How d'ya like them apples?

I made myself go to the allotment on Saturday. I had an increasing number of bags of chicken manure stacking up at home, so we went to find the composter we had made at the allotment.

Once the weeds surrounding the composter were removed, we found enough useable compost to half fill an empty grow bag. I put all chicken manure on the composter, along with any plants that are no longer useable, such as rhubarb leaves and tomato plants at the end of the season. I then cover it with some plastic, to keep the heat in and quicken the composting time. I have left the composter alone for a few months, and in that short time we have some lovely compost.

Chicken manure is too strong to be put directly onto the plants, but when mixed with the other plants, and the straw and wood shavings from the hen house, they speed up the composting process.

A lot of the weeds I pull up, go to the chickens as they will happily devour them. Anything they won't eat, such as brambles, get thrown on an evergrowing pile at the bottom of the allotment to decompose where they won't leave seeds in useable compost.

When we left the allotment, we had a full car. Two big bags of weeds for the chickens, and we harvested a dozen cooking apples. There were still more apples on the tree ready for our next visit. There were also a few on the ground that were good enough to be taken home and cooked for the chickens to eat.

As well as saving money on the commercial feed we buy for the chickens, they love having kitchen scraps and weeds to eat and sort through. I have also found that a busy chicken is a well behaved chicken, if they don't have enough to do in the run, they don't just eat the layers pellets in the house, they spend all day plotting on how to get out of  the run and eat the rest of my plants in the garden!

Tonights job is to get the microwave going, and cook all the apples. those that are in good condition will go to the freezer ready for me to make some crumbles and pies, and the ones that are a bit damaged will be saved to feed up the chickens while we are away next week.

We are having well earned holiday in Whitby for a week, and leaving the animals in the trusted hands of a pet sitter.