Free Crappy Portrait

Aaaaaages ago I sent in our photo to Free Crappy Portraits and requested one of our very own. So long ago now I totally forgot about it, until today. Not only have they supplied us with an AWESOME Free Crappy Portrait, thoroughly identifying us and poor Mavis' story, but they put us on their website! How cool is that?!

I know!

Here is our (awesome) crappy portrait - thanks sooooo much Nick P. You did good.

Home Grown Corn

Who doesn't like corn on the cob?


I hear you stroll through the garden to pick the corn and run back to cook it. The minute it's picked the sugars start to turn to starch and it begins to lose it's sweetness.


Well, this season we grew some of the sweetest, juiciest, most delicious ears we've ever tasted! Don't think we could go back to store bought ears after eating it straight from the stalk! You should try it some time.


Watching it being devoured like this makes it look even more delectable, don't you think? 

  

To Pinch Or Not To Pinch? Conclusion

At the beginning of the summer we planted two yellow pear cherry tom seedlings and did a garden experiment with them:

1. One plant we pinched out the shoots
2. The other we did not

(bountiful bushes)  

The conclusion we have come to is that pinching made no real difference to the yield. The fruit was just as tasty and abundant for both plants.

(Pinched & Pruned)

  

However, the un-pinched plant's fruit was just much harder to get to!

(The Monster)

So purely for manageability (and pleasurable garden aesthetics), we have continued to pinch all our toms this season, and so far we're having a bumper crop! Yum!

Weird and Wonderful #2

Well it seems carrots often come out strange for us! With legs, or other suspicious appendages...

(Aunty Molly)

(a Sloth)

In our research here are some reasons this could be happening to the little fellas:

• Soil is coarse, has clumps or rocks. The carrot hits a clump and forks off in another direction.
• Soil is too high in nitrogen - fresh manure or fertiliser should be dug in 2 - 3 weeks prior to planting.
• Carrots need to be thinned and spaced to allow room to grow.

They are planted right next to the chooks so I suspect it's the nitrogen from the chook poo that gets flicked over. Oh well. I like them, and they still taste just as good.

(I Luv Hugs)

To Pinch Or Not To Pinch?

Summer is coming and our Tomatoes are expanding with great gusto. So we've been reading up on whether or not to pinch out the shoots. The "shoots" grow between the main stem and the branches and have potential to develop just as productively and vigorously as the main plant its self. 

  

There are pro's and con's for both options, so we couldn't decide. Instead we're experimenting, after all - that's what our little garden is all about. We have two yellow Pear Cherry Tom's growing side by side and they were put in at the same time. We are going to pinch one and leave the other... just for fun!


In the meantime, we read you can plant the pinchings and they will regrow into a new plant! How cool! We'll give that a go too, here are our three little trials, every day they look a little droopy but pick up after a good drink. So fingers crossed!

  

Stay tuned!


See here for the results.

Night Harvest

Have you ever wondered what you can harvest from your veggie garden at night?

Slugs of course!

After dark your garden comes alive. Ours, unfortunately at the moment, is alive with slimy gross ravenous slugs. Fortunately they are delicious... to chooks... so we harvest them.

And here's how...

You will need:

1. A disposable glove
2. A plastic container with a lid
3. A head torch

What to do:

Don a bright head torch and a disposable glove and wander out into the darkness. The slugs will shine in the torch light which makes them easy to spot.

Pop a juicy leaf or two into the plastic container for their final meal. We're not barbarians. And have yourself a good old fashioned slug hunt! They don't move fast so get picking. (With the gloved hand... but feel free to go bare if you prefer it that way, you saucy minx!) You will find they curl up at your touch and if you drop them when curled they are hard to find again. Slippery little suckers.

I once harvested some not-so-standard-garden-variety slugs in our old garden and they used to secrete a disgusting yellow slime and stank something awful! These are not so bad. But they do leave your glove quite sticky - hence the use of disposables.

Once you've harvested a sufficient amount, plus the odd caterpillar or centipede for good measure, make sure you pop the lid on tight, or you'll have escapees.

In the morning, they will all have hidden on the underside of the leaf and you can just throw the lot into the chook pen and watch the carnage! Yum!

Mavis' Story

So, a couple of days ago we got a mammoth egg from one of our chooks. 110g in fact!

And that egg, as we suspected, was a "double yolker", seen here for breakfast:

Though we didn't know which hen laid the mammoth egg, we might now after yesterday's events...

Mavis was looking a bit worse for wear for a couple of days. First signs were that she was very fluffed up and looking fatter than usual. The more obvious sign that something sinister was up was that when a bowl full of delicious grated carrot was tossed into the pen, unlike her sisters, Mavis decided that sitting on the food was far more appealing than scratching around and eating it... like a normal chook would do.

So a little amateur Google diagnosis led us to believe she may be "egg bound". This means the poor hen may have an egg stuck inside that she is having trouble passing. Among other reasons, it can happen when she is laying over large eggs... Oops!

Some of the signs are:

• That she is restless and visiting the nest often but not producing.
• She will appear a little "swollen" or a bit lopsided, and may look like she is having trouble walking.
• After a while she may become very lethargic, as no doubt trying to pass an egg that won't come will really take it out of you!
• She may go off her food or drink also.

And Mavis was displaying all of the above. So what do you do about it?

Well... To start with, we had a feel around her abdomen for any hard egg like lumps. Unsure. Then it's recommended you warm her up and relax the muscles around the cloaca (vent the egg comes out of). To do this we opted for a warm bath... not the salts and scented candles type, but for a chook I'm sure it would be equally enjoyable. If the chook is indeed egg bound it's likely she will nestle down into the warm water herself. If not, and she is just ill, she'll probably stay standing in the water looking at you wondering "why the devil have you just submerged my bottom half, you crazy human?" Fair enough. But Mavis nestled immediately.

If you're lucky, the chook may relax enough to lay the egg herself right there in the water. If not, and we weren't, you may need to do a little coaxing; have a feel for the egg and push it down to help her along... Yep. That meant some olive oil on a well lubricated finger and pop! In it goes! Though, like I said before, we're amateurs, so we didn't really know what we were feeling for, but nothing felt like an egg. So last resort was to give the vet a call for some advice.

Unfortunately, it wasn't necessary, as poor Mavis passed on mid phone call... with my finger up her bottom! I suppose it was a fairly decent way to go though, a nice warm bath and a little anal stimulation. I'd be happy with that.

R.I.P. Mavis the Chook