The average 100% cotton T-shirt contains only 73% cotton. The rest is
made up of chemicals and resins that were used to grow and make it.
Yet, we all think cotton is one of the most natural things around. The
truth is, it’s not as nice as we’d all like to think.

Indeed, cotton is the world’s most sprayed crop. It uses over a quarter
of all insecticides used today (see list below). The way they grow it
isn’t good for the farmer’s health, the water table’s health, the
factory worker’s health, the river’s health and eventually the sea’s
health.

That’s why we use organic cotton. It costs us 30% more than normal
cotton. It means our products cost a little more, but we think it’s
worth it. After all, you wear your T-shirt next to your skin for 10
hours a day. (Just think how Nicorettes work).

The average cotton crop is sprayed 8-10 times a season. Indeed, it
takes 17 teaspoons of chemical fertilizers to raise the 9 ounces of
cotton needed to make a T-shirt.

The most common pesticides used are: Chlorphynfos (causes brain and
foetal damage, impotence and sterility), Cyanazine (causes birth
defects and cancer), Dicofol (causes cancer, reproductive damage and
tumours), Ethephon (causes mutations) Fluometuron (causes blood and
spleen disorders), Metam Sodium (causes birth defects, foetal damage,
mutation), Methyl Parathion (causes birth defects, foetal damage,
reproductive damage and destroys immune system), MSMA (causes tumours)

Nailed (causes cancer, reproductive damage and tumours), Profenofos
(causes eye damage and skin irritation), Prometryn (causes bone morrow,
kidney, liver and testicular damage), Propargite (causes cancer, foetal
and eye damage, mutation and tumours), Sodium Chlorate (causes kidney
damage), Tribufos (causes cancer and tumours), and Trifluralin (causes
cancer, foetal damage and mutation).

In America last year, farmers applied 53 million pounds of toxic
pesticides to cotton fields. Out of the world’s total insecticide
usage, 25% is used just to farm cotton.

And, if that isn’t enough, once the cotton has been grown it is dyed
using toxic dyes. Then, to prevent it from creasing, it is finished
with formaldehyde. Common sense says that can’t be right. Go organic.

It’s not only our broody Black Rock that has been busy sitting on her nest. On the way up to the field yesterday, I noticed several Swallows swooping low over the barley field. It was forecast rain and this pushed the newly hatched midges down low. The Swallows were having a field day hoovering them up.

As I got nearer the big hen house, I spotted a Swallow flying in through the wire mesh that I replaced the glass windows with to ensure there was enough ventilation for the hens. Now I am in the hen house every day and have never noticed a Swallow in there, not flying through the window.

A quick inspection revealed a nest in a corner though and it was full of chicks! I only had my phone with me but thankfully it takes reasonable pictures. As soon as the red pre-flash light thingy lit up, all the beaks opened up!

The chicks were obviously getting well fed! The midgies were in abundance and were shortly followed by an abundance of rain. The garden was really needing the rain and my newly planted out Purple Sprouted Broccoli got well watered in.

On the way back from the tunnel, I managed a shot of 3 Swallows perched on the wire fence. I almost said parents of the chicks there, but presumably on two of them could be!

Sunday saw the arrival of two Sasso chicks from our own eggs which have been cooking under a broody Black Rock. Black Rocks are no way renowned for their broodyness, but this one was determined. Vicious really. Although I knew she was leaving the nest, I never actually saw her. The food and water were going down though and there was a wee dust bath in the broody run so she must have been. I turfed her off the nest a couple of times but she was pecking me furiously each time - grabbing the skin on the back of my hand!

Sunday also saw preparations to load the three Berkshire Boars ready to take to the abattoir on Monday.

I actually start the journey on Sunday night - they need to be at the abattoir very early in the morning and loading pigs at 5am is a no-go. They want to be sleeping at that time just as much as I do. We loaded them late on sunday evening, making a temporary race with electric fencing down though the garden, past the house to a pen at the stock trailer made with wooden gates. The pigs did not get their breakfast on Sunday morning so they were very keen to follow a shaken feed bucket down through the race to the pen. Once penned at the bottom of the trailer ramp, the bucket of feed was empited in the trailer and they scampered up the ramp and scoffed the lot.

