Chard and Chicks…

Today was my neighborhood’s Edible Garden Tour and the Seattle Urban Chicken Coop Tour!  I know that this blog is primarily dedicated to vintage recipes, but community agriculture is something that Kevin and I are very passionate about, so we jumped at the chance to tour others’ gardens and chicken coops.  We’re hoping that our yard will be in good enough shape next spring that we can participate!  Here are some of the highlights:

This photo doesn’t do this backyard garden justice.  It was a gorgeous, productive plot, full of all kinds of edibles.  The overall layout to this backyard was wonderful, and it was almost all dedicated to edible plants!  They even planted nasturtiums in the cinder blocks, which really looked beautiful.

We also fell in love with their ‘Tater Container’.  Obviously, somebody had a lot of fun painting it!

One of our next stops was a true urban farm, with a small orchard, goats, chickens, bees, and greenhouses.  The baby goats were very, very curious about Kevin’s hat!

Another favorite part of the tour was visiting the amazing urban gardens and chicken coop at the home of The Tangled Nest.  It was probably our favorite stop along the tour because not only did they grow great vegetables and have beautiful chickens, it was also super-fun to chat with like-minded people.

I’m glad we’re not the only ones using old windows for some added heat for our beds.

The path to the chicken coop.  Can you spot the kale?  🙂

All in all, this was a lovely experience.  Kevin and I came home with many new ideas for our garden.  We’re going to be making some major changes to our backyard, so we’re gathering as much data as possible, especially about which chicken breeds we should get.

4 Comments

  1. Reply
    Lisa July 10, 2010

    We are new to having chickens this year. We ended up getting Australorp and Australorp/Easter Egger crosses, because both breeds are very good layers and I love them so far. They are fairly quiet and they have really friendly personalities. Ours haven’t started laying yet, but they should begin n the next couple weeks, hopefully.

    I love the gardens you spotlighted!

  2. Reply
    Tom July 10, 2010

    Thanks for stopping by, it was really fun to chat with you. Hope to cross paths with you again.

  3. Reply

    It was so fun to meet you, Alison (I speak for both humans and chickens)–thanks for coming out. I love your beautiful blog! I’ll be a regular visitor…

  4. Reply
    Carbzilla July 12, 2010

    I helped friends in NE Seattle with their tour and it was a ton of fun. They were super shocked at how many people came through, but they were the perfect docents!

    I’ll have to share my vintage Sunset cookbooks with you some time. My mom sends me her duplicates.

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