Week 13
We were so pleased to get the new girls a few weeks ago and they’ve certainly stepped up to the bar today!
Meet Linen
Pictured right, centre stage, is Linen (short for Linen Draper) named after the cockney rhyming slag for newspaper as she is white with black print!
We are particularly pleased with her today as she laid her first egg, right on cue, in time for our guests that were coming to our Chicken Keeping Course – A Summer’s Evening in the Kitchen Garden. We have had enough eggs recently for Egg Mayo for lunch, Frittata for tea and Cake for whenever we fancy it!
Her first egg!
As usual, the first egg is quite small and we expect that each new egg this week will be slightly bigger than the one before. As a Light Sussex, her eggs will be a pale cream in colour with a few speckles. As you can see, left, it is quite small compared to the other eggs collected today. L to R: Eggs from Linen, Ascot, Butternut, and Pearl.
It’s very useful choosing hens of different breeds that lay a range of egg colours. It helps us keep a check on who is laying and how often.
This week’s course
We very much enjoyed our Chicken Keeping for Beginners Course this week, Pimm’s in the garden, again, with homemade rolls, egg mayonnaise (of course) and ending with Q&As over cake.
Here are Nick and Sue, a lovely couple who are just starting out on their ‘Chicken Journey’. Our next course is on Wednesday 11th July why not join us?
In the conservatory…
The chilli plants are doing well, they are getting good sunlight and regular watering. The only problem is that all of the labels got damaged early on – so we’ve no idea which plant produces which pepper!
Our home-produced compost is proving just as good as the shop bought sacks, it also stores nicely in the compost bins rather than having half empty plastic bags lying around!
We’re slowly expanding the recipes section of the website… a new cake was created today, watch out for ‘All Things Nice Cake’ – pictures and recipe to come… I’ve also promised that I’ll publish the Apple & Chilli Jelly….
So next weeks jobs:
Have you noticed that they are last weeks jobs carrier over?
Plant or pot up the remaining seedlings (tomatoes, chillies, leeks, squashes)
Turn this year’s compost into the last year’s bin (now empty)
Make a Comfrey feed for the water-butt
Pick the food that’s ready!
This weather’s been great… get out there and enjoy it!
Corners are not just for squares!