My parents live 4 miles from the abattoir and it can take between 1 and 2 hours to get there depending on the traffic. 2 hours in the morning, annoying commuters who get stuck behind a slow Land Rover and heavy trailer or an hour and a quarter late on Sunday evening when the road was almost empty. Once at my parents, the pigs get a bucket of fresh water and they bed down in the straw in the trailer.

At 7am my Dad and I then drove the pigs to the abattoir and I was a bit worried because there was no sign of lairageman (the guy who books the animals in) and there were no other pigs in the holding pens. I definitely booked them in for the 16th! I did find Neil the lairageman and he said I was first in and there were 50 other pigs coming later in the morning. I have never actually seen the deed done at the abattoir, but in looking for Neil, I did get to stick my head through the door of death so at least I now know exactly how they are killed.

The pigs were unloaded easily and penned ready for the event. Paperwork was completed and then it was back to my parents for some breakfast. Afterwards, the stock trailer was scrubbed and disinfected ready to be returned to the farmer from whom I borrow it, but I needed to stop at the butcher to agree how they would cut the (by now dead) pigs up. Hopefully the meat will be ready to collect from the butcher early next week.

After returning the trailer and picking up some chick cumb feed for the new Sasso chicks, I went up to inspect the broody pen. There was Mum sitting in the sun all fluffed up with her brood underneath her. I lifted the lid off the broody box to clear out the old egg shells and was dismayed to see two intact eggs and three dead chicks. Mum had abandoned the nest with the early hatched chicks and left eggs which were hatching/still to hatch and by the time I got back from the abattoir they were stone cold.

I laid the dead chicks on a car tyre in the veg beds which have marrows, squashes and courgettes growing in them and started to clear the broody box out and make a new nest for the Mum and chicks. I turned round and spotted a ‘dead’ chick with it’s beak open! It was still alive, but only just. I think the warmth of the sun on the car tyre had given it a boost so I cupped it in my hands and made my way to the garage and one handedly rigged up my heat lamp. By the time I had managed this, the chick was coming round and breathing well. After a couple of hours under the heat lamp its down feathers were almost dry and it looked quite perky. At 10pm I slipped it under the broody and have her a lecture about leaving her bairns. She looked all apologetic and shoved the chick under her breast along with it’s siblings.

All seems to be well today - the abandoned chick is looking healthy - well I say that because I cannot tell it apart from it’s sibilings!

I must apologise for the lack of posts. I have been battling on with the house garden and working lots in town. Sadly posts will become few and far between - I have been offered a full time post with one of my clients and I start back full time employment on 1st July!

It was quite clear that the ground we have been renting is not suited to growing veg on a suitable scale, albeit, not one handed. Perhaps if I had help things might have been easier, but the soil is very heavy clay and prone to being waterlogged. Last spring we lost 5,000 plants in the wet summer.

I intend to discuss with our field landlord irritating the lease in the autumn. We shall downsize the hen flock and relocate them to the house garden. The big hen house will also be relocated to the garden and be returned to it’s original role as a shed. I am still undecided about the future of the big tunnel. I guess I could arrange to leave it erected. We still have a 30ft by 10ft tunnel in the house garden in addition to 2 standard greenhouses and a lean-to affair. Currently I feel we should sell the tunnel, except the polythene (which would be almost impossible to reuse on that tunnel if it was relocated anyway) and use it to recover the wee tunnel and save the spare for cloches and the like.

There is still just under an acre of garden at the house so there’s plenty to keep us occupied in the evenings and weekends. The 3 pigs have cleared a good area and this is currently planted up with cabbages, tatties and squashes. I rotovated the last bit and it will get peas and leeks planted in it over the next couple of weeks. There’s also about 200 bedding plants waiting to be planted out in the main garden!

