We've had 3 back-to-back days of spring sunshine here. It's lovely how a bit of blue sky over your head and sunshine on your face can make you feel so much more energetic and positive and I'm suddenly feeling the need to get my fingers in the dirt and get the garden ready for veggie growing again.
This will be my third year of growing and so our soil needs a top up with a bit of richly rotted down compost. Luckily the chicken ladies are very helpful in that department. I remember being amazed when we got them at the quanity of poo that they generate but it's all being put to good use and hopefully my veggies this year will grow big and fat and delicious courtesy of the chicken ladies productive botties!
This year I'm rotating the crops in my four beds again with brassicas (broccoli & cabbage), dwarf french beans, carrots & parsnips, garlic & onions. Elsewhere in the garden I'm also growing tomatoes, patty pan squash, courgettes, lettuce, herbs, potatoes, raspberries and strawberies and I have a new little patio apple tree that is only supposed to grow to around 6ft tall.
I'm going to give beetroot a go this year too – prompted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's delicious sounding recipe for beetroot, goat cheese and redcurrant salad and his slightly less tempting chocolate and beetroot brownies (both from River Cottage Everyday – I'll let you know how they turn out!). Are you growing anything in your patch this year?
little cotton rabbits 
Morning Julie! I’m going to show Mr C your raised beds as he’s looking for inspiration for the veg patch this year. I love love love beetroot and will happily munch through a bunch of roasted beetroot quarters sprinkled with balsamic vinegar. Do you rot down your chook poo somehow or put it straight on the beds? We’ve got a chicken poo mountain too but wasn’t sure whether you could put it straight on as I think it might be too strong or something?? 🙂
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Although I’m not a chicken poo expert (so don’t take this as absolutely correct) I believe that I read somewhere that fresh chicken poo is too strong – nitrogen rich – to use directly and it needs to be composted before using. We mix ours in with kitchen waste, grass cuttings, bits of newspaper etc and compost it for around a year before digging it in.
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Your chicken manure will do the veg beds the world of good. We’ve got rabbits so we use their droppings in a similar way. Hubby managed to get to the allotment on Sunday for a spot of digging, other than that it’s been far too wet recently to do anything. I love roasted beetroot, we’ll be growing plenty this year.
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It was definitely something about that sunshine. I dug over, moved plants and generally tidied the garden all day Monday & Tuesday.
Fresh muck far too nitreous rich and burny for digging straight in. Nothing beats well rotted herbivore poo for making the soil happy.
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So funny, before I read the comments I was thinking exactly what the first commenter wrote – I must show this to my husband 🙂
We did our first experiment on a vegetable garden this year; it’s smaller than yours, only two beds, but we know close to nothing about gardening so let’s see how it goes.
Thanks for the inspiration!
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I’ve grown beetroot very successfully for the past two years. Grows very well with the addition of chicken poo!
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I’ve been pruning like a madwoman this week! A little sun has me going.
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No (no garden) but I look forward to following your adventures!
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Two years ago someone made chocolate and beetroot cake for a cake sale at work. I don’t like beetroot at all and was quite sceptical, but it was delicious – you can’t tell the beetroot is there at all. Worth making!
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Oooh, beetroot is a winner! I’ve got a fab recipe for beetroot chutney if you’re interested. I did a step-by-step on my blog last summer:
http://thequiethome.blogspot.com/2010/08/chutney-and-crochet.html
Love, Tina xxx
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Ah it’s wonderful what a bit of sun will do! Yes I’ve got all my veggie seeds ready and waiting to go. Very exciting. Good luck with the beetroot – I’d be interested to hear how it goes.
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Oh I so wish I had a garden again to grow fruit and veg, I do so like gardening. However as I am currently living in a 6th floor flat it’s just not possible so only a few flower boxes for me. I have planted my seeds already, I was too impatient to wait!
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We’re expecting glorious sunshine too, today! Our winds are coming off the California desert and we should warm up to 67 degrees today – the warmest day of the year so far!
It’s still too cold at night up here to start our gardens. Plus we always have a chance of more snow for another month or so. All the locals tell me never to start your garden before mid May in Tehachapi.
I did get some herbs going in the windowsill, so they’re wonderful to look at for now.
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Wonderful stuff beetroot – we grew it for the 1st time last year & then wondered why we’d waited so long!
I too have chickens (nanna, whoopi, cilla & enid)who contibute both to the egg box and the compost bin in equal measures.
Just as well as we have 2 allotments & that’s where I aim to be this weekend, starting the new season by planting broad beans.
Enjoy the sunshine
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You’ve got to grow beetroot, it is sooo much better than shop bought veg. I’m having a go again with the growing this year, and as always I’m getting my Dad to start it all off in the greenhouse for me. I’m most looking forward to growing some little aubergines and rainbow swiss chard in pots, some mini cucumbers ans iceberg lettuces the size of tennis balls. Roll on the good weather!
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I have my tomatoes sown and also some salad leaves but that’s all so far. Hope to do more soon!
I love beetroot, that beetroot salad sounds lovely as I love goats cheese as well!
