There's no place like home

The chickens now have a new, spacious home - complete with a rather fetching perch. Now the hard work has begun making the permanent pen (they're in a temporary one attached to the hen house for the time being).

It's getting a bit chilly out now, but it's my favourite time to be on the allotment; just before the sun sets the light is beautiful, the birds are singing and somehow a rosy glow descends over the garden, making me forget all the weeds and the bits that still haven't been done.

We've achieved quite a lot in the last few days: Peter sieved some of the compost (which is beautifully crumbly by the way) from one of the large bins, which we used to sow some more peas and beans and I've planted up some more perennials in the butterfly bed, which is starting to look pretty good, with the roses coming out and the mallow growing by the minute.

I've also got a new volunteer - Victoria - who made an excellent first impression by offering to do some weeding, and went on to make a really good job of the asparagus/strawberry bed. She wasn't even fazed by my talk of dandelion coffee - I've just done an introductory to medicinal herbs course and I've been busy roasting dandelion roots which do, surprisingly, smell just like coffee, but with a twist: I actually like to drink this stuff and it helps your liver rather than hinders it. More about the many benefits of 'weeds' in a later post...

The Greenfingers Club planted out some pumpkins and squashes in their bed, along with some onions and lettuces, and we made a start on clearing the area around the fruit trees, laying down a mulch membrane to keep down the weeds and give the trees a bit more of a fighting chance.

Alan and I planted out dozens of the many leeks I've got waiting patiently in the polytunnel, and sowed beetroot, swede, carrot and leaf beet seeds in the same bed (where the chickens have been hanging out over the past few weeks, helping to get some of the weeds down and adding a bit of manure at the same time for me to dig in).

I've also planted out a few squashes down the side of the polytunnel, along with the globe artichokes; weeded both the rhubarb beds and mulched with grass cuttings and sowed some sweet peas.