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11th December 2009
The fogs have set in, I can barely see my hens through the mist, and the new girls weren’t sure whether it was time to get up this morning or not. The garden looks good swathed in grey, outline is more impressive than detail at this time of the year. As my sons come back, I hope to decorate the house, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying a little minimalism in the hiatus before Christmas proper. 17th November 2009
Each new delivery excites me, and then when it’s displayed and absorbed into the shop, I‘m back into the depths of depression: there’s not enough stock, it’s not interesting enough, it looks like last year. And then something new arrives……..
Do come and see us if you can. 25th October 2009We have some new arrivals at the Kitchen Garden. During the summer, a breeder friend, who had decided to give up her hens, gave me six Orpington eggs. With no broody, they were farmed out to another friend with Silkies and subsequently three hens and three boys hatched. I was going to sell them, but they are so lovely, I was seduced and decided to keep the girls myself. At 15 weeks, I couldn’t integrate them into my flock, they’re too young, so we’ve set up a new run at the other end of the garden, with a separate house.
Our own chick is probably a pullet too, and so we’ll probably have one of the Silkie’s cockerels in the Spring when the Old Boy finally staggers off. So, new leaves turning at the Kitchen Garden. 5th October 2009
Have managed to rescue a few walnuts from the squirrel – or is it squirrels – could be hundreds or just one busy one, but as usual 90% have been eaten straight from the tree. Seeds are ripening in paper bags, and rain is forecast…….. 28th September 2009
Starting to collect seed heads, leaves and dried flower heads, prematurely aged due to lack of rain, for Christmas decorations. Our decoration course will take place on November 25th. 18th September 2009
3rd September 2009
The bride’s table was decked with Vanilla Ice sunflowers, corn, wheat, cornflowers and lavender and I saved an elegant bowl of Zinnia Green Envy, Magenta pompom dahlias spiked with lavender for my table. Seventeen tables with bunches of Suffolk garden flowers.
My outfit went down well, thank you RSPCA shop for my £10 Nottingham lace dress c.1960, and friend Nicola for the organza stole and the Christian Lacroix earrings. Budget went bust with an extremely expensive pair of LK Bennett magenta suede shoes.
Back to real life with some rain at last, but always accompanied by drying winds that buffet the hens and chick. Come and see us here at the Kitchen Garden. We are still open till the end of September. *Special thanks to Sal who did the catering (Country Vintage Weddings on 01359 259923). Her recipe for Spicy Dipping Oil (served in elegant cut glass bowls, of course) was a great favourite: place a mixture of Harissa, Nando’s Hot Piri Piri, crushed cumin, coriander and salt in a bowl and steep in good olive oil. Serve with flat bread and bowls of olives.
26th August 2009
Sons arriving tonight. Max has completed the buggy he’s been building for the last two years, to deliver Jacques to his wedding in a cloud of dust and roar of exhaust. The rest is just a chaotic blur. Hopefully we’ll have some nice pictures for everyone next week. Apologies to any visitors to the Kitchen Garden on Saturday because I’ll be otherwise engaged, but Sharon and Even will look after you perfectly. 10th August 2009
It’s lovely to have a little addition to the flock, who are all interested, at a distance. And I offer as much supervision as possible in this run-up to Jacques and Sas’ wedding. On the day (29th August), the shop will be open and manned by Evan and Sharon, who help with the garden and are fanatic hen keepers, who hatch hundreds of chicks with no problems at all. 5th August 2009
More successful are my apricots: all 20 kilos. We’ve made jam, bottled them in brandy for Christmas, frozen them in puree for breakfast and made small tarts with crème patissiere to freeze for the wedding party. Gluts of produce are a welcome problem, but gluts of ducks are not. And dearth of chicks is even worse. Perhaps we’ll have some news soon…… 23rd July 2009
Your birds will be fully grown at about 6 months of age, though the boys take longer to mature, and if they can spot competition, they may tactfully not display combs or crow till even later. A cockerel, moi? I wish you all the best of what you hope for. 15th July 2009
Vintage is the keyword in this country wedding. The bride has a stunning 1920s dress, and even I have found a 60s beaded number for under £50. There is of course, an unwritten rule that vintage ladies shouldn’t wear vintage numbers, and of course the sixties were definitely my era – I was studying fashion and textile design, but the mother of the groom is very low in the pecking order and probably no-one will notice. In the chicken run, my new broody is sitting on new eggs, the poor old cockerel is also spending a lot of time sitting – he has a bad leg, and as a result, the rest of the flock is pretty static too. The same can’t be said of the ducks, who are using the yew avenue as an airfield and learning to fly. But I promised not to mention the ducks….. 1st July 2009
