The chickens have landed!

Well, the day has finally arrived after months of preparation; we have 3 new residents at 17 Lodge Road, and they're chicken shaped!

We picked the girls up from Ashford at 10am this morning, which is an hour's drive away. The re-homing woman (that's what they call the people who find homes for ex-battery hens) let us pick out our three new family members. I felt awful only having to pick 3, and very sorry for the scrawniest looking ones, but she assured me that they would all find homes over the coming days. We picked out three who looked like that had nice personalities and a good amount of feathers and here they are:



Aren't they posing well for the camera? We have named them Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch which are 3 coastal towns in Kent and the name of a small gauge steam railway. Our friend, Chris, suggested the names and they just seemed so perfect! They weren't very organised in this photo so didn't stand in the right order so, left to right, you can see: Hythe, Dymchurch and Romney.

Let me introduce you to them all individually:

Hythe looks very healthy, her comb is very upright which is supposed to be a good sign. She does, however, seem to be a little bit of a bully and I caught her pecking Dymchurch's bare bottom where she's featherless. I read that this could happen when there are feathers missing so it's a good job we have the week off to keep an eye on them. Here she is:



Dymchurch was the one that we named first - she didn't look in a good way when we got her out of the box and took a while to start exploring so "Dym" seemed to fit. She's much better now though and is moving around a lot. I know parents aren't supposed to have favourites but if I did, she would be it:



Romney hasn't let her personality come out just yet - she spent the first couple of hours sitting in the dirt box under the coop pecking at grass but is now out and about with the others girls. She has a bit of a bare chest at the moment but hopefully she'll grow some feathers there to preserve her dignity!



When they first arrived they were all pretty stationary but in no time they started exploring. This is them having a good look around:



I'm amazed at how much more confidence they've gained in just a few hours, it's lovely! They haven't yet ventured into the coop although Hythe made it halfway up the ramp, had a quick look, then turned around again. Darkness is a new thing for them, as is grass, bird song, bees, flies and a whole manner of things so it's lovely seeing them explore. We have to try to encourage them into their coop tonight and onto their perches to sleep so I hope we've given them enough room and shredded paper to lay eggs in! They are designed as layers so there is a possibility that they might lay straight away but we'll see. As the week progresses I'm sure we'll get to know them much better and hopefully get to taste our first home laid eggs!

What's happening in Hampshire

After the update from Kent, I realise why it is called the garden of England, but here is an update from us in the different time zone of Hampshire. We certainly seem to be 1-2 weeks behind in development.

I must start this edition by saying that one of the major failings I have is forgetting to take the camera to the allotment so these photos were taken with my Blackberry, so apologies for the quality.

The willow is really taking off now. Or at least the first row is, the others are coming along slowly. One of the issues that we have is lack of water. Although we have had some rain recently, willow likes moisture, so I think we are going to have to start watering.






The willow that is in pots until I find a place to put them is growing wonderfully. There are two twisted willow that I intend to put in pots in the garden as I think it will look a lovely feature in the autumn and winter.




After the success and popularity of the hamster ball, we have invested in another so that we can have double the amount of barley straw. The ducks seem to love playing water polo with the balls as they move them around the pond. The turf that we got from B&Q and added to from digging up the lawn at home, is growing well, but like the willow could really benefit from a good downpour so that we don't have to keep watering it.



Great excitement today when I found some lovely white flowers on the peas. I really hope that the birds and pea moth don't get to them before we do.





Another job that I did this week was to strip the infected leaves from the peach tree. Since planting we have had a bad case of peach leaf curl so the advice from Bob Flowerdew is to strip off all infected leaves. This exercise showed that under the horrible leaves there were able 30 peaches growing. I am not sure if they will stay on the tree, but it is now going to get dail attention and regular watering.




Another excitement after the total failure last year, is that we have loads of parsnip that have germinated. I have great hopes for a lovely tasty crop in December. It does seem a long time away but they really will benefit from a frosting. I am doing rain dances now, but will be doing frost dances in November/December to sweeten the parsnips.

I find crops that grow out of sight so exciting as, until you dig them you have no idea how they are doing. Most of the time they are forked and split but I have great hopes for this year as we have dug deeper and cleared more stones than ever before.



At the Tonbrdige Garden Fayre, Nick found a bargain. A goji berry plant for £4. According to Bob, they love poor soil and neglect so a perfect plant for us. Watch this space for updates on this super food. It has pride of place in the circus tent and I am sure we will be the envy of all other allotmenteers.