I don’t plan to shut the blog down. Not at the moment anyway. There’s still loads of veggie stuff going on, albeit for our own consumption. I also have a broody hen sitting on some fertile eggs. The three Berkshire pigs go to slaughter in 2 weeks so there should be something interesting to report from time to time.

My normal thinking towards plants is ‘if you can’t eat it, I am not much interested’. Granted, this is just one end of my potting bench in the tunnel, but how many of these can you actually eat?

Now we have eaten various flowers in the past, nasturtiums for one, marigolds for another. We have made nettle soup too - I had some for my birthday a couple of years back (yes it was nice before you ask!). I really wonder though how many of these you can actually eat. Sunflowers? I doubt it and there sure won’t be enough for sunflower oil…

Livingston Daisy? Nope. Callendula - possibly. Rudbekia - no idea! At least there will be no shortage of flowers in the house garden. We bought some perennials last year and these are establishing nicely. Hopefully these annuals will impress all the dog walkers and passers by!

The Callendula and Rudbekia will need potting on very soon. They should then be at just the right stage for planting out at the end of May when all danger of a late frost has passed.

The right hand tray of Rudbekia, cucumbers, alpine strawberries and the Livingston Daisy belong to a good friend who is dabbling in gardening in the polytunnel with me having lost her greenhouse to may way for a very in keeping extension to their old cottage.

What I am impressed with though (apart from the progress of my seedlings) is the photo editing side of flickr. Flickr is where I host my photos for the blog and a couple of forums (fori?) and I only tonight ventured into the editing side of the website. Quite good don’t you think?

Given the success of the Bertinet white loaf, I had a bash at a 50/50 white/wholemeal loaf using his recipe again. This was certainly a success too and with the reduced salt tastes great. The loaf below is from my second batch where I doubled up the quantities to make two loaves.

What can I try next? I am tempted with his Puff Balls - a big ball of crisp dough into which you insert a salad! Watch this space….

We regularly made all our own bread, but kind of got out of the habit of doing so last summer - there was too many other things to do and little time for kneading dough! Both parents and friends have breadmakers (and love them) but seeing the Rayburn is on in the evenings and the ovens in it are hot, it makes no sense for us to burn more leccy when we are paying through the nose for oil!

I have been trying to use Richard Bertinet’s recipes, but have managed to get into a right mess doing them by hand. His dough is VERY wet, and on each try I have ended up with webbed hands. I have always had to surrender and fling on more flour to dry up the dough.

I was luck on Saturday to collect a Kenwood Chef from Jen in Dunbar through Freecycle. I have been considering one for a while now and after blagging a dough hook from my wee brother I had a bash at his recipe in the Chef and all turned out perfect!

The bread was slightly salty having 1/2 oz of salt so this will be reduced next time. I am going to have a bash at a wholemeal loaf next time using a 50/50 white/wholemeal flour mix.

The flour came from Heatherslaw Mill between Ford and Etal in Northumberland. It’s about an hour’s drive for us but fortunately my parents were passing it last week after having been visiting friends in Hexham - Don’t say Brown, say Hovis!

I wish I had done mine more often.

I have been trying to do the rear differential oil seal on the Land Rover for a few days but I could not get the castellated nut off. I had blagged a slot on the local garage ramp for this morning so I could get my weight behind my wrench - I was struggling lying underneath it, trying to push upwards and no amount of WD40 helped.

I imagined my rear axle was completely dry of oil due to the dodgy oil seal but there has been an increasing vibration in the rear end over the last two days. This morning on the way to the garage it was very bad. I ended up driving at 20mph because it was like sitting on top of a badly loaded spin drier!

It turned out that the ramp in the garage was still occupied but their pit was free so I drove over it and descended with my tools. I was both pleased and disappointed to see that the rear propeller shaft universal joint was about to fall to bits. Pleased because it was clear what had been causing the vibration and disappointed because I did not have a replacement and it was just another job to add to my list.

