Blank canvas in the Organic home garden

Its that time of year again, the ground covered in snow hiding the remains of last years successes and follies. Its a blank canvas to start imagining the layout of next years vegetable rows and the scheme for 2009.

We have of course bought seeds well in advance with all the prudence of complete novices, and the out come will be rather like holiday planning where you have lived the holiday ten times over before the day has even arrived. Its the taste of home grown food from the organic garden that motivates this seasonal madness. I surprised myself last year with a new found enthusiasm for home grown vegetables which I would never even buy from the supermarket in the past.

It is a great disappointment to us this year that we have to return from France to the UK to find work as it is too scarce in France. To soften the blow we have taken on an allotment nearby. One thing will not be the same, however as we cannot keep Warren hens for eggs on our allotment.

It is the hens which start out our early planning for the coming season, because we like to place them on future vegetable rows to help clear the soil of seeds and grubs, before we sow.

Its a good way of organically treating the soil, both for removell of insect pest's and soil improvement due to their manure. The eggs are fantastic in sponge's too if you like baking.

The eggy-ness of the sponge reminded me of baked sponge from my childhood and it is obvious there is something not quite right about supermarket eggs these days.