It has been a tumultuous year or so for several reasons – the comings and goings of our chickens alone would have taken up many blog entries – but I think now is the time to resume The Reluctant Gardener.
The garden has been ignored for the past year but, now that the internal house renovation is almost complete, our attention needs to turn to the external.
We have done one thing: we have solved the troublesome corner lower than the rest of the garden, that we had tried at various times to plant as a wildlife garden, an ornamental ‘Nice themed’ garden, a rose garden, a potato patch. We asked the builders to construct a small retaining wall which was filled with the rubble from the interior building work. We then covered it with a semi-permeable membrane, covered it with compost and sowed grass seed. Two weeks later we had a lush patch that was to be the new home for our Eglu and the chicken coop we had just bought. So, in the space of two months, we increased our ‘flock’ of chickens from two to seven, then lost three, gained four and lost another – proving that the life of the free-range chicken is unpredictable and sometimes tragic, but always better than that of a battery hen.
I love chickens. We had them on the farm when I was a child. I wish I could raise them here, but I’m sure city officials would croak.
Reluctant Gardener. I love it. I’m a late comer and I tell you this little garden of mine has given me renewed hope, joy, and purpose.
Glad you solved your low ground problem. There’s nothing worse than a swamp,.