Monday 21 January 2008

Mild and Wet.

The weather here is definitely crazy at the moment. My garden is rapidly turning into a swamp (I wouldn't be surprised if the chickens decided to grow webbed feet!) and we have temperatures so mild it feels like spring instead of January. Last night the temperature in London was 13.3C (about 56F) which is the highest January night time temperature on record.


Although I would prefer some cold crisp January weather I am hoping that the increased temperatures might at least make the grass on my lawn grow a bit quicker to compensate for the amount that gets nibbled and scratched by chickens.


This is my latest experiment to move them on from their favourite scratching places in an attempt to even out the wear over the rest of the lawn area.


I have pruned my autumn raspberries a bit early and pushed short sections of raspberry cane into the ground. I hope that the chickens will move elsewhere and give the ground a chance to recover. However, they do seem to have been quite thorough in their ground clearance and I'm not sure if there is anything left in the ground to start growing!

4 comments:

Matthew said...

I live in Seattle, Washington U.S.
and your weather sounds much like ours...although today it is clear and cooooold.

French Knots said...

My lawn is like a swamp too and I don't have the benefit of chickens to make up for it! Would love to keep them, do they need much space?

willow said...

French knots,
Hi, you don't really need much room to keep chickens, The coop and run only takes up a 2 - 3 square metres and they can stay in that most of the time but I like to give the run of the garden for several hours a day. Our garden is a typical garden for a newish house about 30ft by 45ft and it was packed full of plants, I have to say there is a lot less growing at ground level since we got the chickens!

Simply Authentic said...

sounds like you've been incredibly busy! hope it works to get the chooks moved over! enjoy the mild weather, it's freezing here!