Well, for the past week or so we've had most of the chickens on the allotment, working full time: they're eating grass and weeds, scratching up the surface, and leaving lots of manure. The husband, with a little assistance from the son and I, fox-proofed (ish) the house part of the chicken tractor and we've been going up to lock them up at night and let them out again in the morning. Luckily it's only an 8 minute walk away (and between us and school), and sunrise and sunset are at reasonable times now we're getting to autumn. And so far we've only had one free range adventure AKA escape.
Cookie, our Pekin bantam, and her three half grown Leghorn chicks--whom I refer to as the cheeps--are still in our own garden, protected by bird netting; we had a hawk scare recently so we're not prepared to let the cheeps out just yet. While the chicken tractor is certainly hawk proof, I'm not ready to put the cheeps in there with all the adult chickens; they're too small.
But back to the allotment: the son helped me transplant about a dozen or so winter cabbage seedlings, and all three of us have been slowly pulling up/hoeing nettles and thistles (which the chickens won't eat) and adding to both the compost and the sheet mulched bit at the top of the plot. I've been advised to put up bird scarers or netting to stop pigeons eating the cabbages over winter.
I have plans to get some strawberry plants in and hopefully some garlic this month. I'll try and beg a few runners off other allotmenters (I've had an offer off one already, but haven't got any yet) and I've got enough of my own saved garlic luckily.
And speaking of fellow allotmenters; over the past few weeks we've been given tomatoes, several zuccini (one of them the size of a log), a cabbage, a couple garlic and shallots, a massive pumpkin and two butternut squashes. Where possible, we've reciprocated with eggs, but what a haul!
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