The Frugal Life: Food from the garden

Chick c'est chic - part one

Fri, 16 May 2008 07:22:47 GMT

So many of you have been in touch with me about keeping chickens that I decided it was high time I blogged about it in detail. Go on, I bet you’re tempted!

Keeping egg-laying chickens is probably the ultimate in convenience food besides a vegetable plot – and ideal given the rising cost of grub. During World War II many people kept chickens for the eggs. And they make fantastic pets. There’s quite a bit to get through, so I’ve split this little guide into part one today and part two tomorrow. Otherwise your heads will be swimming with information overload!

Before you get some image of me as a wannabe country bumpkin, I can assure you that chickens were not always part of my life. In fact when DJ first hinted that he wanted hens I thought he’d gone mad.

One night when he got back from work I asked whether there was any gossip at the office. “Yes. Tom’s got chickens!” He gushed. “Can we get some?” I thought he was bonkers, especially as we lived in an urban flat at the time. The thought of it was totally alien to me. Eventually once we moved house DJ wore me down and I agreed. And now I can’t imagine being without them.

To keep a few chickens you’ll need at least a small garden or back yard that’s secure, so they can’t find their way into next door’s garden. Not that ours have ever really tried as there’s plenty of interesting things to eat at home. You’ll obviously need room for the hen house and run – probably about five or six feet by two or three feet – although it depends what time of house you get - and space for them to run around in when you let them out to stretch their legs and forage. Many breeds enjoy digging so make sure you protect your prized flower beds or vegetables!

We originally got Thelma & Louise (Louise sadly passed on last year) and their home from www.omlet.co.uk which sells a yuppie-style hen house - the egglu - which has become very popular and is fox proof. It doesn’t come cheap, but they deliver the housing, set it all up for you and explain how to look after your new pets. But you can get wooden housing from a number of providers or even make it yourself, as one of my neighbours is doing. When Louise died, sadly we had to get replacements immediately because you can’t have a lonely chicken. They are social animals and Thelma was very lonely. So we went to a local poultry specialist in Essex where they had a lovely selection of hens and the owner was very helpful. I’d suggest getting at least three because if you lose one, re-establishing the pecking order (as we discovered) can be very unpleasant and stressful for the girls, but more on that tomorrow.

As with all pets, be prepared to put in the time and effort to look after them, although hens are pretty low maintenance. We clean the hen house and run every one to two weeks – it probably depends on how many chickens you keep. Then you’ll need to top up their feed and water containers regularly, especially when it’s hot. Some people have got in touch worrying about whether they attract vermin. The food containers we have are off the ground and while Dougal the cat might catch the occasional mouse, we don’t get much more vermin that we did BC – Before Chickens…

Generally chickens make very little noise – unlike cockerels – although Lexi is a bit throaty (if she had a singing voice it would resemble Joe Cocker’s) when she wants to lay an egg. One of our distant neighbours has moaned about the noise to another neighbour, but I think she may be confused with another neighbour’s pet duck, which was surprisingly noisy before the fox got it, poor chap. Everyone else insists they’re really quiet. And let’s clear up a misconception now. You DON’T need a cockerel to get eggs. Hens lay unfertilised eggs on their own and don’t need a boyfriend to do so, which is why poor old cockerels tend to be surplus to requirements and end up in the pot.

Tomorrow – more on feeding chickens, their health, other pets, the wily Mr Fox and the all-important pecking order.

Do you have any questions about keeping chickens? If so, leave a comment and I’ll try to answer them if I can. Do you already keep hens? Then tell me all about your girls!

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Vegging out

Fri, 09 May 2008 16:30:33 GMT

Well, considering the lecture I gave everybody yesterday on growing your own veg, you will glad to hear I’m helping DJ plant out more vegetables today on his day off. After months of inactivity, the plot is starting to come alive again – and the asparagus bed is incredible! This will be the first year we’ll be able to eat some of it – it takes about three years to grow it from seed. As you can see, DJ built a little frame to keep it from falling over, but now some of it has grown way past it and is even, dare I say it, taller than me!

But while plenty of things we planted have come up, including three different varieties of potatoes, peas, horseradish, and courgettes, a few things haven’t, which is worrying DJ a little bit. So we are going to plant them again today. He did grow some green manure in one of the patches and dug it in a while ago, and the instructions said that you couldn’t plant anything initially for a couple of weeks while the green manure settled in, but it should have been fine by the time we planted the veg, which is all a bit puzzling. Maybe the seeds were duds. Who knows? This is all the fun of vegetable growing!

Besides the veg plot, we’ve also been wondering what to do with the rest of garden and particularly the flower borders, if that’s a grand name for what we have at present, which is a few shrubs, a couple of flowers and a whole heap of weeds! Well, to be fair, some parts of the garden are mature and look good thanks mainly to the foresight and planting of the first owners of our house. But besides DJ’s fabulous vegetable patch, we’ve neglected the rest of the garden because until this year we’ve concentrated on updating the 1970s décor inside our house.

