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Fat Hens!

Another spring, another broody hen….. This one we decided to employ to hatch eggs from my neighbour’s beautiful Welsomer hens, who are too large to fly out of their run and lay big, brown, speckly eggs. We have nothing against our bantams, they have many advantages, but, well, now for something completely different.

Five chicks duly hatched, and I built a “chick tractor” – a light, moveable ark in which mother and chicks could be folded onto various parts of the garden in turn to eat all the pests and dig up the ground elder roots, while fertilising the soil meanwhile.

Chicks from Hell

It was, as you know, pretty cold this spring, and, not wanting them to get chilled, the first plot to be cultivated by chick power was the polytunnel.

The problem was that Mother Hen made mincemeat of the light, dry soil, kicking it right left and centre and, perhaps inadvertently but I think out of sheer badness, creating Great Escape tunnels through which the Chicks from Hell (as they are now invariably known) would emerge periodically. Then they would scamper all over my nursery pots and newly pricked-off seedlings while I frantically tried to rugby tackle them into submission.

I comforted myself that, being light and airy, they at least did no real damage. Until I noticed the Tree Spinach tray. Tree Spinach is a very engaging edible plant with shocking pink shoots, that grows to six feet. Not if the Chicks from Hell had their way! They pecked it delightedly until each plant had the appearance of pink and green confetti. Tree Spinach (Chenopodium giganteum) is closely related to two wild plants, one called Goosefoot and one called…. Fat Hen.

Nutritious

These weeds are highly nutritious and were used as a staple food from prehistoric times. Spinach is in the same family, too, and so is Orache (whether the wild green one or the lovely ornamental Red Orache, a cheerful self-seeder for the informal garden).

Well, I knew that the Goosefoots got their name from the shape of the leaves. All I can say is that now I know why Chenopodium album is called FAT HEN!

Eventually the chicks were relocated to the new vegetable bed and ,after several escapes there, I returned the mother to the hen run – it was another week or so before the chicks were big enough to start excavating tunnels on their own.

They are now in the hen run, growing feathers and cheeping about the lack of Tree Spinach! They are pictured above looking sweet and fluffy with our little friend Angus – but remember, these chicks really do border on the diabolical!

© Margaret Lear, Bankfoot

www.plantswithpurpose.co.uk