We ate all the outside leaves of the young pak choi, mostly in won tons but also in soups and stir fries. Then I left them to flower and the tiny, stingless native bees feasted on the flowers, giving us tiny amounts of absolutely delectable light champagney honey. Then I let them set seed before feeding them, mature seeds and all, to the chooks.
The grasshoppers love kale, but that’s ok, because the chooks love grasshoppers…
Isn’t she the prettiest little chick? She’s an Australian Game, a tall long-legged breed, excellent mums, decent layers, decent meat birds, and very good at foraging for themselves.
Chooks and vegetable gardens are such an elegant arrangement. I’ve tried lots of ways of combining them, from domes to compost making down a slope, but I’m really liking the current solution.
Chooks are such a good way to double the harvest. These bok choy were self sown and if I’d been pressed for space I would have fed them to the chooks as greens much earlier. We ate a few leaves, but then since I had nothing desperately needing the spot I let them go to seed – which they did very happily, producing lots and lots of seed (which is…