January 2008

Happy New Year to our customers and a healthy one for all their flocks.
My birds are out in the garden again after their enforced sojourn undercover, because of the local outbreak of avian influenza. Stir crazy like fat moths, they’ve been racing around the garden, and hopefully soon they’ll start laying again. St Valentine’s Day heralds prime season.

We’ve all seen the boost television exposes of the industry have given home hen keeping. Keep a small flock of laying birds, augmenting your flock each year with a couple of broody-raised new layers, and any excess cockerels can go for the pot. An Easter chick makes a Michaelmas roast, so there’s no question of 39 day lives, at 6 weeks, even my Buff Orpington chicks – the biggest natural breed available – are just a handful, a mere mouthful.

Anyone who has kept hens, knows they are sentient creatures with personalities, deserving far better than the appalling existence meted out by the industry. Of course, I don’t have to tell you their products should be avoided. Hopefully, our children and their friends, having been exposed at an early age to the delights of poultry, will avoid cheap supermarket and fast food, so that the future looks rosier for our feathered friends. Join the Henkeepers’ Association on www.henkeepersassociation.co.uk

March 2008

THE HEN PARTY – EASTER SATURDAY – MARCH 22nd – 10 till 4

Spring is sprung and we are celebrating the new season with our usual Hen Party here at the Kitchen Garden. Plans are afoot for old favourites and new features. We are expecting several new breeders to show their birds in the Marquee, including some bright little bantams from Mike Vince and Beverley Chilvers. Fingers crossed for decent weather and no more bad news from Defra. (In the event of an AI outbreak, the Hen Party will go ahead, but breeders will only be selling hatching eggs.)

Max and Ferg will be dressing up as Easter bunnies again to hide eggs, and this year, BBC Look East presenter Julie Reinger will be judging the Easter Bonnet/hat parade. Feed suppliers Allen & Page will be joining us, and there will be the usual range of seasonal goodies: honeycomb, jams, Simnel cakes, lemon curd, meringues, Easter plants and presents.

The ladies of the WI will be providing refreshments in St Mary’s Church, and there will be lambs (hopefully), craft stalls and Tombola in the churchyard. Regular visitors will know our limitations, so please be patient and park where indicated in the village, and walk up Church Lane.

April/May 2008

Over 600 stoical people visited the Kitchen Garden for our Easter celebrations and Hen Party, through the wind, rain, sleet, snow and hail. Now the weather seems to have improved, why not come and see our flock of Buff Orpington hens + their handsome cockerel and two bantams, sunning themselves in the garden. The vegetable plot and cut flower garden are beginning to show signs of life, the moorhen has made her usual nest on the end of the pontoon over the pond, and the first brood of ducklings were hatched in 2 inches of snow.

We are open on Fridays and Saturdays from 10 till 5. Please park in the small car park, just before Church Cottage, opposite the church, (which is also open to visitors and houses impressive medieval wall paintings) then visit our tiny shop and have a cup of coffee/tea and a piece of cake. Looking forward to meeting you.

June/July 2008

After an Easter of hail, snow and sleet, our opening for the National Garden Scheme took place in driving rain and wind, and as I write, it is still raining. A sodden garden can be beautiful (especially seen from a window), and I thank all those stalwart visitors who still beat a path to the Kitchen Garden gate.

My hens have left it till June to go broody, and last year’s perfect mum has been joined sitting by her daughters, as they stare crossly out of their nest boxes at the dripping run, and the cockerel plus his elderly wives shelter under the verandah, morosely watching the raindrops. New bloodlines are being introduced to the unsuspecting flock as mum sits on five eggs from Clare Kneen’s Orpingtons. D Day will be in 10 days time, and I’m hoping for a new cockerel (don’t tell the old boy, whom I love dearly, but who has – despite constant practise – been firing blanks this season) and maybe two new layers for next year. The best laid plans…………..

Those interested in the Kitchen Garden flock will find more information in The English Garden magazine, where I write a monthly couple of pages of recipes and news about the produce from my garden, and now a monthly column – a Henkeeper’s Journal in Country Living.

Sept/Oct 2008

The flock have hatched a chick at last – a late hatching (on the premise that the weather is just as likely to be good in September as any time during the year) just the one, hugely spoilt and very tame, doted on by his/her mum, and treated with forbearance by the rest of the flock. They are all out on the newly-mown meadow, scratching for insects and seeds in the sun.

For once, I’m hoping for a cockerel, as we are going to start breeding Orpingtons on a larger scale. My friends Sharon and Evan will be looking after them nearby, and if all goes well we should have some stock by late next year.

Other plans and schemes evolve around Christmas. I’m starting to scour the shops, fairs and web for products to sell here at our Christmas Shopping 10 days from November 28th. We are also holding a Christmas Decoration Course on November 25th. Looking forward to seeing you then, perhaps.