First year nearly up !

I can t believe how the year has flown by, we ve gone from a patch of grass that was extra to mow, to creating the veg garden then the chickens arrived not long after.
The ladies are still laying but are getting less happy at being confined to the run.....we don t want to risk losing another to a fox as happened sadly to Babs.

The garden has been without doubt a real success, the only real problem being that we didn t plan very well this year....not knowing what we were doing and just muddling through planting as much as we could....hee hee !

Successes : beans,carrots,spuds,cabbages,courgettes,strawberrys,rhubarb, shalots, chillies,peppers,tomatoes.parsnips,pumpkins,Leeks

Failures : Radishes,turnips,sweetcorn, cauliflowers,sprouts,broccolli

The main problems we had with the crops were pest based........cabbage root in the turnips and caterpillars by the bus load.......so next year some netting is going to be employed.

It s been great eating our own crops and hopefully next year with some better planning we'll also have some Autumn and winter crops....at the moment all we have left is Leeks and parsnips....the rest is ready for working over and seeing what we can get in as early as possible.I m really looking forward to nurturing the seedlings on again....window sills full to busting inside with all our new little babies.......Plus I m going to add a speckled hen to the flock as well in the spring .

I ll add some photo's when I ve sorted out the beds outside and got all the cut down crop remains into the compost bins.

How things are coming along.

It s been some time since the last update , we ve both been busy with the lounge and also with work so little time has been free for the blog.

Anyway the crops are coming along nicely, we ve had a couple of bags of spuds so far from the first earlies. They are superb, really creamy and very very tasty.
The strawberries have been pure heaven and we had our first handful of rhubarb yesterday , put together with the strawberries in a decadent crumble.

A few pics of how things have come along , seems ages since the veg garden was just a patch of grass !

 salad leaves pots

The strawberries needed a bit of protection so we knocked up a little frame to keep the birds off and it seems to be doing the job.,

At least we can sit down now so a few hours in the garden at least has some light at the end now we have a lounge back.

 So that's about all for now, can t wait for the sweetcorn and garlic to be ready to see if they have been a success.

Adios for now.
Kim David and Duke.......oh and Babs,Patsy,Frankie and Dolly. xxx.

Is it just about summer ?

The weather has been definitely a tad warmer this last week or so, even with Northerly winds it has been milder. So finally I have taken the plunge and put the rest of the plants into the ground. The small plants have been hardening off in either the plastice greenhouse or the potting shed for a few weeks now so hopefully they will be fine.
The chickens have been taking up most of the spare time so today was a day to sort out the shed and then get planting with vigour !

Oh, I knocked up a bird table yesterday as well, hopefully it will entice a few pigeons down and they will be bagged for the table too .

Last night the table attracted a red legged Partridge to have a forage about under it....the Partridge was a beautiful bird to watch and just sometimes it's nice to watch the wildlife and not see it all as food !
Down at that end of the garden I ve also put in a few of the sunflowers that we've raised from seeds. They have been 'chicken proofed' with wire skirts so with a bit of luck the ladies will have some sunflower seeds for the winter.

The rest of the veg garden is now just about planted out with the first crops......god knows what we'll harvest .....probably a glut of everything. Time will tell though.

 

I ve got the sweetcorn and pumpkins in finally....I do hope the frosts have now gone for good this year.

Courgettes are in and some more Radishes so that is just about it....the only things left to sort are the Tomato plants....maybe Monday or Tuesday.

The chicken proof veg garden.

I forgot to add that we've also 'chicken proofed' the veg garden by putting up a new fence, so keeping the chickabods out !

Lessons learnt , chicken Fort Knox !

After our little loss the other night we were still both very sad but knew that for the chicken part of our garden to be a success we had to look after our ladies a little better and think smart,think chicken safe !

 The week of late turns and the one weekend of late turns in our five week shift cycle were the days that we had to contend with as the 'real' problem days. We now knew that any chickens left chucking about at dusk would end up as fox food , but unless we could find a chicken minder for those shifts we had a problem on our hands.

