Supplementing our chickens’ feed with free greens?

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 8 March 2011 in chickens, frugal, growing, wild food | 11 comments

We popped to the feed store in Shipley on Saturday to buy another couple of bags of layers pellets for our girls – a sack last them about three weeks these days.

As we were paying, the owner noted that they’d gone up in price “again” – to £8.45 a 25kg bag. It’s still considerably cheaper per kg than when we were getting pellets from a different store (albeit one that delivered) but thanks to my chicken keeping spreadsheets, I know they’ve gone up twice within six months – they were £7.80 a bag when we first bought that brand in September, then £8.00, now £8.45.

Split over price per kilogram or per day of consumption, it’s not that much of a leap – about 2p extra a day, split between 7 of them, averaging just under 6 eggs a day. But it is a worrying trend — part of the general increase of prices and food costs in particular — and it’s got me thinking again about how to supplement their diet for free/very cheap. It’s not just about the money, it’s about food security – if we can find food for them, they’ll provide food for us.

Last summer, they loved the borage I grew and I also foraged random bits for them – plenty of dandelion leaves & wilted nettles as well as bits of fruit (including the dry pulp left after cider or wine making). Over winter, I’d planned to grow lots of kale and spring cabbage to keep them stocked up on greens in this scarce period – but I think I started them too late and then lost most of them to slugs anyway. I also intended to collect acorns (like Kate from Living the Frugal Life) but didn’t get around to it (I just couldn’t work out how to collect them in bulk in the (public but rarely used) areas where they fell, without having to pick them all up individually, then I saw someone had collected them with a rake. Genius.) As a result, their own free “treats” recently have just been occasional kitchen scraps and bundles of nettles that I dried last summer. (They do have handfuls of mixed seeds/corn too – but that’s not free and will be subject to the same price rises as the layers pellets.)

Now it’s the start of the growing & foraging season again and I’m thinking about what I can try this year.

February – end of month review

Posted by louisa on Monday 28 February 2011 in chickens, frugal, goals, growing, less than 12 clothes challenge, making, meta | 9 comments

February seems to have flown by and has been a lot of fun — a good balance between work, household/growing/making productivity, crafting, and future planning.

Goals in 2011 progress

I’ve started making progress on some of the more long term goals – started sowing seeds which will hopefully turn into homegrown veg and again, I’ve made things with wood which will help with my “make a piece of furniture” goal. I haven’t baked each week but I’ve tried a few new recipes – including some lovely cinnamon biscotti – so at least I’m doing bits. (We’ve not been baking much bread recently because it’s still a bit too cold for yeast to rise properly.)

From my secondary list, I’ve also tried making soap, although I’m not sure it’s been a success yet (the soap in the moulds is still very soft). I also made a notebook (above) from scrap paper and a curtain sample, which wasn’t on my list but I had so much fun doing it that I think “learn different book binding techniques” should be on there now! Finally, we’ve been working to reduce our food waste (and save money/our sanity) by preparing meal plans – we’re not sticking to them 100% but they’re working well in general.

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

In my no more than 12 items of clothes in 2011 challenge, my tally is still zero — I’ve not bought anything this month either. I have though started looking at stuff rather than just shutting myself off from the possibilities – partly because I need to develop willpower rather than just avoiding temptation and partly because I feel like it’s time I had something new to wear (I’ve not bought any clothes since November – and that was only replacement jeans). It’s when I’m getting ready to go to drama – the classes I teach or rehearsals etc – because my suitable clothes are such a subset of my wardrobe — they not only have to be neat enough to wear outside the house, they can’t be too cleavage-y (which is a problem with a lot of my clothes because my body is too cleavage-y!) and they have to be suitable for wearing as a supposedly-responsible adult in front of teenagers. I have plenty of plain t-shirts to wear but a limited amount of warm clothes so I’ve been getting a bit bored – and as we’re preparing for a production at the start of April, I’ll be there a lot more regularly which will mean cycling through them more. So long story short, I might break into my quota in March.

Growing stuff & the chickens

Playing catch up

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 22 February 2011 in charity shopping, chickens, growing | 3 comments

Apologies for being a little quieter than normal recently – after my busy work weekend, I had lots of exciting plans for yesterday but all of them went by the wayside in favour of sitting. Ahh, sitting.

Anyway, so today has been catch-up day, as well as supposedly being a normal work day and having to go to Leeds ont’ bus to do some stuff regarding our old house (which we’re *still* trying to sell) – busy day! I started clearing out the chicken coop and had lots of fun with Lime, my favourite of our girls. While she was moulting, she was a little more distant than usual but today she was with me the whole time, including climbing out of the nest box’s open flap to sit on my knee while I cleaned in there (and then came for a wander around the garden under my arm when I went to reprimand our barking dog). I think/hope we’re going to be reasonably logical/hard-hearted with the hens in general — they’re food producers not pets — but I think Lime is firmly in pet territory now. The others still might end up as soup or in a curry but she’s going to be around for the long term.

