Blood, Sweat and Chicken Poop

After a few more hours of hard work this weekend my new border is slowly starting to look like I could start planting in it.  After the initial stage of putting in some edging and letting the chickens have a scratch around and deposit some poop, I've spent this weekend digging up, hoeing and raking the clumpy, root bound soil to a fine crumble.  I'm looking forward to sowing poppies, white allysium and wild flower seeds at Anzac weekend.  Plus a few herbs and winter lettuces.

Before

During - Can't wait till After shot - full of flowers and herbs

I keep changing my mind on what types of flowers I want.  I love cottage garden pinks, whites, blues and purples but love the contrast of blues and yellows - so I've got another flower bed planned for the other side of my garden!  The garden pictured above will be pinks, whites and splashes of red that come with my wild flowers, to admire from the bench under our cherry tree.  The other bed will have vibrant contrasts of oranges, blues and yellows.
In time I'll find what flowers and foliage types I like and mix well.  But in the mean time I'm just going to keep planting, learning and discovering.

 I've also turned my compost pile to find a huge barrow load of the best compost I've ever made - perfect for the huge crop of broad beans I've got planned for winter.

I was excited to find my Grape Hyacinths have come up too - despite the beating that the chicken gave them over summer.  Well, back to the garden, I've got to finish up my raking, plants some carrots, beets and lettuces so we have something to eat in winter.

Mid-Summer Garden

I have never grown flowers for cutting before - but now I can see the attraction.  I planted a dozen sweet pea seeds early in the spring and I am now being rewarded with beautiful fragrant flowers.  Everyday there are more to pick when I forage for vegetables at dinner time.  I will definitely plant more next year and I'll make a nice big frame for them too, the tee-pee they are on is much to small and crowded (too small for anything of use really - I think some up-cycling is on order).  And as a bonus, I've been told you can cut down and dry the plants when they've finished and make pea straw for mulching your garden.

Sweet Pea Flowers

I'm loving my garden, all the hard work in spring is paying off.  There is a steady supply of gherkins growing over our old umbrella frame for pickling, sweet succulent cherry tomatoes, silver-beet, spring onions, coriander, carrots, lettuce, spinach, runner beans and juicy apple cucumbers.  Every couple of weeks I bung a  few more seeds in around the garden when a crop has finished, mostly carrots, spring onions and fennel.  I think it's a bit too late now for fennel but I'm hoping I'll get some tender baby ones to roast with our back-yard raised chicken when they're ready for slaughter.

Sweet, tasty toms

A quick forage in the rain this morning, yellow zucchini for dinner and gherkins for bottling

I'm amazed how big the chicks are getting - in just the last 4 weeks they have tripled in size and have grown heaps of adult feathers - they are 9 weeks old.  We are thinking they'll be ready for slaughter late February at around 14 weeks old.  For this flock are trialing a 50/50 mix of a grain mix and formulated meat feed.  The meat feed is not as cheap as grains but I'm sure the added protein is making a  difference to their growth rate, which means they'll be ready for slaughter a lot faster and eat less in the long run.  Time will tell.

A few weeks ago we moved them to their own run, which is also our compost area and they are doing a great job turning over the heap and it keeps them busy hunting for insects and scraps. I plan to create a 3 bin compost system after slaughter when the area is empty.  Then we can have bins at different stages and leave one open for the the next flock to turn for me.  I love having chickens, they are great at clearing weeds, turning compost and their poop is amazing for the garden - plus we get eggs and meat.

Our 'baby' chickens, a bit muddy with all this rain we've been getting but very happy and healthy.

Baby chickens 6 weeks ago