The Xmas tree recycle

Its not really gardening season but I was  bored the other day when I started to recycle the Xmas tree.
I did cut of the branches which left me with a rather funny looking stem. Instead of chopping of all and hiding away the Xmas stand for a year I decided to fill the stand with earth and plant some beans.

I wonder if it is too cold or if I am look and these French runner beans I planted make their way up along the old Xmas tree and I can harvest some in a few months ?
So far the Irish winter was really mild, so I will let you know the result in spring.

Update from the garden

My vegetable garden this year is rather a disaster, but thanks to my friend John who sorted me out earlier this year with plenty of strawberry plants I have a quiet good harvest each week of fresh strawberry's.

Sophie eats that mostly as they are but I am also looking into some recipes for cakes now.

Heidis Chicks - Watch them hatching - live

Dont ask, but hatching eggs is really something hard, if you dont want to spend lots of money for an incubator. I build my own in the utility room sink, however, some things went wrong, eggs went bad or got smashed.
Well, its one or two more days, than the remaining 2 ones should hatch. you can see them live at http://ustre.am/vNJ3 
I candled them 3 days ago and they looked good to me, but they might be as well just hard boiled, who knows, wouldn't be the first time I mess something up.
Well, in any case, since Heidi and her Gang right now only lay 2 eggs a day, which is not enough to supply enough eggs for my family (yes we love cakes) we will get 3 more hens at point of lay from the market.

I keep you posted how it goes, hey, and if you see some movement on the link, please make a comment on this post, so I can tell my daughter to watch them hatching. Thanks !

Update from the Garden

This year I didn't take enough care of the garden.
It started of in March, I had to do proper fencing first to ensure no horse, rabbit for chicken gets into it. The old fencing I had was damaged from the winter, and I needed to get stronger poles.

So I only had time to plant a few basics, such as salad, radish,carrots, potatoes, and cabbage.

The stuff grows like hell, but so does also the weed. Because of other activities my garden doesn't look pretty at all and I might just get some help with it soon I guess.

 In the herb garden and with the strawberries it looks really good however. We already had a few strawberries as a dessert, and I hope for more.

So, now I better get back to gardening, hope I can plant a few more things to be harvested later this year.

Heidis new habitat

Thanks to a good friend and his wife I could finally make some progress in my garden.
Through the Clonakilty Favour Exchange we had the Idea to trade each others time to get our garden fences fixed.

I invested in some good wooden poles from Lissavard Coop 20 pieces for 50 Euro and with some Swiss manpower the new fence was pretty fast in place !

Here on the picture you can see Heidi happily discovering her new and improved habitat !

And surprise, surprise, Heidi will become mommy soon, we going to try out to incubate some hatching eggs to stock up our chickens !

One of the chickens is on strike already, So I believe its time for fresh blood here in Clonlin.

I keep you posted how it goes....

Blown with the wind

I have a little break from writing,
my "lidl" glasshouse got blown over by a stormy wind.

I will be back with new recipes and DIY reports in a week.
One of the next topics,
how to build a proper glasshouse out of recycled materials.

Super value @ SuperValue

Somebody might think i get paid for this post, nope I don't. But I thought since I reported earlier this year about my great local butcher, its just fair to mention a supermarket I like to go shopping to as well.

Look at this picture, they got a nice offer recently, 7,50 Euro for that much meat, isnt that great ?
And since we are 2 people at home, we can actually eat 4 times. (2x dinner and than lunch for work)

Considering that the cabbage was growing in my own garden, we spend less than 2 Euro for each meal.
Thats half the price than i would pay for a sandwich at work, isn't that great value ?

Not just that, its pretty tasty this Irish Cuisine !

Stairway to heaven

Well, not that far should my stone steps go, just up to the veg garden, and I hope nobody will reach heaven through my stairs.

Its work in progress and therefor not safe.
First i need to get rid of roots, than place the stones in a good level and make sure the ground is well prepared until I can use cement.

If you have read my blog carefully in the past you might recognize that this stones are now recycled the second time.

Heidi must be joking ?

