Monday 1 October 2012

Clearing the Deck

When we got our chickens we had not long moved house. Our new place has a good-sized garden which had once had some shape, but had been neglected. We have lots of ideas for this space, some easy, others less so. For the time being we've made a hit list of areas we want to give life to sooner rather than later. One of these is a space that was once used as a child's play area; time and inattention however, meant that when we moved in we nicknamed it The Meadow.

A meadow is a lovely place I'm sure, but it went straight to the top of our list for working on. A series of beds we thought, some for flowers, some for vegetables. Perfect. First, however we needed to remove the grass and weeds. This is where the chickens come in.

We pulled up what remained of the membrane that had once held back the greenery and then set the girls loose on half of the area. They've loved it. In a matter of a month they have reduced it to some bare earth and a few dry stalks. Chickens: 1; meadow: 0. Once they were starting to look bored we moved them to the other half of the area and watched them tuck in with gusto to the delights of grass and dandelion leaves. I don't think that section is going to last long either.


Then came our turn to put in some hard work, marking out the first two beds, digging them up and filling them with earth.


Now all that's left is to decide what to plant. What are your favourites? Any pretty flower or tasty vegetable suggestions welcome!

4 comments:

  1. Not a long-term solution but I am keen for flowers as early as possible to bring cheer to 2013, so I've bought 4 different types of spring flowering bulbs which I'm going to fill some beds with and then use the spares to underplant some of our other plants. B&Q have two packets of bulbs for £5 at the moment and so many pretty types :)

    Got a herb garden? If not that should be first on the list! I use our for practically every meal.

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  2. We have a selection of bulbs ready to go in (great minds think alike), and we're thinking maybe some sweet peas too :) We also have an area for herbs elsewhere, so this is more for seasonal veg...

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  3. I was going to suggest Jersualem artichokes but I seem to remember you're not keen on them.

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  4. I seem to remember making a good soup with jerusalem artichokes though which was tasty. I also seem to remember that you plant jerusalem artichokes once and they'll be in your garden for life which could be a good or bad thing depending on your viewpoint!

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