
Herbs: Oregano, Parsley & Thyme
Veg: Aubergine, Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, Calabrese, Cucumber & Purple Sprouting Broccoli.
Tomatoes: Alicante, Gardeners Delight, Roma & Tumbler.
All indoors but wont be long before planting out.


I have had the Potatoes 'chitting' for a week or two now.

Top row: Rocket (1st early)
2nd row: Charlotte (2nd early)

I grew both these last year, although I usually grow Charlotte anyway, they are lovely tasting spuds, the Rocket is a very fast maturing tuber & will be ready to lift 1st.

So the Chickens got another day out today, they had such a great time last week, so we thought as nothing is growing yet in the fruit cage it was safe to let them scratch about.

They had so much fun scratching around for bugs worms & we hope the Raspberry Beetle eggs that over winter in the soil.
We have to set traps every year to catch the beetle flies, so time will tell.

Other jobs done, I cleared the Parsnip & Carrot patch, weeded it and spread well rotted manure over it, as this is where some of my Potatoes will go. I counted how many seed Potatoes I had & was surprised to find I had 205! But haven't enough room for them all, so revised my planting as follows:
50x Rocket (3 rows with 11 in each)
36x Charlotte (3 rows with 11 each)
85x Cara (8 rows with 8 each)
34x Sarpo Mira (1 or 2 rows with 8 each)
At a total cost of £13, which is a big saving on shop bought (over 250lb harvested last year).
I know I will have a few surplus Potatoes, but my Wife will grow those in her school garden.

So a really good weeks work done & happy Chickens too.

It will soon be one year since we got our ex-battery hens, I will take a photo of them all on the 1 year anniversary and post a Blog to show how they have changed alongside the photo I took on day 1. So watch this space.

The date to look out for is March 19th 2012.

Thanks for reading/returning. Ian.