Heidi the chicken must be joking, or maybe I put to much pressure on her with that article I wrote last week about the huge egg she laid. However, actually on my birthday she suprised me again, with this underperformance you can see on the picture above (right egg)

Well, I think to cover the actual demand of eggs we have with 3 adults and a baby, we need to get 2 more chicken.

Do you want to adopt and name one of our new chickens ?
So far we named them, Heidi, Emer, and Gudrun das Huhn.

Leave a comment here or on facebook with your name suggestion.

Heidi High performing

Do you remember my post when I reported the first eggs laid by my chicken ? They have been so small, I actually couldn't store them proper in my egg container, they had been smaller than the hole to hold them.

I said back than more motivation is needed. Look at that huge egg now on the left, compared to the first one before !  Say hello to the top motivation trainer !




 Now                                                                                                                           before

                                  

Building a decorative flower pot out of a pallet

To be honest, it was an accident, I just needed some planks to finish of the garden shed, so i did cut along a pallet. Suddenly after making they first few cuts, it looked kind of nice, and than i remembered i had this small flower pots from the herbs left, and they fitted perfectly into it.

 

So here it is, the result, a perfectly looking flower pot, I just need to put some flowers or herbs in it, in this picture some basil.

Twins - Did you ever saw a Egg with two yolk's ?

Its funny, but I discovered this twins in the worst possible moment, using a  recipe to make mayonnaise which asks to use explicit one egg yolk.

I am now over 30 years of age, and it happened to me the first time that I see that, pretty fascinating, but actually i guess it shouldn't be something unusual.

Having my own chicken just recently, and I guess the Egg industry is scanning eggs for anomalies and sort twins out, I needed to wait that long to see yolk "chicken" twins.

And if you wonder how I solved the problem with the mayonnaise, i decided to use both yolks since they looked slightly smaller to me than a normal "single" one.   

Speaking about mayonnaise, i will report in one of my next posts how to make the perfect mayonnaise,

since i failed myself with the first 3 attempts to make a good one.

Building a BBQ

 Since my 19 Euro round BBQ i bought 3 years ago finally broke down, i had no other choice than to build a new BBQ. Of course i could go to the shop to, and buy one, a gas one....
Nope, i do not want a BBQ with Gas, thats not real BBQ feeling for me, i need the smell of wood and coal, but preferable wood only.

Since in the fields around my house enough wood is laying around for the whole summer, i needed to come up with a BBQ which is suited to be fired with wood.

Close to my house a huge mountain of unused stone is laying, and after asking the farmer i could start carrying over the stones.

They are massive, and I just made a improvised BBQ as seen on the
picture, to see if i had enough stones carried. The whole construction was so stable, so i couldn't resist and fired it up already.

Works, so while i dig up the grass behind, to build a platform for the BBQ, i will use the improvised construction.

I will let you know how i get on,
anybody out there with experience of building such things, i would be happy for some comments what to watch out for......

Eggs and Chicken Suprise :-)

This last Sunday I finally tasted the first eggs for breakfast and have to say they are delicious. I never ever eat a egg which comes not from my own chicken. (maybe exceptions on holidays)



Its small enough still, as you can see :-)
















One of our chickes Heidi here in the background is pretty clever, she managed to breakout already a few times. Last Sunday she surprised our daughter after bathing.

I reinforced the fence afterwards, and fixed the wholes.

slowly now

Its funny which kind of visitors you get at home if you leave the door open...
that one however took a while to get in, but was kicked out pretty fast, without having a electro shock or so :-)

Egg storage

I used to keep the eggs always in the fridge, now since i soon get them daily laid from Heidi, Gudrun and Emer, I will store them outside, nicely in a wooden box.

Got the Box in a Local Store, Tom Sheehy's for around 12 Euro, not too bad price for the Quality.

According to plan ?

In an earlier post i revealed the plan for the chicken house, which should be integrated to the compost.

Well, now its time to compare, how that project turned out to be:
  the plan

  the result

Well, on the way I did some improvements, specially to the roof, which is now longer and protects against sun or rain. So, now it would be only good if the chickens appreciate my efforts and lay some eggs....