The really hot weather finds my flock skulking in the undergrowth, and quite often sticking to their shady run, eschewing the joys of free range for a cool breeze under the apple trees. Their water needs regular topping up, and come sundown we sit together in the shade of the walnut tree, me with a cool glass of white, and the hens with a scoop of mixed corn and a big bowl of clean water. I top and tail goosegogs, blackcurrants and pod the broad beans, they preen and hope for the odd berry. A relaxed group: me, my cat, the old Cockerel, and four of his ladies, minus one. We have a broody. Regular readers will know we have been waiting since spring for such an event. Forgive me if I’m less than enthusiastic. This is the one hen who hasn’t quite understood the point of broodiness. Fierce to the point of nastiness, she sticks to her nest, sitting next to her eggs. D day has passed. I have left her with them for an extra week just in case, but I hold out little hope. Perhaps one of the other hens will take up the mantle and we’ll try again…….. 23rd June 2009
If you have neighbours who share your passion and can reciprocate duties while either of you are on holiday, so much the better. If you can pay a professional like I do, or even an unprofessional – subteens make great surrogates – or maybe you house swap, whatever your solution to leaving pets while you go on a break, now’s the time to plan. Leave a comprehensive list, (mine could be published in book form), invite the sitter round on a trial run, instill a sense of safety and reminders of hot weather drill (lots of clean water and shade) and try not to forget any of your flock’s little foibles. All birds are creatures of habit, so if you have to make adjustments to their routine, put them into practise long before you go, and make sure you leave plenty of food, well away from rats and other unwelcome diners – we have a squirrel who can knock the lid off the dustbin so he and his mates can enjoy the corn at their leisure. A little forethought now will pay dividends and give you peace of mind. 3rd June 2009
How can birds cope with heatwaves one minute and summer ground frosts the next? Hens are jungle birds and prefer cooler weather – make sure your flock has access to shady spots, and the ducks don’t seem to mind the weather – though heatstroke is not uncommon. (Treatment is confinement to a shady spot with plenty of water). My flocks spend warmer days in the undergrowth of the so-called wild garden, fast becoming the flattened garden. Lots of clean water in containers is the answer, and I’m afraid our pond needs regular topping up. With my elder son’s wedding planned for the end of August, I realize just how many of our plans and schemes rely on the vagaries of our climate. The marquee companies prosper, and we’re ordering a basket of pretty umbrellas as a contingency, but if only we could bank on sunny weekends and conveniently rainy nights all summer, how much easier the lives of those who rely on gardens for their living, entertaining or even their accommodation, would be. 26th May 2009
I’m afraid I am too. Trying to prepare a garden to Yellow Book standards with a world of ducks, trampling, messing and arguing has not been much fun. Luckily the two open days dawned with beautiful weather and charming visitors, so the horror will be forgotten for another year as we move on to the next hurdle.
6th May 2009
Lots of eggs from the Orpingtons, but none of my ladies is broody. They’re all having too much fun lazily dust bathing in the new artichoke bed. Production has stayed fairly stable in the duck population, though the chillier weather has kept them all briskly on the move. Off to pick a big bunch of lilac flowers and a smaller bunch of asparagus. 28th April 2009
Of course they are delightful, like a plague of huge squeaky bumblebees, scanning the lawn for midges. Lovely little things, but apart from them, there’s a brood of eight, left to me by the Campbell cross who has gone off to lay again, and a troupe of five half-grown mallard, all delightful fluffies, but not so easy to manage as huge clumsy-footed quarrelling adults. Still v. hard to resist at this age. Still no broodies, apart, inevitably from the OEG bantam who has disappeared into the brambles again. Luckily the Cockerel doesn’t fancy her or we’d be overrun with Orpington/game crosses too. To Sarah Raven’s Perch Hill Farm near Robertsbridge in Sussex to give a Henkeeping course, then back to the gargantuan task, preparing the garden for the NGS open day at the end of the month, ducks or no ducks. 14th April 2009
