I had some helpers. The two bantams were free ranging, so I had a constant companion the whole time I was working.
Jane, the cheeky chicken thought that there might be an opportunity to find some grubs or worms, so she stuck to me like glue the whole time.
She is so cute, and very very cheeky. If I don’t let her and her friend Poppy out at about noon, then she creates such a fuss that it is louder than a dog barking. She usually gets her way.
I took a moment to step back and see what what she was doing. She was doing my weeding for me, so I took the time to take this little video to show her mannerisms. She cracks me up.
Now as for Poppy, she has decided to be clucky, and is sitting on a couple of golf balls to keep her happy. I have had chooks long enough now to not fuss over the ways of nature. Just let it be and make sure she still eats and drinks each day. She will snap out if it in a week or two.
So what was the harvest like? If you compare it to last years harvest it was a lot smaller, but at least 7 pumpkins is better than none. They are all Australian Butter pumpkins except for one which decided to be a cross between and Aussie Butter and a Turks Turban! Got to love nature for all her wonderful weirdness. I suppose that is what you get when you save your own seed.
Sadly I didnt get one single pumpkin this year in Adelaide, neither did my parents who usually excel at everything they grow. Perhaps a weather thing! My Silkie chooks are as cheeky and funny as always, and I love watching them too. Your pekin looks hilarious! Loved the clip. 🙂
it amzes me from year to year how i think things to myself about the garden that I think are only going on in our garden..like “gosh we didn’t get alot of pumpkins this season” then i come to others peoples blogs to find they also had the same things happen in their gardens too..interesting
Hi Gav, one of our cheeky girls keeps getting out, yesterday she attacked the puppies, didnt touch them but it had us giggling while sitting on our verandah looking out over our beautiful acreage.One thing i have been meaning to ask, do you feed your girls onion, leek and garlic scraps? I have a fear of *tainting* the eggs lol. I also dont give them watermelon peel or corn husks. Mainly because of having to clean it out, but i guess the girls enjoy scratching about it in? What do you do?
Oh our pumpkin harvest was small but delicious…..almost all gone.
No. Seeds rotted in the ground 🙁
I’m getting some tomatoes now, though!
I am a regular reader of your excellent blog Gavin and am constantly impressed by the number of ‘hits’ you get. As a little experiment I noted the number on your hit counter on one day and then again at exactly the same time 24 hours later. In those 24 hours you had received 1656 visitors. You are obviously doing something right and I hope many of those people are as committed as you are to sustainability issues. What surprises me is how few people add a comment, especially on issues that I would imagine are more important to us all. Anyway Gavin, keep it up because if you can influence 1600 people every day and they all spread the word to their friends you must be making a change to the average mindset around the world.
I am hoping to grow some pumpkins this year. I just am taking forever to dig them out. No rain and our soil is clay so like mining to get them all out (they have self seeded where the previous owners health went down hill and they couldnt do it). Gosh that is hard work.
With your pumpkins, do you plant them in a pot and the put them into the ground when they have some leaves or do you plant them straight into the soil in situ? and they love compost dont they?
I just cleaned out my pumpkin patch yesterday too gav! I do it a bit differently though…I put a couple of cows in the paddock , they eat around everything but don’t eat any spare pumpkins that I missed. We have a crop of about 40 pumpkins this year due to all this lovely rain we have had.If you can grow pumpkins, you should have a go at ‘pimply squash’ …divine boiled with the skin on and a bit of butter melted on it.
I planted lots of pumpkins, but we didn’t get enough rain over summer to keep them growing in far-away parts of the yard, so unless there are some hiding in the long grass I don’t think we grew any. A friend at work had excess though and gave me a large one, so we are stocked up for pumpkin soup, I don’t think I can fit anymore in the freezer anyway!
Love the pumpkins. I didn’t plant any this year and I’m I’m really regretting it ; – ( To keep the rest of the pumpkin after you have cut it to use, sprinkle the cut edges with black pepper. It seals it and helps to keep it for longer. I do it all the time and have great success.
Poor showing this year. Only a few compared to several last year. Never mind …new bed next year. Your chook is gorgeous.
Never have any success when planting pumpkins, but always more luck each year when they pop out themselves of the compost heap lol. Even so not many this year…I’m thinking the poor bees are losing their own (large) battle.
Liz in Bendigo
It never ceases to amaze me that we are all connected. A simple similarity such as a poor pumpkin harvest across most of the country cements this connection in ways we are probably yet to realise.
Gav