But planting up a garden can cost an awful lot of money, and we want to avoid spending too much cash on plants and shrubs that then might take years to fill out. So we’ve been taking cuttings of things such as our lovely euphorbias which are evergreen and quickly take up lots of room, and looking also to maximise certain plants that are wasted elsewhere in the garden and hidden by other stuff by moving them somewhere else. Plus we’re going to plant out some annual seeds we already have such as nasturtiums, nigella and busy lizzies etc. to get quick colour.

However, I am wondering whether this false economy given perennials will keep coming back every year and you have to keep planting annuals. Although I suppose as long as you plant self-seeding ones or collect the seeds, as you can with nasturtiums for example, then it’s not a bad idea.

DJ and I love nasturtiums as they are so colourful, flower for months and quickly fill out a border or hanging basket with just a couple of plants. So we have planted up a hanging basket each with three nasturtium seeds in a competition to see which one will do better. He of course is convinced his one will win the day. He is really the gardener so is likely to be more successful, but on the other hand he admits he’s a vegetable man and doesn’t really ‘do’ flowers!

Meanwhile, I have to report that we’ve both been out a bit this week and haven’t had a chance to get to grips with the…er…flightless partridge (aka squirrel) yet, so we’ve had to put it in the freezer until next week when hopefully we will sample its delights.

Let me know your frugal gardening tips. And have a great weekend!

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Dig for victory!

Thu, 08 May 2008 09:09:06 GMT

Is it just me or do your hackles rise when you see Kerry Katona trotting about in those irritating Iceland ads, loading up her trolley with cheap pizzas for the kids and braying about how wonderful it all is? I have nothing against Ms Katona or Iceland for that matter – I too have shopped there for BOG OFF offers in the past. And I’m not a parent struggling to feed my children. But if DJ ever overcomes his morbid fear of ‘small people’ and we have kids, I hope I won’t be shovelling cheap pizzas and chicken nuggets down their throats morning, noon and night.

True, we’re all experiencing the brunt of rising food prices and nobody more so than people already struggling to make ends meet. It makes sense to look at the weekly shopping bill and try to trim it by shopping around. There is nothing wrong with that, or the odd pizza. I lived on microwave lasagnes before I met DJ and he showed me there was another way.

But even in an economic slowdown, I think it’s important not to start eating rubbish just to save money. It’s clear from all the research into cancer and our ‘five a day’ that eating good food - good quality meat, and fresh fruit and vegetables - is vital to stay healthy (before you say anything, I’m not sure if that includes squirrel!). However, nowadays proportionally people spend less of their income on food. In 1957 a third of incomes went on food and non-alcoholic beverages. Now we spend only 15 per cent on food and more on housing related costs, such as rent, mortgages and council tax, our cars and leisure time.

OK, we don’t have much choice about paying the rent. But often when the property market slows people spend money on DIY to improve the homes they can’t sell. So before you think of adding a new bathroom or kitchen, why not spend the cash on your family’s bellies by building a vegetable patch at a fraction of the cost?

Not everybody has a garden. If you don’t, then why not try to get an allotment? Or if that is too difficult because of the waiting lists, find a friend with an allotment to help out, or someone with a garden who also wants to grow veg you could join forces with and share the produce. There is a council estate in Bermondsey which has turned its entire communal lawn into a vegetable plot, and many urban food growing clubs that you may be able to join. But if even if you can’t find a plot, then it’s still possible to grow herbs, tomatoes and lettuces in pots on your windowsill. You can also grow mushrooms in a box under the bed. Your friends may laugh but you’ll have your own delicious produce!

Growing vegetables isn’t always easy and it’s hard graft. You’ll need to do a lot of reading, not to mention digging. There’s also a little financial outlay, especially if your soil isn’t great. We have clay soil that’s hard to work and could have taken years to get right, so DJ cut to the chase by building raised beds on our lawn and filling them with bought topsoil. And you can’t plant your veg just anywhere. You need to see where the sun travels along the garden and which areas get the most light before you decide where to put your plot. Plus you’ll need to work out ways of storing your produce so as not to waste it. Many herbs, beans and fruits can be frozen, while other things, such as apple slices, can be dried or turned into jams and chutneys. If you want to be really clever, you could build a root cellar to store vegetables.

We also fight a running battle with pests, birds, foxes and cats which try to eat or dig up our plants, oh…and the odd rogue pet chicken that occasionally finds her way in there (naughty, Thelma!). But it’s really rewarding and the produce tastes so much better than anything from the supermarket.

So get digging!

Do you grow your own fruit and veg? Would you compromise on food quality to save money?

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A tour around our garden

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:29:03 GMT

The weather was good enough this afternoon to pop out and take this little video of our back garden and DJ's vegetable plot...Hope you like it! One correction though - what I pointed out as our leeks are apparently garlic plants! Oops! Have a great weekend. xxx

Video: Our vegetable plot and garden

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