Seed packets are so pretty and all that potential inside. 🙂
Vivienne x
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Ooh your veg beds look so tidy! Mine are a mess of green manure, waiting to be dug in. And seeing your chicks made me think it’s high time I got some more after the demise of the last ladies I had. I used to love gardening with inquisitive beaks pecking round my feet, not helping but hindering most of the time.
I’m sowing outdoor tomatoes again this year, after huge success with a few trial plants last year. A lot less work than greenouse varieties, which need so much watering. Sweet red fruits, nice and early, with what seemed like very little sunshine. Good luck with your crops.
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Here in Colorado, we will have our usual tomato (slicers, plum, cherry, and yellow pear) and cucumber garden. And grapes.
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Same thing I grow every year. Weeds. I’m really good at that.
Actually, I get all excited and go out and plant my gardens to death, I care for them for about a month and then……. yeah. Not so good…….
I’m sure this year I’ll do better though. 😉
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We live in Reno, Nevada. It is too cold here to even begin thinking of planting (there is still snow on the ground in the front yard). I think that I will plant zucchini squash this year and lots of pepper, cilantro, onions, and tomatoes – I love the salsa 🙂 After the middle of May ofcourse.
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I made the beetroot brownies last year and everybody loved them! Just don’t put too much in the first time you make them. I didn’t tell anyone and then my niece got a piece of kitchen roll to wipe her hands and it turned bright pink – she then questioned what was in them and my secret was out. I also made courgette cake which was very good as well.
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I’ve always been a little curious about chocolate and beetroot cake as I only know what pickled beetroot tastes like, but when i stop and think about it, i suppose it’s no more bizarre than carrot cake and that is totally delicious!:)
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We only got our chickens late last August but it was a real pleasure to garden with them pecking around. I never imagined they would be such characters so I’m really looking forward to sharing the garden again with them this year. No chicken poo compost for us yet, that’s going to be my first Spring job. Becky x
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Oooohhh…. we love our home grown beetroot! We always cook it and slice it and do the vinegar and sugar thing though. Yummo! Good luck with the garden again this year! We’re heading into winter now – so not sure we’ll plant too much. Can’t wait until spring to start it all up again.
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I actually managed to make it up to the allotment today – for the first time this year! And dug over a portion of one bed – enough space to plant out some garlic that had sneakily hidden when I was harvesting last year and had started to grow again, and some onion sets. It felt good to be up there again. Lucy x
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Your growing plans are far in advance of mine, although this lovely weather does inspire you to get out in the garden doesn’t it? At least the grass got it’s first cut yesterday.
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So nice to see your vegie plans and lovely to see the chickens, I was only thinking of them a couple of days ago and wondering how they were
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Nothing in my veggie patch this year except Guinea Fowl and that giant python 🙂 I have some old concrete washtubs in the dogyard (they are high enough that the little lovelys don’t jump into them) and they have a nice selection of herbs and some strawberries. I did try beetroot as I do love it but it didn’t go very well at all. I love a salad of freshly gated beetroot, carrot and tuna with capers and parsley…delicious! Those beetroot and chocolate brownies sound lovely, will have to check them out 🙂
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Chicken bottie deposits are fab for growing sweetpeas, they love the stuff 🙂
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I love beetroot! we always grow it and nothing tastes better when it comes from your own garden!
xx
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Made a start on our veg patch too this week. Beetroot is soooo easy you’ll love it. Beetroot cake is good too I think Nigella has a receipe for it.
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The beetroot and chocolate brownies are excellent. I took a batch to work and no one spotted the beetroot until it was pointed out. Good luck with it all.
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After moving into a house with a garden in December, I had big plans for the garden, until we talked to the neighbours and discovered that not only is it heavy clay, but the landlord chopped down trees all along both sides of the garden and left the stumps and all the roots, so I don’t think I will be growing much there! I may have to be content with a herb garden close to the back door and grow veggies and fruit in containers. Happy gardening Julie!
Marie x
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Been reading your blog for a while now, thank you for a very informative and entertaining read. River cottage Chocolate and Beetroot Brownies are very yummy, they are a staple when my son is home from school.
you have inspired me to venture into the garden and sort out a new veg patch ( moved house last year ;-))
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Love reading about your plans. Like Sue in the post above we’ve moved and are “starting again” as far as the little garden is concerned. This weekend is “reconstruct the raised veg-bed weekend”…which won’t please the cat as he’s been climbing up the wooden planks to escape and explore our new neighbourhood! 🙂 Jenni x
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You can’t beat a bit of beetroot! Grew it for the first time last year and was not disappointed…got all my little charges eating beetroot and choc cake as well as courgette cake, choc orange courgetter cake….need I go on! Good luck and happy tasting x
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beetroot is well worth the effort Julie (and little effort it is!)
I can vouch for Hugh’s beetroot and walnut hoummous too and have also used beetroot in chocolate muffins mmmm (if you’re interested see my recipe page)
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hooray for chicken poo – i recently became chicken lay, and remember that ‘other’ blog post with an inner smile xxxx
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