Backyards, bias, and botulism

I read with interest this week the report in The Guardian of an undercover investigation into the UK poultry industry. It exposed some 'dirty secrets' of the process and offered some insight into the problem of campylobacter infections that over 250,000 Britons pick up each year. It reminded me however of a piece I wrote …

Feeding scraps & growing your own chicken feed (the way it was)

A couple of posts ago I blogged about my perspective on the EU legislation relating to the feeding of kitchen scraps to your chickens. As a result quite a few people contacted me wanting to know a bit more about how folks fed their feathered livestock prior to the 'meddling EU' getting involved. The premise behind it all …

Apple Tree Recovery – Pruning & how to revive an old tree

When we moved here some years back we were presented with quite a wilderness. The house was just about to reach at least its second dereliction in as many decades and the garden was in need of some serious help to try and bring it back to some semblance of order. A previous owner had …

Wheelbarrow compost riddle & drying tray

With having a fairly large productive garden and more chickens than you can shake a stick at, we create quite a bit of garden waste, though far from ‘waste’ it is, as we compost just about everything we can. We do this not only to supplement the vegetable plot but also to create our own …

“California Dreaming” – the Californian Compost Bin

Good soil can produce good crops, but being able to make good compost can create great crops! I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with the ‘dark art’ of good compost making, and whilst what you put in is key, there is also an important element in terms of what you put it in. …

Leaf Mould – excellent source of soil conditioner

Leaf mould is one of the simplest things to create yet its source, dead leaves, are probably one of the most wasted sources of lasting humus. Come the autumn time I’m horrified to see people burning leaves, when I would without hesitation, happily take them all. In fact I might even venture to offer to …