The MK1 chicken run just wasn t going to be big enough.....oh yes I forgot to mention, in memory of Bella we have aquired two more ladies in her place. So now we have a small flock of four birds. The original two of Babs and Frankie have now been joined by Patsy( named after Patsy Palmer as she is also a ginger bird ) and Dolly (who is a light coloured beautifully marked lady with a striking chest hence Dolly Parton ! )

So..... we knew  that the coop was big enough but the actual run would be a struggle for four birds, plus we wanted a run that was fox proof and that was big enough to leave the birds locked in there with enough room to chuck about whilst confined to the run on our late turns.

The design was drawn up in my head and the materials sourced. Thankfully the weather turned for the better and so the last three days off were a sweltering three days of chicken run building but also three days of sun tan topping heaven !(and a little burning of my neck and blistering of my office soft hands using hand tools again!)

Here is the run in part and then finished complete with log perch in the corner so the ladies have somewhere to sit and have a day time roost off the ground. The run has a wire skirt sunk a foot or so into the ground and then reinforced with concrete so hopefully it will have to be a very determined fox that digs that far down and the roof is sealed welded mesh too so protection from any climbing or airborn predators.I ve just got to add a perspex covering to give rain protection.

So just the shed to re-coat in the same fence treatment and I think the outbuildings will look rather nice all matching. Plus hopefully our ladies will be safe when we can t be here to watch over them.

The veggies are coming on and I ll put an update on the blog either tomorrow or Thursday when I ve put the last of the plants into the ground .  .....it's busy down on the Cheyne Garth small holding....or as our neighbours calls it on 'Tom and Barbara's' plot.

Sad night...........3 now only 2

Well just as we thought we were getting the hang of this chicken keeping lark we get dealt a sad blow. The chucks were about ready for bed and we were thinking time to go shut the girls away. Kim went out only to come running back in shouting, " Bella's gone !" All that was left was a pile of feathers....so it looks like a fox was out on the prowl earlier than we expected. Frankie was cowering under a bush clearly shaken from what she had witnessed.

We're both a bit stunned....a helpless feeling really that we let our girls down by not looking after them.
Bella was my favourite as she came to you when you called and liked being handled. Sad now she has gone.

R.I.P. Bella. xxx. 

Chucks are here and the ground is starting to be planted out now.

A quick update, we took delivery of our chucks this weekend, three lovely brown ladies.The collection and settling in went smoothly. We kept the girls confined to barracks for the first day and then after clipping their wings we let them out to range about on the second. Duke has been great, he has had the odd peck to warn him not to get too close but they are getting used to him more and more as each day goes by.

The veg beds have been netted to keep the little peckers off them, although i did catch Frankie wandering around the young parsnips.
Did I mention the girls names?
Well there is Bella, she is the most confident and has white flecks on her ruff, she is the bird in front in the picture above with Duke sat down. Then there is Babs, she is the nervous one who chases Duke the most and has pale legs compared to the other two (chickens not legs that is !) Then last but not least there is Frankie, she is named after Frankie Knuckles the once famous dj. Frankie has a claw missing on her right foot and it is just a knuckle end....hence Frankie (knuckles).

Anyway enough about the chucks, I ve put a few bits and bobs in the ground now, Rhubard, runner beans, parsnips and a few broad beans.

A few pics of the updated beds.

Even the carrot and Spring onion bed is coming along now.

Thats it for now, the ladies are tucked up in the chuck hutch, hopefully working on making us another trio of eggs, three a day so far bless them.

Ta ta for now.

1st of May but is it still Winter ?

It's been a while since I updated the blog, we've been busy with things in and outside of the house in the meantime. The only thing holding us up now is the flipping weather. Strong....no... gale force Northerlies and its meant to be Spring !
I 've finally got the chicken house finished today, just in the knickers of time as our three ladies arrive this weekend .At least they will have a nice new home to settle in to and start giving us some nice fresh eggs.
Duke as usual was on hand to model the new chuck house.

The rest of the garden has taken a battering this week, one of the poly-tunnels has been just about destroyed, fortunately I think everything in there is just about ready to face the outside world. I ve got some fleece on standby in case we get a late frost forecast.
Bed 1 has now got Beetroots, Turnips, Garlic, Leeks and Shallots coming along nicely . You can see the way the wind blowing across by how the Garlic and leek are bending over, I ll be putting some very fine mesh on tomorrow to keep the pigeons off and it should act as bit of a windbreak as well.