We had about a dozen breeders showing a wide range of poultry from the usual suspects, both bantam and standard size, though a slight bias towards the tinies, right through to Transylvanian Naked necks – a great hit with the kids. Not much take up on the hatching eggs, perhaps there is a shortage of broodies. We don’t have any yet. Allen & Page came with a new feed advisor, the cakes sold out almost immediately, and there was a brisk trade in Mrs Honeyball’s jams, Mick Graystone’s honeycomb and plants from Charlotte, ourselves and Rachel – the Garden Therapist. Our two new books by Karen on keeping pigs and Garden Farming were launched, a few children wore Easter Bonnets, Max and Ferg – the Easter Bunnies, hid millions of eggs, the ladies in the Church sold out of food and a good day was had by all. The Kitchen Garden is open from now on Fridays & Saturdays from 10 till 5. Hope to see you soon. 31st March 2009The art of spring cleaning has reached new heights as we prepare for the new season and welcome visitors to The Kitchen Garden on Easter Saturday. The garden is nearly ready, apart from a new layer of gravel in the yard, a snug coat of compost on the flowerbeds – that’s bound to be eaten by the ducks, and a final cut with the mower. We’re particularly proud of our new willow fence round the pond – partly to satisfy Health & Safety, but also to improve the environment for the waterfowl, including the moorhen who has built her usual nest on the pontoon, and to show off the work of Elizabeth Cook from Lark Valley Landscapes. There is a new iris bed in the cutflower garden, showcasing smart rows of Clare Kneen’s bearded irises. Clare also comes to show her Blue and Black Orpingtons at the Hen Party along with half a dozen other local breeders, with Pekins, Brahmas, Marsh Daisies, Araucanas, Silkies and many other breeds in standard and bantam size. Hopefully there’ll be lots of hatching eggs for sale for those with broodies and ambitions. Feed merchants Allen & Page will be in the grandly named Poultry Department, where we’ll be selling feeders, drinkers, tonics etc. There’ll be lots of other Easter goodies for sale, pony a trap rides, Easter Egg hunts, Bonnet parades, face painting and refreshments in the Church, so I must hurry off and Spring clean the chicken run in time for your visit. 24th March 2009
I’d seen the feathery detritus of other hawks’ meals, mostly pigeons judging by the remains, and hardly shed a tear, but having struck and killed her instantly, the sparrowhawk couldn’t lift her off the ground and left her on the lawn. The whole flock then went and stood in the broody run where the chick and her mum hung out, for several hours – strange and rather moving. I have always been rather devil-may-care about my mums and chicks, and this is the first time in 15 years we have lost a bird to a predator – if you don’t count uncontrolled dogs. And the result is a lack of eggs, and a little twinge of sadness. This year, I shall be buying in fertile eggs, from one of the breeders at this year’s Hen Party (April 11th) to get a little new blood into the flock, so I’m just waiting for one of the hens to go broody. And for that, we need some better weather. 13th March 2009In a belated attempt to fulfil a New Year’s resolution to offer Kitchen Garden customers more regular and up-to-date info about our comings and goings, this is the first weekly blog about life here with the hens and ducks……… It’s all go here, as we try desperately to tidy the garden in time for the Hen Party on Easter Saturday. I’ve been clearing away winter’s detritus, protecting vulnerable growth from the help given by my co-gardeners – the Buff Orpington hens and various visiting ducks. I bought lots of hanging basket frames from the car boot sale to pop over new plants, so they can grow safely and be staked as they flourish. Other areas are netted completely. The birds are looking at their best, and the drakes and Cockerel are responding with alarming regularity. I protect the backs of my poor ladies with canvas saddles. Only the large fluffy breeds need this protection. If you’re not busy on April 11th, come and see us all. Max and Ferg have ordered their bunny outfits for the Egg Hunt in the Churchyard, the marquee, tables and breeders are standing by, goods and plants are on their way. We hope to have a long list of attractions, and just for once – please, some decent weather. January 2009
Meanwhile back in the chicken run, my hens are sheltering on the verandah out of the bitter winds. If your birds have no obvious shelter, buy a few straw bales and place them strategically, so your girls have a spot away from the prevailing winds. Hens are well-insulated in their duvet jackets, but hate their feathers ruffled. I’ve poured their water into a large plastic flowerpot saucer, so it’s really easy to knock out if it freezes. We’re producing two more books with smallholder Karen Nethercott on garden farming and keeping pigs, which should be ready for Easter, in time for the Hen Party on Easter Saturday. This year, as usual, I’m running several henkeeping courses at the Kitchen Garden, as usual, but we’re also travelling to spread the word. Have a look on the Course page for details. Hope to see you there. Subscribe free today www.henkeepersassociation.co.uk |
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A big thank you to all our customers throughout the year, but especially those who braved the Suffolk countryside to visit our Christmas Shopping event. It was such fun to meet everyone, even during the chaotic first mornings when the atmosphere was more redolent of a jumble sale. The vintage clothes were a great success and we had fun trying on outfits once the customers had gone. Lovely things, but still can’t love clothes from the 70s and 80s. The few remaining products have been stashed away and the house looks more like a home than a rather dotty small department store.
