the daydream fund challenge thread

alfie_1

soupdragon10 wrote: »

Thanks for this. The only ex batts I've had were already aclimatised to free ranging. Fortunately the shelter is very dry - earth floor is completely dry in spite of all the recent rain. I think this plus putting them in the huge hutch will hopefully make them feel secure, then I'll just gradually leave the door open during the day, but make sure they go in at night.

What did you feed yours when you first got them?

i made up a layers mash and some layers pellets to start. then the next week i add a handfull of corn, slowly adding any scraps [i personally do not give any form of meat] like cooked veg,potato peel cooked etc. i dont give bread. maybe later when they have got used to a varied diet, i give stale brown bread when its quite dry. now my hens eat ANYTHING including friut [they love melon!!:)]
sounds like they will have a good home . i get a bale of woodshavings [scats?] used for horses as bedding as its recyclable in the garden !

choille

Welcome Soupdragon - I think you should ask what they've been fed on as a massive immediate change in diet may be a bit of a shock. They probably won't be used to scraps so I personnally would introduce that slowly but see what t'others say.

I have Buff Orpingtons & they are rather lovely as are the Lavendars & the blacks - I'm smitten.

Rummer

Ooops sorry soupdragon I was so giddy about my garlic that I forgot to say hello and welcome to the thread, it is always lovely to hav new people!

Poosmate

Evening all.

Welcome to the thread Soup Dragon, this is a fab thread for loads of info on small holding, chook rearing, fruit n veg growing, canning/dehydrating and storing produce, walling, fencing, building, recycling and a wealth of other topics far too numerous to list!

LIR I was going to have small raised beds as one of my neighbours who wants to use my garden is older than me (lets say), although I was going to make them out of the ends/middles of pallets. 2 long and 1 wide fixed together and I was thinking of putting the veg in the middle and companion plants in the box compartments around the edge. I hope it works. They won't be that raised but just a bit higher than ground level.

Alfie, that's a really low price for your car/van unless you're getting a really excellent deal in a part ex. Just looked on Ebay and the dealer prices on there are minimum £5.9k for a car or that age!

Hope everyone else is well. I've resisted the urge to visit YouTube tonight.

Went to Morrisons tonight and they had their "Eat Smart" (lower fat) Mature cheese on offer for £2.84 per kg. It's not the best mature cheese I've tasted but times are hard and I don't get paid till Thursday!

Must get off to bed, I'm so tired. See you all tomorrow.

Poo

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

I'm having raised beds for the days now, and probably longer in the future, that I can't get down to tend to non raised beds:o e.g. Sunday I was pretty useless (saturday I was unstoppable!).

Raising them with....well....we have LOADS of junk here, including cement and breeze blocks. Rather than fill a skip and landfill with them we're going to make the raise bed walls out of them we have decided. Stout enough to take the pressure, not to need preservative in future years and laid allowing drainage gaps. And broad enough to perch a broad bottom on when tired or enjoying the view.

(the non complete blocks we're going to keep for the planting shelf in the big pond for reeds and pretty stuff)

Soil....over there is more clay-y. Its not too heavy a clay, by the time its been improved it will be...um...well...cracking but it does stick to the boot after rain as it is. Also, I'm pretty sure it will be rocky there.....an added addition of the farmers' that go before us here

If you're going to have problems doing vast amounts of work, then raised or partitioned beds are definitely the way to go, even if you don't like the look. Means less soil to improve too, so less carting of muck.
I mean, it's not like you haven't got anything else to do there, you are going to struggle to keep up with a full size veg plot anyway.

I'd go with the plan and make them out of non rotting materials, properly dealt with at the start of Winter, (covered with mulch) you can just plant into them in Spring with no extra work.

I can't remember how much growing you've done before, but I wouldn't try to do too much the first year, make the amounts of beds you can easily make, but don't kill yourselves, write down the stuff you want to grow and try to work out the space you need, just make those beds if you are stuck for time and energy.

