Chickens in the garden, eggs in the kitchen.

Well, that's 1 year since I took on my allotment and I sent off a cheque for £15 for a further years tenancy of plot number 17. I have been up to the allotment infrequently but today I managed to get up and plant the early potatoes, some new strawberry plants (3 varieties) and I also put in the last of the onion sets. There is still a lot to bee (pun) done.

Excuse the pun, but I am very excited. It shall not be long now until my bees arrive. I'm hoping to get their hive by the end of this month and today my Bee Suit arrived just in time for the end of my course which takes place at the association apiary on the 27th of this month.

Photo?

Ok, then! :)

Lala 006

Stunning 'ey?

Well, well. A week or so back I agreed to help my friend's mum with a protest in the local town and to my surprise I was printed in the local newspaper during the week. I read the article but I never saw myself in the picture until it was pointed out to me by my employer at the local newsagents. The protest was to make a point regards the future of Alcester Hospital and how it should be kept it open for the forseeable future.

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So it's the start of the faming year today for me, I have gone all broody and I have been inspired my some recipes, hints and tips in a new magazine. So I expect I will be busy over the coming weeks and months.

Thanks for reading,

Martinal

Aaadelia

'I can't get into the politics of food'

..quoted Delia Smith in today's Daily Mail.

'Fair enough' you might think, but that quote completly contradicts what she has said in the rest of the article. Today's headline on page 5 is 'Let them eat battery chickens'

I was completly shocked to see her picture alongside this headline, and I can only think that it is some sort of publicity stunt, to win/reclaim fans which she has recently lost to Gordon Ramsay, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver. Her comments will be music to the ears of people like Hayley (the single mum on HFW's programme, she was involved with the chicken project but refused to buy Free-Range chicken) and just about anyone who thinks they are hard done by, I quote 'access to cheap chicken is crucial for poor families and pensioners.' Did she watch Hugh's programme? Did she take anything on board? You can give a hen a happy life for a an extra pound or so and Hugh and Jamie have proved that  a chicken can go further than a one off roast.

Delia's comments are disgraceful, how she can call herself a proffesional/celebrity chef and then condemn a battery chicken as nutritous food? Delia said 'We have got to make sure everybody gets enough nutritious food in the first place.' Cheap chicken is far from nutritious, it is fed so much rubbish and pumped with so much crap that there is surely no possible nutritional value to the consumer.

It is a shame to see such an influential person such as herself backing such a cruel and unruly practice. People tend to use Delia as a role model for their own home cooking, the Daily Mail reports that since her reccomendations in her column in Daily Mail's Weekend Magazine, Marks and Spencers have confirmed an astonishing 50 percent rise in sales of roasted yellow and red peppers. I am hoping that people give her latest ideas the boot, YOU vote with YOUR shopping trolley, buy Free Range or Organic chicken and eggs 

Delia has got what she wanted, publicity.

On a positive note the Daily Mail also reveals that that 'sales of Organic Chickens have soared by 36 per cent since the airing of Jamie's Fowl Dinners and Hugh's Chicken Run.'

I went to Tesco's last night, and I was pleased to see only ONE Organic chicken left it was not because they were understocked but they were selling out! Tesco need to order in more stock!

Thankfully I do not have any Delia cookbooks, but if you do please put them out for recycling or even better, start a fire!

Martin

P.S Please feel free to cut out the image and stick to dart board.

P.P.S You can read the whole artical here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=514633&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

Bloomin' Heck!

I never knew that quail could cause so much trouble!

My friend Lottie has just started in the quail keeping hobbie, and I made a comment about them which has spread like a rash over the quail keeping world. I stated that they were a mix of Italian and Japanese quail, which is what I and many others call them! However some people have decided that they no longer want to call them 'Italians' but 'Goldens' instead, this is because calling them Italians makes them sound like a seperate species to the Japanese when truthully they are just a colour mutation. However there are a few noticeable differences between them, but I have come in for a rollocking from the quail keeping world.

Here are a few of the comments that I have discovered on various forums:

What a dipstick he is!

