It was cold and frosty this morning, a fresh new year, very fresh indeed. My early morning routine is pretty much the same each day, I let the chickens out of the coops and fill up their feeders, on a cold morning I defrost the drinkers too. I don’t keep my chickens on my allotment, there’s not really enough space as our site and plots are on the small side, I’d worry about them too much anyway so I chose to keep them in the garden at home.
My chickens are also on lockdown, an outbreak of bird flu (becoming a regular occurrence at this time of year) means they’re not allowed to free range and have to be kept in a covered enclosure away from wild birds until it’s safe to let them roam again. Luckily my walk-in roofed runs are adequate for keeping my flock safe and unwanted creatures out. When I catch them sulking about the situation I tell them they’re lucky they can still mix with their friends! I will properly introduce my feathery friends on the blog at some point.
I popped to the allotment this afternoon to do a spot of light hand weeding and grab a celeriac and some carrots to go with dinner. The ground was slightly frozen in places but the weeds pulled up easily enough. I love how clean the ground looks after weeding, wrapped up warm I really didn’t feel the cold and it felt good to be doing something on the plot.
The leeks are one of the disasters of last year, thanks to leek moth and allium leaf miner. I gave the stronger looking plants a chance to see if they’d improve and some have but others really are just mush waiting to happen now, one small tug and they’ll disintegrate. I’ll be lucky to get a small batch of soup out of this lot. On a positive note I have fallen in love with celeriac after growing it for the first time. Looks aren’t everything, it’s true, for this rather ugly-looking vegetable is absolutely delicious roasted, I like slicing it up thinly and cooking it as crisps.
My dad was on his plot today, he popped over with Jess the Border Collie to say hello from a safe distance before heading home.
Jess edged her way to the shed to check if I had any biscuits…
And…..
It’s ok, I made it out of the shed in one piece!
Happy weekend x
Allotment Haven 
Ah you can’t beat a freshly weeded bed!
LikeLiked by 1 person
We’ve had snow today – not a lot but enough. We just can’t grow celery or celeriac which is a shame as I use lots of celery,
Our ground us far to soggy to work on so we are having a gardening hiatus,
I’d be like you is we had chickens – I was bad enough when we first created a fishpond in the garden.
LikeLike
That’s a shame you can’t grow it, Sue, weirdly I really don’t like celery! I think it’s a texture thing, the stringy bit eww.
LikeLike
It’s looking good. Been to cold for me to do any plotting.
Thanks, and you too. xx
LikeLike
Thank you Flighty. Certainly is cold, still no snow here in Bedfordshire xx
LikeLiked by 1 person