Monday 16 May 2011

Mabel

Here's my new favourite Mabel!

She was one of the chicks that was stuck in her egg, she had a bad leg when she came out but has almost recovered now she just has a slight limp.




Friday 13 May 2011

Chicks!

After 18 days in the incubator and 3 days earlier than we expected the chicks started hatching.

We now have about 25 chicks (hard to count as they're so active) now and only three eggs left to hatch. There are a mix of Pekins and Buff Orpingtons.

Here's a picture of my favourite, Mo!

Pekin
Here they are all together,


A couple of the last chicks to hatch have had some problems, we think the incubator may have lost some of it's humidity as we were taking out the chicks that had hatched. Two of the eggs had quite large cracks in and you could see the chicks in there trying to get out but the eggs had dried out so much the eggs were impossible for the chicks to break open and they were getting exhausted. After almost 2 days of them trying to get out Dad stepped in (with the help of my best tweezers) and helped them out.  Dad has done this before and the chicks haven't made it but as they would have died anyway we thought it was worth a shot and here they are...



Because they were stuck in the same position for so long their feet aren't as they should be but they're relieved to be out and coping!

Monday 2 May 2011

Family Affair

Yet more great weather for the Bank Holiday weekend and we certainly made the most of it!

I spent the majority of yesterday at the allotment with Mum, Dad, Rach and Billy, they all worked so hard we got lots done. We have 5 out of the 6 beds dug out, one bed is ready and the others are getting there! Making them nice and deep is where the men come in. I spent my time collecting manure and 'over seeing' with a bit of digging as well. Dad bought home the Mushroom compost which is the darker looking compost on bed 2.  Rach painted more borders and nailed them in place and mum did some digging and helped me.... a very productive day and we have the blisters to prove it!



Green House

I've had to do some re-arranging to get some of the vegetables into the light! The Courgettes on the top shelf have poked through the soil and their leaves are now on show, the ones that were under the other shelves don't look like anything is happening so I have moved my runner beans to the floor and popped the courgettes on the top shelf.... waiting to see what happens now!


Courgettes

The runner beans are getting so tall, when all fear of frost has passed we'll be planting these out!


Runner Beans

I planted 8 Cucumber seeds and 5 of them are up with another two poking through!


Cucumbers

A couple of my tomato plants are poking through and so are some of my cabbages in the new seed trays. The potatoes are flowering, well starting to anyway so it's all heading in the right direction.


Tomatoes

Freebies

If you're looking for some great, cheap vegetable seeds check out VegetableSeeds.net! As well as being a great site, just for having their link on my blog I got a £25 Gift Voucher to spend with them. That's next years seeds sorted and I've also decided to grow some herbs this year!

Chickens

Dad has decided it would be nice to have some chickens - Free Range eggs, yum!!! We have quite a few eggs in the incubator at the moment and they are due to hatch on the 13th May. I'll keep you up to date on their progress!


Thanks so much to everyone for their help so far, I definitely couldn't have done it without you! xx