The Edible Garden Project 2015 – part 4

Here comes the protein!

Last week we bought three lovely chicken ladies and became proper urban farmers! They are so plump and adorable and I finally understand what chicken lovers mean when they say that chickens are funny. They are actually hilarious! They remind me of John Cleese doing his funny walk. And they are so soft! I love them already. We have been working a lot on the Chicken Coop this week, which was humid, damp and dirty. My kids and I did a big clean-up, painted some oil on the surface of the coop and built a brand new chicken coop door. We built them a nest in an old metal bucket and added a wooden egg (to trick them that this is where they should lay their eggs). And then it was finally time to go and get the chickens. We bought them for 8€ each at a local farm and considering that they will give us about 800 eggs a year, this is a very good deal. We are not planning to keep them in that cage. They will be free-range chickens, foraging and exploring the back of our garden, where the compost conveniently is located. So that’s it: we now have fresh and pretty much free eggs, the best fertiliser for our future plants and three cute pets to enjoy.

In the Fall and Winter garden, everything is looking fine too. The broccoli and the carrots are growing inside a fleece tent and I hope it should protect them from possible early frost. We will still have a small amount of salads, a small pumpkin, chard and radishes to harvest, but just in case, I’m growing a few salad and chard plants inside, to harvest during the coldest months. We are still fine with vegetables though, the entire freezer is full of zucchinis from this summer. Our three zucchini plants were very productive!