Saturday 14 March 2009

Chickens on the Allotment!

What a difference a couple of months makes! Our site is really beginning to look like allotments now, rather than just a field!
This is Plot no. 10 - we have raised beds!
Looking from No 10 back to the car park. You can see 2 large mounds of wood chips - our second job today has been to barrow those chippings around the site to cover the paths. The first job was to add some rabbit proof fencing - we nailed chicken wire all around the site, pushed it down into a ready dug ditch, and backfilled all the earth. Allotmenteers 1, rabbits 0!

Looking from the car park across the whole site - and the view across the fields. No 10 may be a small plot, but it has a lovely view! You can just see my plot - the one with the green dalek composter.

I finally plucked up courage to take Florrie and Pom with me today. They were very well behaved. I chose them because they are the only two who do not run away when I try to catch them! (and they are very efficient and enthusiastic diggers!) They had lots of admirers! It was lovely digging and listening to their contented little cluckings beside me. They were doing a very good job as well, until Matthew got too close to the fence with his ham sandwich and they mugged him through the wire!


Finally managed to get things planted as well! The bed in the foreground has been 'lasagned' - dug over and as much of the couch roots removed as possible; 3 layers of newspaper; a layer of compostible material (from the bottom of the chicken run and veg peelings); topped with a layer of topsoil. I've planted onions and shallots and broad beans. I've heard that birds like to pull up onion sets, hence the old net curtains over the bed to protect them.

I can't believe how much I am enjoying this - it's been a lovely day!

No comments: