Veg Patch

To read the story of my Veg/Flower Patch in chronological order use the links in the Blog Archive

Tuesday 10 April 2012

That must have hurt!

One of the chickens has started to lay what my nephew described as, mutant eggs. On Friday I wandered up to the henhouse and had a bit of a surprise, laying amongst the straw was the biggest egg I have ever seen. I had a quick check of the hens and they all seemed fine, but whoever laid it must have wondered what on earth was going on. 

To give you some idea how big it was the egg on the right would have been classed as a large by a supermarket.


It must be a double yolk? the only way to find out was to cook it. Whether he wanted it or not my nephew was having a fried egg for his breakfast. We stood expectantly over the pan, as I cracked it into the fat. 


There they were, two beautiful orange yolks, sizzling away in the pan. They didn't take long to cook and were shortly on a bit of toast and being thoroughly enjoyed by a 10 year old. 

Well that was an unusual event, or so I thought. Monday morning it happened again. Another huge Mutant egg. This time it went home with my nephew so his sister could enjoy it. 

So who was it, I have no idea, but maybe you can spot a chicken with a gleam in her eye in this picture? 



On to the plants. As they do, they are all slowly coming to life, nothing extraordinary has happened since my last post but I have planted the Asparagus and Rhubarb. They both came nicely packed from Thompson and Morgan






I have never grown either of these plant before so I read the instruction for planting carefully. Basically dig a trench and plant them with the roots spread! 

Asparagus first. A couple of the plants did appear to have very small asparagus tips on them already. This has confused me somewhat as I thought you didn't get any tips in the first year. 




Does anyone know what you are supposed to do with the tips the first year? should I just cut the off and throw them away? I will have do do a bit of research. 

Rhubarb was next.



So now its a waiting game. I only have one of my small beds left to plant. Its for my herbs and they are currently growing in pots in the greenhouse. Chives, Basil, Coriander and rocket are all waiting to take up residence alongside the strawberries. 

I need to weed my other beds but it has actually rained here rather a lot over the last couple of days. The sun is out now but I am off for a haircut.

Puppy news. He is growing and this morning is off to get microchipped. he has also had to have a new lead as his puppy collar no longer fits. As I sit typing he is chasing an ice cube around the room and has just licked the TV. Lovely. 

4 comments:

  1. The very first egg laid in our hen house was a perfect dark brown egg. http://wp.me/p1se8R-mX We were so proud that one of our "girls" had finally started to lay and ... lo and behold ... it, too, was a double yolk. Fresh eggs from backyard hens are the most delicious of them all. We enjoyed a marvelous quiche for dinner just last night! Great post!

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  2. Don't cut the tips off - leave them to grow but don't pick them.

    Are you sure that some supersized hen isn't squatting in the hen house at night?

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  3. The egg is indeed very big. Your garden is really organize. Cool!

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  4. Don't pick the first year's tips - leave them to gather energy for next year's crop - and next year you'll reap bigger, better spears! Happy gardening! It continues to snow here on and off - so I'll garden vicariously through you!

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