Unfortunately I am not good at posting pictures here. You can also view my garden at yardshare.com Look for Southwell Potager. It is on the home page today and the site is free.

We bought the plans online, and had a contractor friend of ours build it. Unfortunantly, the plans were not great, and there are some MAJOR changes I would now make to it before I built another one. Ebay now has a ton of cute small coops. It would be worth it to buy them premade (even with shipping). My mom bought a small wooden children's playhouse and converted it-- it is way cute, too! The coop is sitting on the concrete, though there is now about 12-16" of straw covering it. We had originally planned to put it on soil, but forgot that the neighbor on that side has a satanic dog that would terrorize our chickens! So it went on the other side of the house on the cement pad. This also prevents any predators from digging under the coop, so I guess its OK. We started off with only 2-3 chickens as well. But we started with bantams (minature chickens, about 1/4 the size) so they would do less destruction to our landscape and so my daughter could more easily hold them. We have been very happy with them, especially the Cochin breed, which are very calm and sweet. I would STRONGLY suggest you visit www.backyardchickens.com/forum and look around there for a while....there is so much fabulous info there. Over 22,000 members across the country and so much knowledge. I spent hours and hours on the site and learned so much before we even got the babies. Another great source of info was http://www.mypetchicken.com/ebook.aspx This really spells it all out! Have fun! My daughter has really enjoyed the last few years with our chickens! Here she is reading books to them in the doghouse :)

The only thing better than looking at photos of herb gardens is walking through them. Your potager turned out pretty. If you plant chives, they are edible and flower as well, fun to watch come up like teensy blades of grass. I have calendulas in my herb garden, don't know what the planting times are for you, but they're colorful and edible and the dollar stores have seeds. Oh, there are just so many possibilities! You could put an eggplant in the right hand corner -- lavender blossoms and beautiful purple fruit (veggie) to eat. Nell

It's all looking good CactusCharlie! I love this last photo showing the foothills. Makes me homesick, but I still like seeing them. I need to get my garden cleared of the weeds. I leave them all winter and they pump nutrients up through their root systems and protect the soil through winter. You've inspired me to get out there and start hoeing them out and planting some radishes and lettuces. Have the seed ready to plant, but held off for fear of our typical late surprise-frosts or deep freezes. Started my tomatoes, red bell peppers and Green Sprouting broccoli though. Tomatoes: Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Early Girl and Mortgage Lifter....for now. More tomatoes to start and okra too. They are all up. Can't wait until they get their first true leaves. My fruit trees I planted last year are budding. The Apricot is loaded with bloom buds, showing pink, and I am afraid it is going to bloom soon. It's too early. It's hard to get a crop here in this part of Oklahoma because our spring weather is so radical. That should settle down a bit by mid-April, but one never knows what the weather is going to deliver here on the Southern Plains. Sheesh. Keep your pics coming! ~Annie