Chooks and Fruit Trees part 1

11 chooks reside at Leighton Farm, they have an enclosure where they roost at night.   I feed them grain and  they lay their eggs in here too. From their little house they have a large run and next to the run is the orchard.  They have a little gate in the fence between the run and orchard so they can roam where ever they choose.

This is a view of the orchard,

The chooks love being in here, hopefully they will eat lots of grubs and insects, hence keeping them out of the fruit. In the orchard there is plum, nectarine, peach, pear, apple, cherry, fig and apricot and mulberry trees.

 

This is some very young mulberries, I love how they look when at this young stage of their development.

Baby pears just starting to develop, will have to wait until late summer to enjoy eating these.

 

This apricot tree is very special as it comes from the original family farm near Narooma.  The tree is about 40 years old and produces the best flavoured apricots ever.  This year the tree has hundreds of fruit on it and we should start eating them around Christmas.... that's if we get lots more warm weather. Hopefully lots of apricot jam and stewed apricots this season.

 

In another area at Leighton farm we have a selection of citrus. This is my cumquat tree.  It has been planted for 3 years and this is the first time it has had fruit.  It is not really the correct time of the year for cumquats to be on the tree, but I am happy to finally get some fruit.  Mmmmm cumquat marmalade..another favourite.