I was going to suggest something else, but I think that raised beds are good for you, don't make them too high though, they will dry out too quickly.

lostinrates

Lotus-eater wrote: »

If you're going to have problems doing vast amounts of work, then raised or partitioned beds are definitely the way to go, even if you don't like the look. Means less soil to improve too, so less carting of muck.
I mean, it's not like you haven't got anything else to do there, you are going to struggle to keep up with a full size veg plot anyway.

I'd go with the plan and make them out of non rotting materials, properly dealt with at the start of Winter, (covered with mulch) you can just plant into them in Spring with no extra work.

I can't remember how much growing you've done before, but I wouldn't try to do too much the first year, make the amounts of beds you can easily make, but don't kill yourselves, write down the stuff you want to grow and try to work out the space you need, just make those beds if you are stuck for time and energy.

I was going to suggest something else, but I think that raised beds are good for you, don't make them too high though, they will dry out too quickly.

Thanks Lotus We have a cunning plan for water that will hopefully solve another issue here...keeping' em wet won't be a problem.

re my gardening experience....its patchy. My dad said he had a veg garden when I was a child.....well...he was good at potatos I remember the failed garlic in an old sink experiment. We've always had flower gardens, even when moving every three months....we all like seeing things grow, and when my parents settled in UK there were a few house moves, accompanied by not just removal vans, but the man and a van, or two full of plants. The house my parents had through my teens was a nice garden. From nothing we all carved out a garden people would stop and look at. Food was patchier....there were some things...asparagus, soft fruits, fruit trees. My dad would go on grow -your-own drives and get bored quickly....I'd limp on. I've failed a lot of tomatoes in my time!:o

:oAs an adult I've grown veg on windosills and balconies, and when we've ha them gardens. I'm still limping along. TBH veg gardening is because I enjoy the veg, not the veg gardening. Now the flower borders ...they excite me! Ad can stand a bit more neglect.

Davesnave

I am not keeping up very well here:o, but hello to soupdragon, glad you could join us.

I am going to play devil's advocate and say that my intention to have raised beds here was scrapped when I began cultivating the land, which is light and very free draining. I decided that raised beds would dry out quickly, and my long term aim of rotovating in manure in the autumn would be easier with plain soil and no barriers. Having said that, the beds I inherited were no problem last year and produced good crops.

On my last garden, full of claggy clay soil, raised beds were a boon, so I think it's very much down to situation.

I think I'd go for four ex-batts to start with, as mortality may be higher and you'd want a minimum flock of three. You can always give the odd extra egg away (says he, who has been doing that for a while, but now people are getting a taste for them. so they're selling, but we can't keep up!)

Not much to report here. The propagator is on and we are still sawing up wood. I'm off to see a hedge-laying demo later this week, so there will be more wood sawn after that too, I dare say!;)

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

Thanks Lotus We have a cunning plan for water that will hopefully solve another issue here...keeping' em wet won't be a problem.

But it is, because unless you mechanise the watering completely, you still have to do it and that can take up alot of time in the summer, unless you mulch very well round the plants which will stop water evaporation to a minimum, but then I find you can have problems with slugs.

lostinrates

Lotus-eater wrote: »

But it is, because unless you mechanise the watering completely, you still have to do it and that can take up alot of time in the summer, unless you mulch very well round the plants which will stop water evaporation to a minimum, but then I find you can have problems with slugs.

Aha, well, watering probably will be mechanised eventually, but, what will happen here is turn it on while doing the field for a couple of hours each day at first. That has to be done too, and its near by, so its more about time and motion here than actual extra time. Watering I'm quite good at, I can sometimes forget to feed (if it were daily I'd remember) and thankfully DH likes weeding.:)

rhiwfield

Hi soupdragon!

Lir, I'll wait to hear about your cunning plan, I allow about 30 minutes a day in summer to water beds, greenhouse and containers (by watering can). The sweetcorn last year we grew in one of the deepest raised beds, about 1', just made out of upside down turves covered with landcape fabric and planted thru. Watered as well and results were great, so maybe I need to water a bit more.

Going to get a propagator today and start off some peppers