I hope you’ll excuse the lack of news. Santa’s grotto is in full swing, and if you could see me surrounded with boxes, stock in various stages of readiness, rubbish and more boxes, you’d understand why.
I’ve particularly loved the seed garlic from the Isle of Wight, sold with its own label,
the vintage cut glass jugs filled with our own scented candle, the 2ft soft pink pigs with four piglets inside, the huge jars of preserved lemons, the pottery pumpkins, the vintage fabric lavender balls, the antique Japanese bone handles…..The list goes on, and so has my sanity!
The old ladies and the cockerel have been to check them out, but the pullets safe and sound and enjoying their bit of the garden. It’s the first time in 12 years, I’ve brought in birds, and it’s an interesting venture, like starting as a novice. The experience will be useful for our henkeeping courses.
Reeling slightly from gin fumes, I’ve decanted the defrosted sloes and damsons into large wide-mouthed pickle jars, added a similar weight of sugar (can be adjusted later with a sugar syrup) popped in some vanilla pods, a twist of lemon peel and topped up with cheap gin – Sainsbury’s do a reasonable own brand. The mixture will be stirred and tasted regularly, and will be ready in time for our course on November 25th. Obviously this brew improves with time and we’ll be drinking vintages going back to 2003, it just requires a steely resolve and enough amnesia to leave a bottle at the back of the larder. There lurk bottles of quince vodka, blackberry brandy, raspberry vodka and best of all a tiny bottle of walnut liqueur.
Time to take stock. The shop is closed for the autumn and I’m doing last year’s accounts. Not my favourite task, but it has been a good year, despite the credit crunch. Obviously home-based pleasures like keeping hens and growing vegetables are now hot stuff, so having droned on about both subjects for the last dozen or so years, we’re coming into our own. Our bad years were caused by the bird flu scare.
With just two months to stock the Christmas shop (opening on November 27th) there’s not much chance to vegetate, but I do hope to get out a bit and visit lots of exciting shops, markets and makers – a favourite part of my job. Let me know of anywhere you can recommend – but it has to be local – I don’t travel far.
Oh dear! The combination of marauding ducks, desperate for greenery plus a lack of rain, has turned the garden into a desiccated, lifeless spot, full of feathers, spiders’ webs and dried leaves blowing in the perpetual wind. Short lush green grass is a great source of protein for our flocks, and lack of it has caused the birds to be more catholic in their taste for greens. Ducks are waddling about with leaves and flowers hanging perkily out of their beaks, and discarded foliage is scattered among the beds. Pulmonaria, comfrey and brunnera, good ground cover all, have almost disappeared, hopefully down gizzards, but more likely just torn up and discarded.
I’ve tied bunches of other greenery in the runs, but of course, even the veg is in short supply, and we must just pray for rain, and thank heavens we close after next weekend, and our dismal failure is not on display for all to see. I try to keep watering to a minimum, saving supplies to keep the pond topped up. 
The loveliest of weddings – still reeling slightly from exhaustion, joy – and alcohol probably. Wonderful weather, delicious food, stunning location, prettiest bride and her dashing groom, charming guests, all combined to make it a day everyone will remember. Lots of photos when the lucky couple return from a few days in the South of France, (will post a few) maybe even a website for the photographer friends who hopefully chronicled the whole event.
Though I say it myself, the flowers looked wonderful. My face was saved by friends: Mary, Rena, Barbara, and Beryl whose packets of seeds all came through. We had three large baskets of multicoloured sunflowers plus two bucketsful at the entrance to the marquee, and each table had a different bunch of garden flowers, each in its own vintage cut glass vase. 
Saskia wore a thirties cream satin vintage long dress and a gold Moroccan shawl with a circlet of flowers in her hair, and the bridesmaids Jo and Cait wore coral silk. Jacques and Max wore new pinstriped suits. 
Just a quickie before I hare off to Bury for last minute wedding purchases. Tomorrow will be dedicated to picking and picking up flowers donated by friends for the table and decorations. We’re hoping for bunches of garden flowers, but since this dry weather has forced plants to flower and set seed almost overnight, the arrangements will be sparse. At least we’ll be able to see those on the other side of the table.
