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On My Oasis – Garden Changes and Chicken Updates
Alas, first for some sad news. Cersei may have survived the shame nun in Game of Thrones, but here on my oasis, I’m afraid to say that Cersei is no more. She’s been looking poorly for several weeks. Ever since I put her back with the flock since her time-out for bullying, she’s been under the weather; I’m really not entirely sure what caused it. She had sour crop, that’s for sure, and a few weeks ago I spent my Saturday making her vomit, getting plenty of water into her and feeding her scrambled eggs. She seemed to perk up, and throughout her illness, she continued to lay. But one night last week she looked very poorly indeed and just as I expected, I found her dead in the morning. She’s been buried at the bottom of the garden where the bench will go. We’ll underplant with thyme and grow bronze fennel and hollyhocks behind as a screen between the cutting garden and veggie plot so it’s a nice resting place for her.
Reading a book on chickens with a Polish pullet on my arm.
Chicken obsessions grow
The day before Cersei departed, we attended a poultry auction. Oh My God. It was FABULOUS. I’d got the idea from watching River Cottage, and wondered whether there were any local auctions to avoid me having to sell our excess chicks on Gumtree. Can you believe it – there’s an auction every month within walking distance! We went to suss out the auction for the future and, luckily, didn’t take a lot of money – otherwise I think we’d have bought all sorts. In addition, with friends coming over we couldn’t stay for the entire time – just as well as there was a rather beautiful Pekin rooster with a funny squeaky crow that caught my eye. Hubster, meanwhile, was caught on a pair of barnacle geese and some pheasant chicks. Yes, we were definitely on dangerous ground.
So far, the five chicks from the first batch (now six weeks old) all look like pullets which I’m quite happy about because it means we can keep them. I’m hoping that of the new five, we’ll have one white Polish rooster and the Lavender Barbu d’anver will also be a cockerel. That way, we’ll have three excess chickens that we can sell at the auction when the time’s right. Three ex-batt layers, a quintet of Polish and a pair of d’anvers should keep us quite well. And, at some point, we’ll get some meat birds too but as someone at the auction pointed out, it’s probably worth picking up chicks for around 75p each rather than going through the time-consuming hatching process.
Garden changes
As anyone who’s gardened knows, those outside spaces evolve, particularly when you’re first establishing the oasis. Most of what I’ve created so far as stayed with the plan, but there are a few changes afoot. Firstly, the void behind the shed was to become a potting area and pot storage. However, with ample space at the bottom of the garden, I’m actually going to build a new chicken coop here; making perfect space of the area and allowing the flock to grow.
Just one week in, I was already attacking the garden.
The garden in it’s current state; still A LOT to be done.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the garden, there are some alterations to the veggie area. Firstly, due to security concerns, the large shed that dissects the triangular end to our land is now going to stay. It’s large and filled with wood at the moment, but over the coming months, I’ll be chopping some of that down. It’s good storage space and should allow for some chicken overflow too. What is does unfortunately mean is that we’ll have a small triangular patch of garden we can’t access. Losing this space seems really costly, but this is not the forever home, and it will take a lot of money to bring down the shed and then build up the walls to stop thieves coming in. Hence; it’s lost to us.
The other plan had been to cut the conifer down – until we found out it was a yew. I don’t really want to remove it, so we’ve been hard pruning it upwards to create lollipop-like topiary. After the tree was gone, we were going to smash up all the concrete paving and turn it into a vegetable garden. This plan is NO MORE. Instead, we’re creating several large raised beds. The area gets quite a bit of sun, and with the tree pruned even higher, enough light should get through. In addition, even after all the work of lifting the concrete, we’d have been left with extremely poor soil that’s riddled with tree roots. With our new idea, I’ve literally built the beds on top of the concrete, lined with cardboard and filled with compost. It’s not ideal, but again, we only plan on being here between five and seven years, so as long as we keep enriching the soil in those beds, it should be fine. The brassicas, salad onions, radishes, leeks and lettuces are in, and I’ve a few more germinating seeds to pop in during coming weeks.
Essex, as a whole, desperately needs some rain. We had a full day’s downpour a couple of weeks ago and the difference in the garden was incredible – suddenly the plants all looked so nourished and happy. Now, with another heatwave, it’s back out with the watering can every evening – it takes me forever. However, with a wet, and hopefully cold, winter season ahead, I can’t wait to see the garden maturing next year!
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