I removed the prop shaft and laid it on the garage bench. Next time I passed the bench, the required parts to fix it had been laid out beside it! I then managed to remove the castelated nut but only with the aid of a high pressure air line wrench. It was well and truly tight! Now the workshop manual says something like: “remove castelated nut, withdraw pinion, remove oil seal. Refitting is the reverse procedure.” I thought I would be half an hour …..

Could I get the oil seal out? No. Could the guys at the garage? No. Brute force….. then we realised it was a non-standard diff and we had broken it but attacking it with a big screwdriver and hammer. I now had two choices: order a new broken bit which might arrive in a day or two or try and lay my hands on a second hand diff. I opted for the latter because I have 2 contacts for such items. First call was to Hugh’s “Land Rover Emporium” Hugh did have a diff but was on his way to Aberdeen and would not be able to get it to me for a couple of days. Second call was to Graham who we have recently discovered - he has about 40 old Landy’s in a farm steading and various portakabins full of parts. Graham had a second hand diff which he had taken off a low mileage Coastguard Land Rover and it was mine for £40. The problem was that he is about 25 miles away and my Landy was in bits.

My third call was to near neighbours who are also Land Rover addicted. I needed to scrounge transport! So I had a half mile walk from the garage to the bus stop, then a bus trip to my loan Landy, then home to feed the pigs, then 25 miles to Graham to collect my Coastguard diff. I had hoped to pick up a good second hand rear prop shaft too, but sadly it was not to be.

Drive back to garage and hope that new diff is the same ratio as the old one….count the teeth on the crown wheel on both and very pleased that they were the same. Then I had to strip off the old diff & remove the rear half shafts ready to fit the Coastguard diff. It was at this point that I noticed that the Coastguard diff did not have an oil filler hole! Now I had read about this in a Landy mag, but stupidly did not check when at Grahams. Now the diff would fit, but I could not get the oil in! The guys at the garage were not phased “just drill a hole in the axle” was the comment… Drill a hole in the axle? No chance! “No, drill a hole in the axle then weld a nut over the hole and screw a bolt into the nut with a copper washer as a seal - we do it all the time!” And that’s just what we did. I was left to drill a hole in my precious axle though - Ronald did the welding despite having cracked his sternum in a stock car at the weekend.

That whole process took until about 4pm, then there was the universal joint on the propshaft to refurbish. this looks quite simple but is actually awkward and needs to be done accurately if the job is to last. The problem was that one of the cups on the sprider/cross piece had obviously fallen out several miles ago and the finger on the cross had been bashing against the hole in the yolk and dented it - this meant that fitting the circlip which hold the new cup in place was quite tricky and it took a few attempts to get it to sit in properly. I still don’t think it’s 100% and might well buy a new propshaft just to make absolutely sure.

The garage only took £20 for their pit hire/spare parts/welding/advice/banter. If I had stuck the Landy in a garage and asked for the oil seal to be done (a new oil seal is £1!) I would have ended up paying for a replacement diff, propshaft and fitting parts asnd several hours labour at £30 an hour and been without transport for several days. So whilst today was an absolute nuisance, it sure could have been worse. I learned a lot about my Landy and quite enjoyed doing the work, despite having my head in my hands on more than one occasion.

If only I had greased the nipples on the universal joint, perhaps the circlip would have stayed put, and the universal joint would have stayed intact…so remember and grease your nipples regularly, or have someone do it for you if you have trouble reaching them.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post but I was covered in oil from stem to stern and dared not touch my camera!)

During the winter we watched A Victorian Kitchen Garden on DVD and I was inspired to have a go at making a hot bed for my cucumbers. The hens needed mucking out today and my cucumber seeds are through so I went up the the big tunnel after lunchtime to start.

The very first thing I needed to do was ventilate the tunnel - it has been a glorious day but with a slight breeze. The temperature inside the tunnel was 80F! I was soon down to my shirt sleeves for the first time this year. I finished in the tunnel in the late afternoon and when closing up all the vents the temperature inside was still 70F.