Talks out of his (|) if you ask me

Wait till they let me join in, I'll be putting him straight too.pmpl

I went back reading all his quail related posts - hes an ass, does he want to put folk of keeping them???

I'm glad hes still sulking with me

Our DJ knows more about quail rearing/keeping than he does, and he's only 11

I wonder if he was just overcrowding

Poultry are only cannibalistic if there is a dying bird around, they will attack it and eat it, they do the same in the wild to

 And then when I replied I got this:

Thats because your a pratt

Such a shame really! How such wiked people could be so aggresive over ones personal opinion, a comment which has been hugely taken out of all context! I had a peek on one forum today and the insults are still flying around!

This has nothing to do with Lottie, her birds look fantastic and I wish her all the best in her venture.

www.kooringa.com Is the place to find out all about them.

Today I went to Acocks Green near to Birmingham to collect 12 new quail for myself. They are 4 weeks old and I got 12 (8 hens and 4 cocks) for £10 a real bargain. They are in temporary accomodation at the moment, but I am hoping to get their new £250 estate this week so I shall post photos as and when they move in. These birds will be new breeding stock and hopefully they will provide an abundance of eggs to sell on for both eating and/or hatching.

On Friday, I managed to get an hour up the allotment and I  emptied the compost bin and moved it to it's new location at the top of the allotment.

The plot is in OK condition, but I need to do some weeding, but not as much as I thought. I also bought my First and Second early potatoes, I might put a row in tomorrow. I also have some Garlic, I didn't plant it in November which is reccomended so that the frost can get to it, but I have put in the freezer and then it will go in the fridge, then the freezer for a week or so and that should do it just fine!

I have to clean out all the animals tomorrow, and I can take all the muck up to the allotment and put it on the compost heap.

Let's hope the weather is as good tomorrow as it has been today!

Martin

It's a times like this when you are so glad that you produce at least a proportion of your own food.

Due to the bad weather in July 2007 and the bad weather of recent weeks, the consumers purse strings are starting to feel the strain caused by such unpredictable and miserable weather. Vegetables such as potatoes, carrots and strawberries all witnessed price hikes after a predicted 20% of Britains fruit and veg was lost to flooding.

Now, once again, I am starting to notice the increasing prices on various products. At the farmers market on Saturday, free range organic eggs had shot up to £4.80 for a dozen, and people still complain that my £1.60 for 6 is too expensive.

I do not have a source of honey just yet but I bought some yesterday and the rate was £4.40 for 1lb, double the usual cost! The bad weather has caused the bees to 'stay in'. Very similar to people really.

Food prices are going up all the time, 1 leek = £1, but 250 leek seeds also equals a solitary pound coin.

Simple?

Not quite, just watch the prices, you might not notice it normally, but every time you go to the supermarket or farmers market you can see that the pennies are counting up.

Martin

A great piece of marketing by EDF energy. They are broadcasting their ' Big Green Promise '  to the nation via our television screens.

They promise to reduce the carbon emissions they produce by 60% by 2020. Isn't it about time that other big companies followed suit?

This song has been in my head all week....

Climate Change IS real.

Up and Down. Up and Down!

Following on from the Euphoria of the visit to Liverpool last Monday and the arrival of 7 new quail chicks, we approached the top of the coaster and prepared for a huge fall. In the period of 48 hours we went from 7 quail chicks to one. It was disastorous. The poor little quail chicks were dying 1 by 1, 6/7 hatched out with faulty legs and one with a crooked neck, they were so weak and could not walk. It's all in the job descritption of a small holder. It was a shame that their lives were so short, but the surviving chick is a Jumbo quail, let's hope it is a girl!

It is time for me to start building up my quail colony again and I am about to invest in a £250 new 'Quail Quarters' for them. It has 3 tiers which will be seperated into: Meat Birds, Egg Birds, Birds for Sale. I am going to stick with the current housing for a few more weeks but then will upgrade completly. I am going to pick up 10 (don't tell the parents) Japanese quail this Sunday from a chap in Solihull, they obviously know I am getting more quail but I don't think they realise how many. At £1 a piece I am hoping to get 2 males and 8 females in their new housing there will be plenty of room for them. I was going to get more Italians for layers but these are so cheap that it is not really viable to hatch a flock of Italians for myself. These will do! I am currently designing some egg labels for the quail egg cartons which I hope will be finished very soon.