After that, I potted on the honeyberry plantlets that arrived over the weekend. You know last week when I said we were done for fruit for 2011? Well, I was wrong – I’d forgotten about the honeyberries which I’d bought as part of a big order in November — I only remembered when Fiona mentioned getting one herself on Twitter last week. Anyway, now I have three little ones in pots. I’m not sure where they’ll end up – they grow to about 4ft tall but I’ve filled my 4ft+-tall spots with the fruit bushes from a couple of weeks ago. I doubt they’ll grow that big or even big enough to fruit this year though so I’ll have a little while to figure it out. They’re definitely the last of the fruit for the year though. Except for the cherry tree which is due in a few weeks. And anything else that pops up.

Speaking of popping up, my heated propagator stuff is starting to poke through! My cucumbers said “7-21 days” for germination but have started to appear at 5 or 6 – lovely strong shoots. A couple of tomatoes have made it through too. Away from the heated propagator, today seems to have been the day for my cauliflowers to germinate as well. I am perhaps more excited by all these green shoots than I should be ;)

That (and some work) was all this morning and this afternoon I’ve been in Leeds – at our old house, at the bank and picking up misc things from Wilkinsons (including the last of my soap making supplies – woo!) – and I had a little time for a spot of charity shopping too. I actually looked at clothes in one place – I decided I couldn’t hide from temptation forever and I’ve had a number of good things from there in the past – but didn’t buy anything. I did see a top that I might of bought in a more spend-hearty type – it was nothing special, just a basic t-shirt thing, of the type I wear a lot and already have a lot – but now it wasn’t worth wasting a clothing credit on it — it wasn’t that special and I don’t need it. I think I’m experiencing a mental shift when it comes to buying clothes – hurrah!

I did buy one thing from a charity shop though – a cute little lunch box thing for £1:

Apparently “miko cat” is Boots’ Hello Kitty homage/rip-off but whatever, it’s a black cat (the very best type of cat) and it’s cute. When I brought it home, John clasped it to his chest and asked if he could have it for his pencils. I reminded him that he lost my last lunchbox so no, but we could use it for our pencils.

Now I must go as a I have a wonderfully delicious chocolate-coffee mousse to eat. If you just raised your eyebrows at the thought of a “wonderfully delicious chocolate-coffee mousse”, stay tuned – I’m hoping to post the recipe tomorrow :)

On my mind – unusual spaces, seeds & no kindling

Posted by louisa on Thursday 17 February 2011 in growing | 8 comments

Rhonda on Down To Earth has a weekly “on my mind” photo feature – an illustration about what we’re all thinking about today. She’s been thinking about handmade, handstitched linens today, I’ve been thinking about …

strange spaces in the garden, epitomised by this ledge behind the greenhouse. I want to increase the amount of things we grow in the garden, which means using all our space as efficiently as possible. This space is small but gets good sun – I could put herb pots on there or make a trough/window box to fit there instead. It wouldn’t be very accessible for picking things from it in the summer though – but I’d like some flowers in the garden to attract bees so maybe this is a good place for them.

I’ve been thinking about this today because this box is praying on my mind –

It’s sorted in planting order but I haven’t decided where everything is going yet or started preparing the beds…

Away from growing, I’ve also been thinking about our empty kindling boxes.

It’s my job to keep them filled them up but I’ve been slack of late… Must make time to refill them tomorrow!

Check out my proper whopper of a propa(gator)! ;)

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 16 February 2011 in growing | 7 comments

Yesterday I got a bit over-excited on Twitter because my heated propagator arrived.

I’d been thinking about getting on for a while but Fiona, the Cottage Smallholder, gave me the final push at the weekend. I got one on eBay on Saturday for £19.99 + £3.95p&p – and was quite surprised how quickly it arrived.

I was also rather surprised at the size – I had chosen one that looked a bit bigger than standard because it didn’t cost that much more and I had a feeling I’d appreciate the extra space – but it turns out that 52cm by 42cm is really pretty big! Thankfully it fits quite neatly onto the shelf in our porch – and conveniently right next to an electric socket too. One of the reasons I was resisting was a worry about the running cost. The heating element in this one is 18W, which, if my calculations are correct, will cost us 3.4p a day to run – I imagine I’ll run it for a week or so at a time, for a few months so not too much overall.

This morning I filled it with its first batch of seeds to nurse – plugs of tomatoes, chillis & cucumbers. (I told myself that I wouldn’t use plugs this year because it means more work but apparently I’m not very good at sticking to my word. The pots are more tomatoes that I sowed the other day, before I’d done a u-turn on my no-plugs rule.) I’m looking forward to seeing them get started.

It was nice to be preparing the plugs in the greenhouse – the sun had been on it for a couple of hours so it was pleasantly warm. Carla-cat followed me inside and stretched out on the warm aluminium staging for the duration. While I was in there, I also started some broad beans in pots – the end of my bought packet & some saved seeds from last year. Possibly a little early but we’ll see.