Growing with goats: How to build a goat-proof herb bed

I’ve been catching the train into London quite a bit recently for work.  In theory the journey could provide around 45 minutes of working time, meaning that I could leave that little bit earlier.  In practice, it’s difficult to type when standing up in the isle of a muggy, overcrowded train, particularly when the man next to you insists on shouting into his mobile every time the reception drops out- which is about every 2 minutes.  Possibly he thought that mobile phones work in the same was as two paper cups joined by a piece of string, and that distance can be overcome by raising his voice?

So what I’ve mainly been doing is staring out of the window at the sunshine, while wishing the train would turn the heating off. 

Not a smallholding...

On one journey I started thinking about how we could grow some crops in our garden.  A garden occupied by two goats, occasionally a rabbit, and currently seven chickens many of whom like to eat, taste or stamp all over plants, as evidenced in particular by the bare stripe that runs all along the bushes to a height of around 1.5 metres.  A project worthy of at least 45 minutes train musing!

My thoughts eventually coalesced into making a cold frame, something that would act as a mini greenhouse to get the seeds started, (we have shutters in our house that don't leave any space for seeds on the windowsill), and then could be covered in chicken wire to keep out the various animals once summer arrived. 

A few day's later I was walking the back way to the supermarket so that I could carry out my usual nonchalant glance into the bins (I have collected a lot of broken-but-fixable stuff this way, including the jar we used for brewing dandelion and ginger ale).  Propped up next to the bin were six large sheets of thick plastic, perfect for a cold frame!  I took it as a sign, although after the three slow trips it took to transport all the (unexpectedly heavy and slightly-too-large-to-be-carried-comfortably)sheets from the bin to my house, my enthusiasm had taken a bit of a battering.



Week 1

I returned to the project at the weekend with a spot of amateur brick-laying.  Amateur in the sense that I watched half You Tube video in bed and then decided to jump straight in (although I did at least get dressed).  We had already fished out a surprising number of bricks from various muddy mounds in the garden, which we think were once the previous owners' attempts at a rockery, so I used these side-on to build a cold frame that was about 2m by 0.5m and two bricks high.  As this didn't leave a lot of room for plants to grow, I also laid an old fence post across the back to raise the height, which added to the recycling element of this project and also gave the overall structure a pleasing cold frame shape.

Sibelius demonstrates the successful goat proofing

We planted whatever we had at the time, namely a multipack of herbs (dill, basil, sage, oregano, chives) and a pack of cut-and-come-again mixed lettuce.  Goodness knows how long we had had these but it was evidently long enough for almost all the herb seeds to fail.  Apart from the dill, which has grown tremendously, we have a total of two basil plants and three sage.  I also learnt that my plant identification skills are really poor and I can't tell the difference between the seedling of a weed and the desired plant. Luckily, my sense of smell is better than my eyesight and once the seedlings had unfurled their first proper leaves I was able to gently rub them to identify out the usurpers from the incumbents. 

The cut and come again lettuce also flourished, and, after Sibelius managed to get his head in under the plastic to carry out the first 'cut', proved true to its name by growing again.

Unfortunately the original plan of replacing the plastic with chicken wire as soon as the weather improved had to be revised because the goats quickly realised that by standing on the chicken wire their combined weight depressed it enough to get a hold on the leaves and yank them them up through the holes.  I've no idea if this teamwork was conscious or accidental, but I do hope they never apply it to breaking into our kitchen! I've kept the chicken wire in place, because it adds extra height for the plants to grow, and replaced the plastic over the top of it.  I just need to keep it watered a bit more often as the rain can't get in, but at least the plants should be nice and cosy - and intact!

We have now harvested our first lettuce crop, (although I acknowledge that 'crop' is possibly too strong a term for something this easy to grow), and apart from a few strange-tasting leaves which I subsequently decided were probably weeds, it was delicious. 

 

The dill is ready to be harvested as soon as we want it - I'm thinking a weekend breakfast with our scrambled eggs from Hempsal's community farm, and I've planted more dill seeds in the empty spaces left by our failed chives.

 

And the leftover plastic sheets were made into a rain shelter by the back door for the boys.