It's all go here ... ...

It has been a some what hectic few weeks, well it always is this time of year, what with getting ready for veg growing, fixing all the stuff in the garden that's been damaged over winter (fences mainly) and general tidying up.
And then there's more of the same at the allotment, I'd have to say though we've done a lot of prep work in order to have a productive year, and of course the chickens are keeping us busy, all of them are now laying eggs, and on average we're getting at least 2 eggs a day and 3 eggs every other day, and the chickens are still young, so egg production may increase a bit over the next few weeks, fresh eggs every morning, can't beat it.

Fresh eggs -

Yum.

 

On the subject of chickens I've made a few adjustments to their accommodation since they first moved in, the coop and run now have an extra 3 foot section, that has a door (makes life easier) and the run section now has a roof, which can be removed on sunny days, I only built it because the chickens really dislike the rain, well ours do.

Door section -

Makes things easier.

 

With the roof on -

The roof gives them some shelter.

I have also sectioned off the bottom part of the garden where their coop is, so now they have even more space in which to do chicken related stuff, so far none have escaped (fingers crossed they won't start trying) the kids are still (after 4 weeks) very into chickens, they spend most of their time with them now, helping them dig up worms and such like.

New fencing to contain chickens -

They have already looked at it with a 'we can get over that' eye.

 One of the major jobs I really wanted to get done was the green house, for the last few years we've had one of those metal framed things with a plastic cover, and for the last few years the cover has fallen apart, it's like the plastic has degraded, so this year I decided enough was enough, I'm not going to buy another cover for it, and so I covered it in wood (from the massive pile of pallets I had) well some of it, it's got a plastic roof and windows on two sides.

Used to look like this (only green) -

Not much, but it worked.

 

Basically what I did was fix planks of wood to the metal frame, and I've also added a little extra support so the thing doesn't fall down, I'm happy to report it's quite sturdy and seems to be working well, and it was given a coat of green paint by my lovely wife.

New green house -

Excuse the bins.

 You can see how it's put together, I've just replaced the plastic cover with wood, I had to change the roof slightly, but on the plus side we now have an extra water collection device, which is good seeing as they are banning hoses in this neck of the woods, I just need a new waterbutt or some kind of container.

The other side of the green house -

It gets quite a lot of light.

 The door is now a door, rather than a flap of plastic you roll up -

A proper door.

In all it's cost about £30 to fix the green house, I only had to buy the plastic sheeting, the whole thing is much stronger, and I can get more stuff in it now because I can add more shelves.
We've already started some things off, like turnips,broccoli,tomatoes,squashes and a load of other stuff.

I also made some small boxes to fit on one of the walls which we've started growing radishes in and small chantenay carrots.

Wall boxes -

Really easy to make.

  You might guess that we are trying to use the spaces we have in the best way possible, and this shows that even if you don't have a garden a couple of wall boxes can be used to grow a wide range of things.

And lastly the allotment is already in production, well it will be when the stuff grows, I planted a few rows of spuds at the beginning of March, about 60 spuds in all, and we've managed to get most of the plot dug over and ready for planting, we also put in about 5 rows of carrots,6 rows of peas (more to go in later on) a shed load of onions, some parsnips and some celeriac, which if you haven't eaten is very tasty cooked, it's also nice raw in some homemade coleslaw, I'm sure I've planted some other stuff as well (brain like a sieve) we have however got some interesting stuff to grow this year, not that spuds and such like aren't interesting, we have some purple carrots, yellow tomatoes, yellow cucumbers, which are called lemon cucumbers, because they grow ball shaped rather than long and thin, we've also got some spaghetti squashes to grow along with luffa's (loofahs) and even some liquorice plants.

The spud rows -

Much more than we planted last year.

And that's about it really, other than loads of gardening we've been looking after chickens and trying to get into gear for the spring and summer, I'll keep you posted on the progress of the garden and the allotment, and anything else we get up to, I have also managed to move my shop site to another provider (it's not quite finished yet) and I've also been turning some new stuff, so if you have a spare minute go and have a look and see what you think - www.the-shed-and-beyond.co.uk (opens in new window)

Thanks for reading.

Here be chickens ... ...

We have chickens ! which you will already know if you read my wife's blog, if you don't, you can read the ' New arrivals ' post she wrote - new arrivals (opens in new window)

It has been a hectic few days, but we are all sorted now, we got the chickens on Thursday and I've already changed their housing a little, despite my frantic wood working for the last day or two the chickens seem to be settling in quite well, two of them will already eat from our hands, one is not so brave as yet.

After watching the birds in their run and coop we decided that as we have space we should give them some more, what they had was okay, but as they get bigger it might have been a touch on the small side, so I've added an extra few feet to the run, which they seem to be quite happy about.

This is what it was like -

It's a little bigger now.

It is now some what larger, which has to be a good thing, and once the chickens are used to us and we are used to them we'll start letting them out into the larger area, I just need to patch the fences up first.

The revised run area - 

It now has a door as well, makes life easier.

As you can see we've just added a new section to it all, and it still detaches from the other sections, which hopefully means it's still easy to move about if need be.