I am sure we are the topic of conversation with many at the moment due to the construction so I am sure ther eis a regular audience looking in to see what is happening inside.



We got a shock yesterday whe nwe found that Fennel had gone Kate Moss on us and picked up the latest fashion trend for ducks. She had a lovely neckless which thankfully was big enough not to be strangling her. A couple of days ago, I had lost my hair tie and Fennel had found it. I know that it was very old and stretched but I don't know how she found it and got it over her head.

It was another case of 'first catch you duck' as we had to chase her to get it back. She must have felt quite naked without it but we can't let her be a diva.


There are some among you who doubted the term 'figlets'. You may remember a couple of years ago, Katy got me a fig tree for mothers day. Last year we had a couple of figs, but this year it managed to hold on to some of the small figs from last year and they are developing well.

All I need to do now is plant a pastry tree next to it and we will be able to make our own fig rolls.



Having been given a lovely tea-pot stand at the weekend (photo to follow) it got me thinking about the appropriateness of our teapot. It is too but, too boring and too un-duck. So, in desperate need of some retail therapy, I logged on to ebay.

This is our new teapot. Ideal of two or for one person working from home, who likes to drink tea.




On the subject of ducks, we have a now sign on the gate to 53. A warning to all entering and it really is a warning that should not be ignored. I am constantly amazed how much comes out of the rear end of 10 ducks.






Next to the peas are the broad beans. Having lost the total crop planted in the autumn, when mice decided that their need was greater than ours, I resowed in the spring. Better late than never and it shouldn't be long before we have a crop. Later than in Kent but still worth waiting for.








Last but not least (and getting dark by this time) - artichokes. The plant is like a trifid and there is at least one choke forming so I am expecting a good crop this year.

In the foreground is the globe artichoke and in the background the Jerusalem artichokes which give a lovely late alternative to potatoes and should see us through the winter again.

Spring time in Tonbridge

Hello!

It's been a while since we gave an update of our little house and garden and, as it's now Spring, lots has changed.

Firstly, the garden. We've built a chicken coop, which we got for about a third of the retail price due to some cunning chopping, sticking and a lick of paint:



The chickens arrive next week so it's exciting times at 17 Lodge Road. We're getting 3 ex-battery hens so they'll be a bit weak and scraggy looking when they arrive but we're hoping a bit of TLC (we're taking a week off to chicken sit) they'll be running around in no time. They are going to be called April, May and June.




With the coop in the garden looks very different so I changed the beds around a bit and dug one big bed opposite the coop and put in a brick garden path.






The garden looks so much wider with it and we still have a good section of lawn in the middle (yes, I know is needs mowing!):



Mummy very kindly also donated us a chimney pot and strawberry/parsley pot so I've sunk these into the ground and filled them with herbs:



Finally, the grotty little bit outside the back door looks MUCH better with lots of plants in it. The pots on the wall in the foreground are from Ikea and the plant below them is African Blue Basil, which is a lovely perennial that we got from the Tonbridge Home & Garden show. You can also see two slug free hostas, which I now love, which were free from Thompson and Morgan:




Now inside...Last weekend we went to the reclamation yard down the road and got some iron wall brackets and a scaffold board to make this shelf (we took the cupboard off the wall to put this in). Matthew is also in the progress, as I type, of ripping the extractor fan off the wall which should really open it up and leave room for more shelves! We're struggling to find brackets so keep an eye out for some like these:




We also found this cupboard that someone had thrown out down the road but it's lovely so Matt repainted it and it's now on the dining room wall:




I have also learnt this week that Matthew should not be left alone with no jobs to do. I came in from the garden to find that he had ripped the carpet stairs up! There are lovely wooden floor boards underneath so we're going to spend next week sanding and waxing and then going to invest in a stair runner to stop them being slippery:




The final update is my job from this afternoon. We haven't used the dishwasher for about 9 months so it seemed silly keeping it. We freecycled it and a young couple who are moving into their first house came to collect it this afternoon so it found a good home. In its place we are putting the bin (so at last it's out of the dining room!) and recycling and maybe chicken food. I am quite proud of myself, I made this curtain with some fabric from mummy (on the front) and Matt's mum (on the back) to hide it all:




That's all for now! I'll post some chicken photos once they've arrived in their new home. Fingers crossed it all goes well.

Happy Birthday Tiger

Tiger is one year old today, and look how he has grown.