Bed 2 has now got a partial poly tunnel over it to give the cabbages and cauli's a reasonable start off, another couple of weeks and that will be replaced with some mesh as well. We have lots of wood pigeons visit the garden so I think we'll need some mesh to stand a chance of any crops at all ! (or I'll be buying an air-rifle........Mmmmm pan fried pigeon breast.)

The radishes in Bed 3 are coming along now and the initial chomping by I think mice has stopped now and they seem to be growing on. The Swiss Chard that we sowed next to the radish hasn't really appeared yet so I might re-sow more seed in the same spot and see what happens. The beans haven't been put in yet but they are getting really big in the little plastic greenhouse so they will have to go out soon.

Hopefully another couple of weeks and the real risk of frosts will be past and we can get all the courgettes and the pumpkins in the ground.
The sweetcorn is now in the shed and coming along nicely , also in there now are the sunflowers and just starting to pop their heads up are the marigolds we sowed a week or so ago, but they don't look like gloves yet....time foe them to grow still though.

The carrots that we sowed in the planter have taken a while but they are also now showing together with the first run of spring onions and finally our spuds have started to grow. The only problem with our spuds is that local cat has taken to using the planter bags as a toilet ! It will be having trouble going if I catch it due to a constipated right boot stuck well and truly up its arse ! Till then some cat pepper or similar will be deployed.

That is about it really, next time should see a bit more in the ground, hopefully the lounge decorated and the work on our boat started.....

Exciting albeit busy times in the Kim David and Duke household. Although Duke doesn't seem to stressed by it all as whilst I'm typing this, he is laid against my back dreaming and grinding his teeth against my back...nice !..

Until next time...adios.

April update.

Well we've been very very busy since the last update, as well as things in the garden we are in the middle of huge upheaval in the house with the lounge gutted and re-plastered.
All went swimmingly to start with, room emptied dado rails and coving removed no problems.
Then radiators off and all was ready for the plasterers to come in. Off we went to bed tired but pleased we'd made some in-roads to the job.
Morning came and the usual bath was put on........a few minutes later Kim shouted that she could hear running water downstairs ! I flew out of bed to find the lounge slowly flooding from one of the supposed turned off radiator valves ! Panic stations set in and in the buff I ran out to the garage, the cold ensuring my modesty was definitely modest ! Tools brought back in and the radiator quickly re-fitted....phew ! Emergency over....or so we thought. However after a quick visit from the local plumber we found out that the boiler had pumped itself dry and burnt out the main heat exchanger ! Fortunately the warranty on the boiler covered the parts...the boiler maker showing far more interest than the bloke who fitted it and ran......now not wanting to be seen again !

So we then had a week to wait with no hot water and pans to fill the bath...oh the joy of an hour to make a bath !...Still come the revolution we'll be OK...we can fill a bath , hunt for fish, butcher a deer and grow our own veg...we'll survive !

So the plasterers came in and did a great job, as well as the shed being delivered the same day and the base was spot on ...the bubble on the spirit level showing we had done a decent job laying the base...bubble spot on !

Finally the day came that the gas man could fit the new parts and at last ! HOT WATER AGAIN....YEEEHAAA !

Back in the garden things had started to move as well, our turnips have sprouted under the poly-tunnel, also our first sowing of radish has started to show through. The shed has given shelter to our pots and we have also sown some sweetcorn and some leek, all of which are now poking their heads up.We've also started our tomatoes off and got our stock of seedlings growing on almost ready planting once the last frosts have passed....roll on summer !

 We've even bought some black cherry tomatoes....sound nice..time will tell ?

The chicken coop and run has started to take shape...our three hens arrive in a couple of weeks so just a few finishing touches and it will be ready for our girls to make their home.The coop has a decent nest box and a good perch for our ladies to take some rest  upon. Tom and Barbara eat your 70's hearts out.

So lots happening and all still very exciting, just the lounge to get straight and we can start to get back to normal.

Catch you laters.