The Builder has been a-buildering

We've had the chickens out wandering around loose in the garden since the weekend, but only when there is someone at home and preferably out in the garden.  We've had the back gate shut and put the recycling boxes in front of it to stop inquisitive chickens squeezing through the holes in the ironwork, but there's nothing to stop visitors or delivery people pushing the boxes aside and then not putting them back again and we don't want the chicken ambling off into the big, wide, cruel world.

So when there hasn't been anyone around to act as a casual supervisor, they've been contained in their run, which is a reasonable size for four chickens but doesn't offer anything like the excitements to be found in the garden.  So we've bought fence posts and mesh and all sorts of stuff and The Builder has been putting up a fence down the side of the orchard.  He has worked like a thing possessed in the hope that he would get it finished by the time we head off for a long weekend in Edinburgh.

And he has.  The chooks now have a super-di-doopery run which covers the whole of the orchard.  We'll still let them out into the rest of the garden when we are about  - once I work out how to deflect their attention from my rainbow chard/silverbeet which they discovered yesterday. It's as fox proof as we can get it, reasonably visitor-proof and full of interesting things for the chooks to investigate. Parsley is now engaged in working out how to escape Beyond the Fence!!

If you should happen to need an 8 foot fence post, may I suggest that you go to Arnold Lavers to acquire it and definitely not to B&Q?  We bought 12 posts from Lavers at £4.75 each.  The Builder decided that we needed another one and dropped in to B&Q to pick one up, simply because he happened to be passing.  He dropped out again very quickly when he saw the £10+ price tag for one post!!! 

We now have three chickens laying (Coriander has yet to oblige). And I am happy to report that the cost per egg has now dropped below the £10 mark!!!!!!!  But the total outgoings does include all the set up costs, including the price of the chooks themselves.  Once everything is set up properly the outgoings should become quite minimal.

I was up on the allotment on Monday evening to water the greenhouse.  We have a lovely crop of tomatoes coming and even a few small peppers (assuming the ants don't chew their way around the stalk so the peppers fall off.  Again!).  We also have a cucurbit of some sort growing uninvited next to the pepper plant.  We have no idea what it is (other than being a cucurbit!).  But it is starting to set fruit so all may shortly be revealed :-)

The onions are not happy.  Not happy at all.  I think they are all going to have to go into the freezer this year and there certainly won't be enough to last the winter.  On the other hand, the potatoes and peas seem to be quite happy.  We aren't digging the potatoes yet but I might have a look next week and see what's what.

The Under-Gardener has now stripped most of the peas and broad beans in the garden and we are starting to plant brassicas where they were.  There are runner beans starting to appear and the chard (where the chickens have not stripped it) is getting close to ready.  And we have had some lovely little cabbages.  We are positively over-run with raspberries.  The chickens don't seem to like raspberries, which is a bit odd because they are quite willing to go to war for the gooseberries that got left on the bushes when The Under-Gardener picked them all a week or so back.

The freezer is beginning to fill up!