It’s summer in the chicken run and the hypericum is in full flower. It fills the corner of the run and is so tall that it now reaches the top of the run. I have had to prune it back a bit so that I can walk past it when cleaning up. The apple tree has also re-grown to reach through the top of the run so I will be trimming it back again soon as I prefer to keep it below the top of the run.
The hypericum fills this corner and has a splash of yellow flowers
The apple tree and hypericum
In front of the hypericum is the dogwood shrub, but the girls have been jumping up and stripping the leaves as far as they can reach so it doesn’t look too great!
I also dug over the whole run yesterday. I dig over half of it every few days for the girls to scratch and dust bath. The rest I leave to compact as it’s easier for me to walk on but every now and then I dig over the whole run. Parts of it were like concrete!
The run after I had dug it over
Looking in to the run through through the veg plot shows the yellow splash of the hypericum filling the left hand corner of the run.
Looking at the run through the veg plot
The potatoes in the middle are now in flower as are the runner beans on the left. The tumble of pale pink on the left of the veg plot is the rambling rose that borders our garden with next doors.
We are now harvesting the peas and broad beans and sharing the chard between ourselves and the chooks and they love it. Soon there will be pak choi and spinach for them too. Later in the summer with any luck there will be corn cobs for the girls too. There wasn’t enough sun for them to ripen last year but this year I am hopeful. I think they appreciate the veg plot as much as we do.
The girls also appreciate the hypericum in their run which they have also stripped of any leaves within jumping distance. It provides their favourite place to sit in shade and to scratch around in the evenings.
Click here to see the history of my flock.