So, making a hot bed! I have never done this before so it’s a bit of an experiment. Perhaps the fresh chicken manure will be too hot for the cuc’s roots, but only time will tell. It’s going to have a few weeks to settle down anyway before the young plants will be ready for planting out. Even then I will probably have to cover them with fleece ‘cos they are tender wee things.

I began by digging a trench down the middle of one of my clean, weed free raised beds, making sure to chuck the spoil on the right hand side. I then forked over the base of the trench ready to dig it out again.

I then dug out a second cut and chucked the spoil onto the left hand side this time. You need to keep the spoil from each cut separate so you can back fill properly. The base of the trench was then forked over again to break up the heavy clay.

Then I went and mucked out the hens - the first barrow load of fresh muck went into the bottom of the trench and after being lightly compacted (don’t tramp it down too much - it needs some air to help it rot down) the spoil on the left hand side was used to cover over the first layer of muck.

Then it was back to finish mucking out the hens and bring in a second barrow load of muck which was laid on top of the freshly backfilled soil and tramped down a bit (it was beginning to mound up nicely!)

I think you can now guess the next step! Yep cover the 2nd layer of muck with the spoil on the right hand side. I thought it was beginning to look very professional at this stage

Notice my new spade - a present from my folks which they spotted in that well known German discount supermarket…the one beginning with A….£6 I think they said it was but its very useful - nice long handle made from FSC wood.

Here’s the completed hot bed with the sides all tidied up and a thermometer stuck in. It will be interesting to see just how hot it does get - it was at 20C when I was leaving but I had only just stuck the thermometer in so I would take that with a pinch of salt!

Once the temperature settles down and the cucumber plants are established enough to be planted out, I will plant 4 along the top of the ridge. Cuc’s like squashes don’t like moisture around their necks so being high on the ridge should prevent this. When I am planting them out I normally sink the plant’s pot in the soil beside the plant - this makes watering much easier and directs the water right down to the roots where it’s needed rather than it running all over the surface of my heavy clay soil and evaporating.

I will try and note the temperatures here from time to time!

On my admin section of the blog, I can see what people have been searching for that brings them to the site, and the posts that are read on a daily basis. One of them most popular posts is Back in the Egg Business Now either people are interested in the commercial egg business, or, from seeing the search terms on the admin page, lots of people are looking “how to start an egg business”.

Well it’s almost a year since I wrote the most looked at post on my blog, and it’s fair to say that I am back in the egg business 2008. I collected our eggs this afternoon - two days worth actually due to a mysterious incident with Land Rover lights whilst towing my Dad’s trailer with a hen house onboard. After paying them a visit/mooching dinner/borrowing trailer/retrieving hen house, the Land Rover lights started playing up forcing us to abandon the Landy at a petrol station and be rescued by Dad. We then had a (welcome, but) enforced overnighter at my parents and then successfully drove the Landy home in daylight. In any case, the lights had inexplicably repaired themselves during the night. In a locked compound behind the petrol station. Alone.

So there was two days worth of eggs to collect this afternoon. I am pleased to see three wee eggs amongst them because of the 12 Sasso/Black Rock Crosses 6 were cocks and 6 were hens. Three of the cocks are still strutting their stuff, although, unbeknown to them, they are for the neck stretching department later this week. (Commercial cocks are gassed as day olds and vac packed/frozen and sold
to the likes of Pets @ Home for feeding to reptiles. Ever wondered what
was in the upright freezers in the shops?)

Meanwhile, their ever so lucky sisters will get a long and happy life outside in the field earning their keep by laying us loads of eggs. I think 3 of the 6 hens have started laying - look at the 3 small eggs at the bottom of the picture of today’s haul:

I think the one in the middle might be a day 2 egg - it is longer but the same diameter (ouch!). Over the next few days the eggs will get larger until they are in full flow and earning their keep.