Microgreens

Well, Happy New Year to you all, and as you can see I'm back in blog land again.  It's good to be back with you all.

Plans are afoot for this year, extra enterprises are to be ventured into with the view of making a bit more out of what we have, fingers crossed - all will be come clear in due course.

Having read the November edition of 'Grow It', magazine, (a fab magazine for all things growable!), and absorbed the article on microgreens, I decided to do a trial.  So out came the seed box and I sorted through to see what I'd got that would be microgreen-able.

Now I'm never one to follow rules too rigidly and with an empty polytunnel I decided to plant a row of each of my seeds and see what happens.  Hopefully something will grow that is harvestable, if nothing grows, well I haven't lost much apart from my time; these were all seed packets we had anyway.

So I sowed the following, one row of each -
Parsley - French plain leaf
Basil - Sweet Genovese
Chives
Broccoli - Romanesco
Cabbage - Xmas Drumhead
Kale - Dwarf green curled
Savoy Cabbage - Winter King
Radish - French breakfast
Beetroot - Boltardy
Peas
Landcress
Lettuce - Arctic King
Rocket
Tatsoi
(the last four packets were free with a previous edition of Grow It magazine)

So I'm hoping this will make a fabulous mix of greens and I'll keep you posted on their progress.  If all they do is get to the seedling stage and survive the winter giving me some delicious spring greens to eat I shall be delighted, but am hoping for the microgreen stage instead.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 4

Sales -
Nil

Expenses -
Nil

Another home produced tea

I was going to do a blog post on Orpington chickens tonight, but I think I'll save that for another day, because our tea tonight was so good and nearly all home produced I just had to tell you about it.  I've had a lovely day concocting our tea, I do love spending a good couple of hours in the kitchen so I thought I'd share it with you.

We had -
Bacon, Leek & Potato pie with Romanesco in a cheese and mustard sauce with steamed cabbage.
Followed by -
Apple pie and Ice cream

Just Yum!

Home produced stuff was -
Leeks, potatoes, tomato, eggs, Romanesco cabbage, cabbage, apples; oh and of course all the pastry was homemade.  Haven't got any home produced bacon at the moment, it's still on the hoof!

Here it is -

Bacon, leek & potato pie

My plateful!

The Apple pie

And the best bit it is, there's leftovers for tomorrow nights tea, I do love a cooking session where you can cook for more than one day.

Stats today

Eggs produced = 6

Sales -
2 x Cabbages £1.30
2 x 1Kg bags of tomatoes £2.00

Expenses -
Nil

Look what they've done now!

The little blighters, not content with decimating my winter cabbages they've been on my spring cabbages aswell.

That's two trays nearly all eaten.  It was only by chance that I noticed them.  I was watering them yesterday and wondered what was going on, happened to take a closer look and noticed what looked like caterpillar poo on the leaves, near where the leaves joined the stems on the upper surface, and didn't believe my eyes.

I swept my hand gently across the top of them and lo and behold did the little blighters fall off onto the compost in front of my eyes!  So I did it again until I found them all, and took great delight in squashing them. I'm hoping they aren't too far gone and will re-grow.  I had planned to plant two more trays, as we can sell them once pricked out and plant some here to for sale next year; looks like that job has just been added to my list for tomorrow.  Oh well that's gardening for you.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 11

Sales -
1 & 1/2 dozen eggs £2.50
1 x 500g Tomatoes £2.00
1 x 500g Carrots £0.75
2 x Geranium plants £3.00

Expenses -
Nil

The attack of the Cabbage White Flutterby's

When I see a Cabbage white butterfly in the veg garden a loud groan emits from my mouth.  It's that time of year again, when vigilance is a virtue.

The pesky things have wrecked crops in my garden in previous years to a devastating proportion, but this year I'm already on the case.  Their numbers seem to have increased this year, by a large amount, I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, have they?  Only last weekend I saw twelve in one go around the veg garden.

A few notes on The Cabbage White, for those of you who are lucky not to encounter these wee beasties!

This is what it looks like -

There are two sorts experienced by UK gardeners the Small white and the Large white, extensively feeding on brassica's including swede's and turnips.  The cabbage moth causes even more damage by burrowing into cabbage hearts, whereas the butterflies tend to stay on outer leaves and cause damage like this -

The above plant had an early infestation of caterpillars which Michael spotted, I then took great delight in picking off the offenders and feeding as a treat to the chickens - they love em!  Which is one of the controlling ways you get rid of them.  Inspect your plants regularly for clusters of yellow eggs, if found pick them off and destroy.  If they hatch the caterpillars have a voracious appetite and will strip the leaves in double quick time leaving just the internal leaf stalks.  As you can see from the above picture plants can recover if caught early and will grow new leaves, but it is a battle to keep on top of them.

There is biological control available but I haven't used it, so can't comment on its effectiveness.  You can also cover your brassica plants with fine mesh to stop the butterflies being able to land and lay their eggs.  I tend to stick with the finger and thumb method, my chickens wholeheartedly agree!

Stats today (sorry I forgot yesterday's) -

Sales -
2 dozen eggs

Expenses -
Nil