Category Archives: Allotments

Allotment update

Posted on March 20, 2014 | Leave a comment

The manure arrived for Plot 13 this morning as promised. It’s been dumped on our half, and our allotment neighbours will be barrowing their share onto their half shortly. We rather benefit from this, since whatever’s left behind will be on our side!

Manure 001a
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Mr Rotavator

Posted on March 17, 2014 | 1 comment

Now that the wet weather has finally given way to spring sunshine, we’ve at last been able to make a start on our new half-allotment. We strimmed it in the autumn, and killed the weeds with glyphosate, but we didn’t manage to dig it before it turned into a quagmire.

In order to make up for lost time, we clubbed together with our next-door allotment neighbours to hire the services of a man with a serious rotavator. The results were instant and highly satisfying:

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Mad as a wet hen

Posted on February 17, 2014 | Leave a comment

I took these pictures over the weekend, after the Friday night storms. In common with everybody else in southern England, we’ve had far more than our share of rain in the last few weeks. We’re not flooded, but the water table is right up to surface level. Woe betide any hen that fancies digging a nice dust bath.

Shooting Show 002a
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Chickens and eggs

Posted on December 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

We’ve made a start on culling the Year 1 cockerels. Last year we were fortunate in getting 9 hens and 5 cockerels. This year, out of our dozen, we had only 4 girls and 8 boys.

Although we left the hatch until fairly late, because of the unseasonably cold wet spring, they’ve matured quite early. The cockerels are fighting, crowing, and pressing their attentions on the hens. And much to our surprise, this morning we found a small brown egg, nicely formed and with a firm shell. We haven’t even put them on layers’ rations yet!

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Ixworth chicken update

Posted on November 6, 2013 | 1 comment

There’s no real trigger for this post, other than I haven’t shown any chicken pix for a while.

Here are this year’s hatch (known as the Year Ones):

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We’ve adopted a pig

Posted on October 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

The rain was lashing down this morning, so the chickens got to stay in their covered run until the day cheered up a bit. But we fulfilled a long-held plan, and visited St Albans Farmers Market, where we sought out Messrs Samphire, who specialise in rare breed free-range pork.

A very wet but welcoming St Albans Farmers Market

A very wet but welcoming St Albans Farmers Market

Samphire not only make delectable pork pies and sausages (which I have ambitions to emulate), but they also run a scheme called My Little Porkie whereby you adopt a piglet and commit to buy the meat once it’s fully grown.

So in around 6 months we’ll be taking delivery of forty kilos or more of rare breed pork. Meanwhile we’ll be able to follow the progress of our own pig as it grows to maturity. I’d love to rear a pig myself, but I have a suspicion that the council allotments officer would take serious exception.

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Seeds of Italy Open Day

Posted on October 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

We live quite close to the Franchi Seeds of Italy warehouse. They host open days from time to time, but for some reason we’ve never been. Well, we did today. We expected to stay for half an hour or so, but it was so friendly and so interesting that we lingered much longer than that.

One reason was that Paolo Arrigo, one of the owners of this family run business, also restores accordions, and when we arrived the warehouse was filled with music. He demonstrated one of his recent restorations.

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Two generations of Ixworths

Posted on September 26, 2013 | 4 comments

It’s end of day one at the allotment for our new flock. They had a good run this morning, and a brief outing late this afternoon. The new birds are loving their outside time. They’d really worn their little patch of garden lawn to a frazzle, and now they’ve got lovely long grass once again.

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Chickens’ New Home

Posted on September 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

We’ve spent the last week or so reinforcing the second run at the allotment, which was broken into by a fox last year. Another layer of heavier duty weldmesh has been added to the bottom half.

Last night was the night that this year’s newly hatched chickens moved from the back garden, where they were getting a bit cramped, to the allotment. We moved them at dusk, putting them into the house and hoping they’d roost straight away, but they were having none of it, and came straight out into the run. I was a wee bit worried that the smell of the creosote that I’d used against red mite had put them off, but I needn’t have worried. When we checked on them after dark, they were roosting snugly.

Garden Hens 005a
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Fruit and chickens

Posted on September 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Discovery apples signify late summer, but when the more mainstream varieties come on stream, we have to admit that it’s nearly autumn. The Discovery cordon on our new allotment has quite finished fruiting. It’s been given a quick summer pruning, but I’ll need to cut back all that top growth later:

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