A steady trickle of things have been going on in the garden. None of them seem big enough to write about in their own right but I thought it was high time to bring everyone up to speed on what has been happening. The biggest changes have been happening on opposite sides of the garden as one big project.
As we built our chicken run we discovered a large area of hardcore. This isn't great for the chickens - there isn't much to scratch around in it for! We decided it needed to come out. Excellent, thought I, free hardcore to use as a basis for paths. Over in the vegetable plot the grassy paths between the beds have been awaiting the moment of their demise. Being a bit shy on good topsoil I decided not to waste it by burying it so have saved it for later use - I left the chickens guarding it (nicely tilling it and fishing out any weeds)! I intend to dig it out later for use where it matters and refill the space with a lot of wood chippings.
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| Chicken run with hardcore in bottom half of the picture. |
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| Vegetable plot (much earlier in the year) with grassy paths. |
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| Soil comes out, hardcore goes in. |
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| The chickens working over the spoil heap in their improved run. |
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| Nice solid paths in the vegetable garden. |
In order to try and give our vegetables the best start we've chicken proofed that area of the garden. Unfortunately our two bantams are too nifty for us. This time it was Frog who'd found a gap in the fence and we caught her several times strolling around our potatoes and onions. Time for reinforcements!
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| Re-enforced chicken fence. |
Here are a few of the smaller things that have been going on in our garden (mostly unaided):
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| Our tower of sweet peas - still going strong! |
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| Courgettes doing what courgettes do - sneakily growing under a mass of leaves. |
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| Cabbages looking more like Swiss cheese. There have been a lot of cabbage white butterflies around the garden... |
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| Our new rhubarb plant seems to be taking. |
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| Our apples are growing big and juicy. |
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| Our holiday gift to ourselves - one bay tree. There are already double the number of leaves on it! |