The door is a new addition as well, as yet the chickens are not quite used to going into the coop at bedtime, so one of us has to get into the run and help them to bed, although they seem to be very keen on corn, so we've been trying to bribe them, which works on two of them.

The door - 

I need to touch up the paintwork.

The other thing I've done is to hang the feeder and their water from the underside of the coop, this doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest, but it will stop the birds perching on top of the feeders.

The feeder and water supply - 

Just the right height for a chicken.

And that's about it, all in all it's been a good few days, if not a touch busy, but it's worth it, the kids are enjoying the chickens, my daughter was over the moon yesterday when she fed one of the chickens from her hand, much squealing.

I'll leave you with some pictures of the ladies, taken by my wife.

Zelda (a Bluebelle) - 

The boss.

 

Dotty (a Speckledy) - 

Will do anything for corn.

Ginger (an Amber ranger) - 

Also loves corn.

And it seems not only does our coop and run make a good home for chickens, it's also a good spot to sun yourself, if you are a cat that is.

Greebo (a cat) - 

I can haz chicken ? but only if it's cooked first.

Thanks for reading.

Chicken coop from a pile of pallets ...

For the last week or so I've been full steam ahead on building a chicken coop, we said we'd get some last year, but weren't really prepared for it, now we are, so we have no excuse.

I was lucky as most of the wood to build the coop and run (with a shed load left over) has come free of charge in the form of pallets, 7 foot long pallets to be exact, I saw them in the car park of an industrial unit that was being re-furbished and asked the people doing the work if I could have them, they said yes, one chap even gave me a lift with a load, which when you only have a push bike and small trailer is a good thing.

Although I'd be the first to admit I might have over done it slightly -

I'd already dismantled most of them.

The only wood I bought was for the main frame work, this I got cheap, the only other things I had to buy were something for the roof ( I've used felt) and wire mesh for the run, and to patch up the fencing where the coop now lives.

Construction has begun - 

A basic frame work with pallet cladding.

You can see the method I used, basically I've just used the planks of wood from the pallets to clad the frame, I've fixed it all together using screws.

We spent some time trying to figure out the best way to build the coop, and it seems there are a lot of conflicting ideas, so we went with what works for us, to that end we've put the nest box on one side of the coop, the main door on the front and the pop on the opposite side to the nest box.

The nest box side - 

It rained a fair bit.

Luckily as I'm a little bit of a squirrel I managed to find the hinges and bolts for the nest box door, and the main door.

Things progressed quite quickly, although this is mostly down to the weather being good for a change. The whole coop measures roughly 3 feet by 3 feet, the roof slopes backwards from 3 feet to about 2 and a half feet and it's about 5 feet high, I made it like this to allow some space underneath the coop, this gives the chickens some extra room and allows for air to flow around the coop.

Adding the wire mesh - 

Coop nearly done.

The coop and the run have been built in 2 parts, this makes it easier to move about (which we intend to do from time to time) and it makes life easier for cleaning and repairing. We have decided to start small, just 3 chickens for now, and maybe later on down the line we'll get a few more.

All done (well the coop any way) 

Just the run to do, and a coat of paint.

The run fixes onto the side of the coop, this gives us access to the nest box and the front of the coop (via the main door) we hope the kids will be helping out with the day to day chicken keeping duties, which is another reason for making it easy to get into.

The nest box area - 

Should be cosy with a bit of bedding.

The pop hole, with hatch - 

String operated hatch.

The run, partly completed - 

Coop & run where we intend to keep it.

And here it is, all done in woodland green (it's what the fashionable chickens have)

It's a nice colour.

The patch of earth it's sitting on is where our pond used to be, we filled it in so we could have chickens, the whole area was fenced off when we had the pond, so we intend to patch up the fences and when the weathers nice the chickens will be able to come out to play in the larger area, and when we go out or if the weather isn't so good they will be in their run and coop.

The nest box door - 

Easy egg collection.

I've used nice strong bolts for both doors - 

Found in the depths of my shed.

The hatch for the pop can be opened easily by hand, but I added a simple pulley type system, so the kids can open and close the hatch, it's just a bit of string and a couple of hooks.

The pulley system - 

Simple really.

And that's about it, I still have to fit a perch for the chickens, which I already have, just need to put it in the coop, but I want to make a tray to go underneath the perch, which we will be able to slide out to clean out any chicken sh ... ... err droppings.

I'm also planning on using the manure from the chickens on the garden and the allotment, so not only will we get fresh eggs (well in theory) we'll get free fertiliser as well and the kids will learn about chicken keeping.

I'd highly recommend getting hold of pallets when ever you have a building project like this, with the wood I have left (and there's a lot) I plan to fix up my dilapidated greenhouse, and make some more raised beds, and there's the path edging for the allotment, well you get the idea, plenty of uses for the wood I have, and I've saved a load of money.

The coop again - 

Update - I should have added a more up to date photo of the coop as it is now, shortly after this photo was taken I extended the run, and added a roof over it, although the chickens spend most of their time out in the garden, the run is only really used by them when the weather is bad, and at night.


This is the finished coop -

Not the best picture perhaps, but you get the idea.

You can read about the changes I made at the bottom of this post - It's all go here (opens in new window)

Thanks for reading.