All weekend I was meaning to use some of the leeks from the allotment up and make a leek soup, unfortunately I kept putting it off and in the end I was making leek soup at 11pm last night, filling the house with such strange smells probably didn't go down to well with those sleeping above.

I have some photos that I have been meaning to upload but I am having a bit of a problem with the computer connection lead on the new computer I had for Christmas.

Anyway, nice speaking,

Martin

Last time I wrote on here I said that I had 36 quail eggs due to arrive. Well now they've started hatching.

2 out so far but lots and lots of pips in the egg.

450 hens out of cages this weekend.

Off to Anfield to watch the Villa tonight so I'll post piccies etc tomorrow.

Off to school now,

Martin

Well the incubator is running and I have 36 quail eggs scheduled to arrive tomorrow or saturday. The library books have gone back but I am yet to plant the broad beans. It needs to be done tomorrow.

Aaajamie

Just to let you know that Jamie Oliver is doing a programe on the lives of battery and broiler hens. His series 'Jamie's Fowl Dinners' airs next week on Channel 4 and he hopes the programme will raise awareness and hope to change the eating habits of the Great British people.

The programme is on (Channel 4) at 9pm on January 11th.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall is doing a whole series on the industry and our eating attitudes towards chicken. His series can be seen on Channel 4 at 9pm on the 8th, 9th, 10th January.

Has to be worth a watch. Tell your family and friends, the series' are set to be quite thought provoking. I know some people who have broke down in tears just at the trailer.

Martin 

I don't really believe in resolutions but it is always nice to aim for something. Resulotions made at this time of year are broken by the end of this month and they are only set to carry out for 365 days or 366 in the case of this year.

In 2008 the biggest thing I have planned is the bees. I have the first lesson in my course this month and Lesley and Carl are also going, which was a nice surprise and it will be nice to see a friendly face rather than be faced with a classroom full of strangers for 90 minutes.

I am also going to be keeping more quail, I reduced my numbers drastically over the winter for the simple reason that it was costing me money to feed them and they were not actually laying eggs. I am going to be breeding Jumbo quail, Italian quail and Japanese quail. The Jumbo quail are the biggest type of quail and the type used for meat, if you feed them on turkey crumb they easily reach 16oz, I am sure they will be delicious. I am off to set up the incubator as soon as I am done here.

I hope to continue to do my work for the Battery Hen Welfare Trust (www.bhwt.org.uk) and hopefully I will add to my small flock of hens once again. I have just persuaded my aunty to keep more hens. She has two pekin bantams in an eglu at the moment but she is upgrading to a large wooden house. She plans to keep 18 hens but wants to start with 10 and then add to them as and when she needs/wants them. She is going to have the 4 growers I currently have and 6 ex-battery hens in March.

I want to get more out of the allotment this year. That £20 has to keep it's worth. I had so much veg in the summer but I have had such bad luck with all of the winter veg. I would like fresh vegetables all year around. Which reminds me, I need to sow some broad beans!

My bi-orb is now fully set up and in working order, it was such an easy thing to set up and it looks great in my bedroom. I have two fish in there at the moment and I hope to add to it soon, but I need to let the filter sort itself out first and get used to dealing with the fish waste.

My 2008 couldn't have got off to a better start. I cooked up a feast for the family, (mum, dad, brother, 3 cousins, aunty, uncle) of Roast turkey, roast potatoes, loads of veg, mash, pigs in blankets, stuffing, a second christmas lunch really. Followed by my home made Christmas Pudding we still have another one left which I look forward to. Then I went to the Villa match and we won 2-1 the thing which makes the victory better is that I won £33. Every game my uncle and I have a bet on first and last goalscorers (£1 on first and £1 on last). I predicted Martin Laursen to score last goal and he did at 33-1. A great header in the 85th minute.

I hope that you've had a fantastic festive period and all the best for 2008 to you all.

Right I now need to set up the incubator, take some library books back, sow some broad beans and hopefully update my AAGB website.

Merry New Year!

Martin