Alleluhia! A chick – just one, but very sweet – hatched on Friday. Mum and babe doing well. I hardly dare mention what happened to the other 5 eggs, for fear of losing my Chicken Woman sobriquet. Eggs 1 & 2 were lost to the hedgehog, eggs 3 & 4 were discovered three days before hatching, half removed from their shell, perhaps the result of an over-protective mum, mistaking the cheeping for a predator to her precious eggs, and egg 5 wasn’t fertile. I suppose if I wanted better results I should incubate in a machine, but despite our failures, I still prefer the natural approach.
Wedding plans are reaching a crescendo. My missions to collect 18 vintage cut glass vases has now been extended to 18 water jugs and 30 or so dishes for the hors d’oeuvres, and then to rugs to go on the straw bale seating at the party. I love buying at car boot sales so it’s a pleasure, but providing the cut flowers for the country bunches to go in the vases is more nerve wracking. Friends are on stand-by as rows of suitable blooms come and go, victims to the vicissitudes of this summer’s weather.
Spring hatched chicks will be reaching that moment when you’re viewing them sideways with slight trepidation. Are they pullets or cockerels? Will they be busy laying hens or crowing cocks. Some breeds like Pekins show their sex with precocious combs early on, others like Brahmas with longer legs, some like my own Orpingtons can be a conundrum until the first crow.
At about 12 weeks, if you take a piece of card and slide it under their neck feathers, the females have roundy-ended feathers and the boys have pointy-ended ones. But if you have just a few and they’re all the same, are they round or pointed? I know established breeders who’ve made mistakes, and that’s a good reason not to buy chicks that are younger than three months of age.
I’m on a mission. To find vintage crystal vases and jugs for 17 tables for my elder son Jacques’ wedding at the end of next month. My self-imposed budget is £2.00 per item. I’ve found some really beautiful ones in charity shops and car boot sales and am really enjoying the search.
Reading back through this year’s blogs, I notice a marked bias towards information abut ducks rather than hens – maybe because the ratio of the former to the latter is so massively unbalanced. But before I change the website’s name to kitchen-garden-ducks, today in an effort to redress the balance I’m concentrating on my hens, and trying to forget the quacking hoards.
Back after a short trip to London and Whitstable to see my sons, to find the garden strewn with feathers – the duck moult has set in early, and awash with duck poo. A quick mow and a long session with the hose will sort that out, and am lucky to have benefited from the break, relaxed in the knowledge that my hensitter Lynn is as besotted and prepared to jump through as many hoops for my flock as I am.
After two glorious weekends, one for our NGS open days, and the other for a the Norfolk Organic Group’s visit, the promised forecast for this coming Saturday and Sunday and a stall plus poultry at the local Euston estate’s Rural Pursuits event, is pretty bleak.
When it comes to successful rearing in the duck world, it seems the best plan is to hatch early. My black and white duck still has 11 of her charming ducklings, and the two pre-Easter broods of mallard have managed 5 adolescents each. The Campbell cross has left me with her 8 babes and gone off to lay again and all are safe, despite her hands-off approach to parenthood. Sadly all the recent broods have been decimated. Perhaps it’s the erratic weather, or maybe the predators learn it’s a good place to dine, or perhaps just weight of numbers and ensuing stress and overcrowding prevents success. Even the mallard who hatched 15 from her ideal nesting place in the Eglu, is down to just two ducklings and looking disenchanted with the whole idea.
The hens just sit around, disdainful of the quacking hoards, like supercilious elderly aunts at a raucous family party. They are an aged bunch, the Cockerel is 5 this year, his best friends are even older, and apart from two sprightly layers, who seem to have grown up prematurely, I’m desperate for a broody to hatch us some new stock. 
An unusually hot April has meant all the late spring flowers have come and gone too quickly, and there’s little to take their place. My visit to beautiful Perch Hill Farm, to give a henkeeping course, has left me dissatisfied with this garden as I struggle to find some colour for the Yellow Book days next Bank Holiday. May have to rely on a fashionable green colour palette. Wish some of my ravishing red and purple tulips would come back. Only ‘Artist’ is still flowering terracotta with green stripes in the huge galvanized wash tub in the yard. And there are always the irises.
The Kitchen Garden is overrun with ducks.
Still feeling slightly pole-axed after our spectacular success at the Hen Party. About 850 customers braved the weather forecast – though not the weather which was warm and fine till the last half hour when it rained – and visited us here at the Kitchen Garden.
Last week’s sunshine has encouraged my hens to start laying.
Lots of new resolutions here at the Kitchen Garden, the first of which is to keep up to date with our diary page, make it more informative for henkeepers, include the odd egg recipe, and update the website. We hope to make it easier for you to order goods, attend courses, and pay either by cheque or paypal.