God I love growing our own

[Goran]

Watermelons.. I feel like I am a balloon.. Fresh picked and cooled, sweet as honey.. My favorite fruit..

 

[enrico]

Watermelons.. I feel like I am a balloon.. Fresh picked and cooled, sweet as honey.. My favorite fruit..

You lucky person. I love them but they don't generally from well in this country

 

[Bryang]

A couple of photos I took up the allotment this pm.. One shows how tall the sprout plants are this year. The other photo shows what sometimes happens if you don't earth up spuds. The leaf growth of the plant was so dense I could not see underneath the leaves. Whilst lifting the Nicola spuds I noticed there were the occasional "runners" in the soil with potatoes growing on them. I have seen this before.

 

[E&MBees]

Started picking cabbage white caterpillars off my broccoli. Must have missed some eggs before I went on holiday. Or there’s a hole in my netting.

 

[Bryang]

Removed wrong photo

 

[Bryang]

Testing

 

[enrico]

Testing

Failed

 

[Bryang]

Failed

Had a problem with my PC after some updates.. Sorted now, I hope..

 

[pargyle]

A couple of photos I took up the allotment this pm.. One shows how tall the sprout plants are this year. The other photo shows what sometimes happens if you don't earth up spuds. The leaf growth of the plant was so dense I could not see underneath the leaves. Whilst lifting the Nicola spuds I noticed there were the occasional "runners" in the soil with potatoes growing on them. I have seen this before.

That's a pity with the green spuds ... I had a couple of green ones that had poked out of the top of compost in the bags I grow them in .. not much you can do once they have gone green. I put a kilo of Charlottes into the bags for new potatoes at Christmas a couple of weeks ago and they are already ready for earthing up. They tend to be on the small side when they are ready to harvest in December but a few new potatoes with cold cuts at New year is a real treat.

 

[JamezF]

Thanks to a visiting fox some months back we're somewhat short of laying hens at the moment, so at the weekend my wife collected some "rescue" hens that are considered to be at the end of their useful life by a commercial free-range egg operation. This is one. It makes me feel sick that someone could allow an animal to end up in this state. If we ever can't keep our own hens in the future I will be trying to avoid as much food as possible that contains commercially-produced eggs.

James

 

[fian]

Thanks to a visiting fox some months back we're somewhat short of laying hens at the moment, so at the weekend my wife collected some "rescue" hens that are considered to be at the end of their useful life by a commercial free-range egg operation. This is one. It makes me feel sick that someone could allow an animal to end up in this state. If we ever can't keep our own hens in the future I will be trying to avoid as much food as possible that contains commercially-produced eggs.

James

It is difficult for a product made from eggs to specify that the origin is organic since the product would be more expensive, the difference between an organic egg and a conventional caged egg is great.
In the EU, each egg has a code regardless of the country of production, the first number (0,1,2,3) marks the production format. 0 corresponds to ecological and 3 to conventional caged.
That is, make the products yourself with type 0 eggs.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Thanks to a visiting fox some months back we're somewhat short of laying hens at the moment, so at the weekend my wife collected some "rescue" hens that are considered to be at the end of their useful life by a commercial free-range egg operation. This is one. It makes me feel sick that someone could allow an animal to end up in this state.

and those are probably the free range ones

It is difficult for a product made from eggs to specify that the origin is organic since the product would be more expensive, the difference between an organic egg and a conventional caged egg is great.

did anyone mention organic?

 

[JamezF]

did anyone mention organic?

Sadly I'm not sure the welfare standards for organic are actually that much better than "normal" free range, though obviously the birds have to be fed organic food.

James

 

[pargyle]

We've always had some rescue hens...its wonderful when you see them inspecting grass and wondering what it is. They are alwsys very biddable and docile..once they have settled in they become really friendly. Their feathers rapidly grow back and in no time they revert to real hens. We usually get a couple of good years of laying out of them and presumably because they have been treated for just about any hen disease they rarely get sick. If they last the first couple of weeks when pecking order is established they are tough as old boots.

 

[JamezF]

We've always had some rescue hens...its wonderful when you see them inspecting grass and wondering what it is. They are alwsys very biddable and docile..once they have settled in they become really friendly. Their feathers rapidly grow back and in no time they revert to real hens. We usually get a couple of good years of laying put of them and presumably because they have been treated for just about any hem disease they rarely get sick. If they last the first couple of weeks when pecking order is established they are tough as old boots.

I'm hoping they'll all recover, but that one I'm really not sure about. Fortunately all our chickens are quite docile because in the main we hatch our own and try to spend a bit of time with them when they're small so they're used to us. They (almost) all ran to see me when I took this.



James

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I'm hoping they'll all recover, but that one I'm really not sure about.

I wouldn't fret - that one, as I said is probably a 'free range', or at worst a barn hen and doesn't look bad at all - I've had rescues in a heck of a worse state than that and within 48 hours the were mucking in with the others and having a rare old time.

 

[fian]

For some reason, Google translates ecological as organic.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Thanks to a visiting fox some months back we're somewhat short of laying hens at the moment, so at the weekend my wife collected some "rescue" hens that are considered to be at the end of their useful life by a commercial free-range egg operation. This is one. It makes me feel sick that someone could allow an animal to end up in this state. If we ever can't keep our own hens in the future I will be trying to avoid as much food as possible that contains commercially-produced eggs.

James

Those rescues look in pretty good nick James. We have been having them for the last 15 years and some of our girls wouldn’t have looked out if place on a chiller shelf in Sainsbury’s!
As others have said it’s wonderful to see them refeather and blossom in their new surroundings.

 

[enrico]

We have two rescues at the moment. I prefer the ex barns rather than the ex caged, we still have our two last ones which were ex caged separate as they are having trouble interacting with the others and still have bald patches. The only thing to be careful of is their sudden change of diet, we have had crop problems in the past. But I will always have rescues in the future. Out hybrids only lay for a year and then just let us keep them for no reward

 

[pargyle]

You may remember I managed to overwinter a chillie plant... one out of about 8 that survived well into the winter. All the rest did not restart in spring ... Well... its fruiting and the chillies are now turning red... BUT ... I have no idea what variety they are and more importantly what heat they are....any ideas ?