Winter is nearly upon us, and my sidesaddle desperately needs a repack - and I'm still trying to talk somebody into doing it for me! So I'm going to digress today, as I have been putting the veggie patch to bed. Plus I lust after the set-up over at Too Many Tomatoes :)
I have 6 beds that are 1 metre by 5 meters. 4 are laid out radiating off the central statue (making a big X) and then 2 on each side. I also have two large beds either side of the shed. One is my asparagus bed (to the right of the shed) and the other (to the left of the shed) is going to have globe artichokes.
On the other side of the hedge is the chicken run, the pond and it will also be the orchard and has the larger veggie beds and my berry house. I decided to let the chickens free range as their run gets so muddy in winter. This is how they repaid me... this USED to be the winter veggies - silverbeet, cauliflower, kale, cabbages, broccoli and pumpkin...
The culprits!
We will eventually put a chicken proof fence around the outside of the bed to stop them getting in. Since they have trashed it anyway I am letting them scratch everything up, as they do a fantastic job of turning the soil over. They are like little rotary hoes.
Hubby built me a berry house last summer, so at least they can't get in there.
The fruit trees are coming in July and I am planning on planting them into large 4WD tyres. It gets quite wet out here because of the pond, and I want to raise the trees up a bit. Plus we can run the irrigation on top of the tyres, and hopefully hubby won't run it over when he mows... :)
Humm - our hens don't destroy the plants .. but I did not let them get into the garden until my tomatoes and corn were over 2 feet tall.. maybe that is why. Their scratching helps to keep the low growing weeds at bay though!
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