Tuesday 13 July 2010

Our Vegetable Patch and Cheeky Chickens


The veg patch is looking pretty amazing at the moment, all thanks to N's hard work and a bit of help from Mother Nature - more lettuce than we can possibly eat; courgettes getting nice and plump; potatoes flowering and beetroots bursting forth:


And did I mention lettuce?


It's a beautiful sight.  The full bloom of summer time.

The homemade scarecrow occasionally gives me a real shock while I'm picking peas. I think that my son has crept up behind me to 'boo' on me.  Ironically, it doesn't scare away the crows, pigeons or seagulls.


And next door to the veg plot, we have the cheeky neighbours: Con Carne, Rascal and Peppermint:



This one (Con Carne) is the boss and gets right under our feet.  She is forgiven though, as she provides us with wonderful large speckled brown eggs with bright yellow yolks.

8 comments:

Northern Snippet said...

That looks fantastic,everything looks so green and wonderful.I have a small herb garden,which provides us with lovely fresh herbs.I'm currently digging over part of our back garden with the plan for a veg patch for next year,though where I will find the time I don't know.x

Anonymous said...

Looks great. After pollinating my own courgettes recently (bit of veg porn) I now have 3 healthy looking vegetables and more on the way! Good old mother nature...

Angie said...

We did have a very small veg patch for a while but our garden really isn't big enough. What we now have is clumps of herbs in the borders (they do make attractive plants), beetroots growing in a tub in the dustbin compound, runner beans and their wigwam in a tub on the decking and tomatoes in a growbag on the patio.

Grazing Kate said...

Northern - I highly recommend having a veg patch, but definitely requires more work than a simple herb garden. Best thing is to get someone else to do the hard work - my other half is fab at remembering to plant out seedlings, do watering - I am not so good at being organised and can't be bothered to deal with it every day - apart from picking and eating it - that's the fun bit for me. And love gazing out the window at it too.

Belleaukitchen - courgettes are so productive - I'm loving them at the moment sliced and baked in the oven with garlic, lemon zest and olive oil - the taste of summer! Why did you need to pollinate them? Ours just do their thing without intervention.

Angie - sounds v inventive - our beetroots are starting to look great - how are yours? Dying to roast them and serve them with some feta cheese and balsamic vinegar.

Anonymous said...

what i didn't realize is that if you only have 1 courgette plant (and not many bees) you need to polinate the flowers or the courgettes just shrivel away and die.

there is a male and female flower on each plant and the bee gets confused.

Anonymous said...

Just come across your blog via Local Food Advisor and love it. Your veg patch looks so pretty and I'm so jealous that you have chickens!

Grazing Kate said...

belleau - thanks for the info - I didn't realise that. We've always had 2-3 plants so never had that problem.

charlieb3c - thanks for your comments and for popping by!

Choclette said...

It's all looking really good and the chucks seem happy - very envious of your lovely fresh eggs (probably said that before). Our plot was looking really good this year until now - bligh has struck our potatoes big time and we've had to cut all the tops off - sigh!

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