Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MrsNorthie]

Just something I like to share. The cultivation of lilies was twice in the news today]
1 Unrest at lily growers after ban on use pesticides in Drenthe-NL.
The article is about the poisonous lily cultivation. There is proof people get Parkinson’s and other neural disease’s from the poisonous mix of herbicides and pesticides. Therefore the judge prohibited the use of these chemicals.
In Dutch: https://nos.nl/artikel/2478890-onru...od-op-gebruik-bestrijdingsmiddelen-in-drenthe

2 How ex-bats contribute to the lily cultivation without poisons.

Chickens in the greenhouse make poison syringes unnecessary​

https://247green.nl/kippen-in-kas-maken-gifspuiten-overbodig/#:~:text=Bolbloemenbedrijf Lilies of Life uit,een kas vol blije kippen
The ex-bats are perfect in greenhouse lily cultivation for the control of nematodes. The ex bats come from ‘Save a laying hen’ and have a wonderful life after the factory farming conditions. + The workers get free eggs at the end of the day.

Pesticides, herbicides and commercial fertilizers scare me. We compost to improve our soil and now we have chicken manure to add to the compost, we also use companion planting for all of our veg, we introduced ladybirds/ladybugs, praying mantis and lacewings to help keep the damaging bugs away and pull weeds by hand. So far it is going well. My family ran dairy farms in Vermont, were they used commercial nitrogen based fertilizer for the big corn fields and lots of chemical in cleaning equipment, and most of them have or have died from cancer. So we are trying to be as natural, chemical free as possible.

 

[Shadrach]

Pesticides, herbicides and commercial fertilizers scare me. We compost to improve our soil and now we have chicken manure to add to the compost, we also use companion planting for all of our veg, we introduced ladybirds/ladybugs, praying mantis and lacewings to help keep the damaging bugs away and pull weeds by hand. So far it is going well. My family ran dairy farms in Vermont, were they used commercial nitrogen based fertilizer for the big corn fields and lots of chemical in cleaning equipment, and most of them have or have died from cancer. So we are trying to be as natural, chemical free as possible.

I'm very keen on chicken shit for the allotment plot. I filled a very large barrel with what I scraped off the top of the chicken run ground and I and a couple of others have got through that now. I started a new barrel this afternoon. It's too hot to use now, but by the time the growing season is done here it should be ready.

 

[no fly zone]

I learned firsthand how great chicken poop is at fertilizing when we would move our chicken playpen around. They would get it down to the bare earth in about a week, and then the grass would grow back in a perfect rectangle much greener and lusher where it used to be.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I'm very keen on chicken shit for the allotment plot. I filled a very large barrel with what I scraped off the top of the chicken run ground and I and a couple of others have got through that now. I started a new barrel this afternoon. It's too hot to use now, but by the time the growing season is done here it should be ready.

Yep, I'm piling up a huge mulch pile for a future garden bed. Btw, what the "no dig" garden advocates (many of whom I don't think actually grow anything) don't tell you is that piled up mulch (essentially cold composting) takes a long time -- even in the tropics -- to turn into useable organic matter for growing vegetables and such. Like at least a year here, two years in a temperate zone. If you want to plant right away, you have to dig. BUT, adding chicken poop -- because it's "hot" and high in nitrogen -- does speed up the digestion and breakdown process considerably.

Im now also adding the liquid from the fermented mash I'm feeding the chicks to a bucket of water with molasses and throwing that on the pile to inoculate it with more beneficial bacteria. So there's two uses for the chicken keeping by products right there.

Raised garden filled with mulch. The retaining wall is grain sacks filled with dirt, layered plastic bottles (another way to repurpose plastic), and plastered over with a clay/sand/lime mix.

These pics are from last year. I have cherry tomatoes, radishes, malabar spinach and parsley growing in here now.

 

[TropicalChickies]

If Shad knew what he was doing he might, if he was lucky, grow enough vegetables to feed himself vegetables for a few weeks. After that, say for the other 11 months, Shad will be joining all the other people who don't have an allotment plot, or a garden large enough to grow more than a few flowers if they are lucky, at the supermarkets, because most of the greengrocers have been pushed out of the market.
It's hard to get accross to many Americans here on BYC that the UK just doesn't have enough land at a price the vast majority can afford to even attempt self sufficiency.
https://www.oceanhome.co.uk/articles/february2023-market-snapshot#
With the majority of the houses in the Bristol area what one gets is a building with a postage stamp sized plot of land for £350,000. If I take a hard working couple I know whose combined yearly income is a bit over £60,000 then they would need to first get a mortgage for 6 times their annual salery (almost impossible) and even if the managed that, they couldn't grow any more than Shad does on an allotment plot.
The entire UK population can't just up sticks and move to the country and start living the good life. Even if they could wrest the land from the large landowners and get an affordable plot, the work required to to fully feed oneself would mean that at least one person from a couple would have to give up working at a job which they need to pay the mortage to work on the land.
I think it's great that some here on BYC can head in the direction of selfsufficiency but for the overwhelming majority of people it isn't a realistic or affordable option.

Well, sure. What do you think I'm doing out here in a South American jungle backwater? The land looks nice now, but it was a muddy treeless swamp six years ago -- that's all we could afford. But there's no way I could have done anything even remotely like this in the US. An academically trained, eco activist yoga teacher buying a sizeable plot of land and launching an agroforestry farm? No way.

It's a real shame what's happened to most big cities in the US -- and I'm not talking about crime or decay. I'll take some crime and decay. I'm talking about the absurd rise in the cost of living that comes with full on gentrification. When I lived in Washington DC in the 90s, it was diverse, affordable, and we had a great music and local arts scene. Sure, the mayor smoked crack but whatever. If you weren't buying crack, the crime rate wasn't a big deal. Live and let live. But housing was cheap enough for people like me to live there and enjoy the colorful urban scene. Now it's a bunch of boring defense contractors and the lawyers who defend Chevon and trust fund brats.

Anyway. That's one of the downsides of living in the first world. The world is a teeny tiny oyster. For land with space and animals and green things, a less technocratic post industrial country is a more realistic option -- if one can leave.

 

[bruceha2000]

She's good at hiding. I wonder if she's camouflaging her scent somehow.

Probably uses Febreeze

New Jersey recently banned single use plastic shopping bags

Vermont did that 3 years ago. I've been using reusable bags at the grocery store for 40 years.

Working on replacing the composite walkway on my dock with repurposed 2x4s that my wife acquired by dumpster diving at a nearby construction site.

Those composite boards are badly bowed, apparently not as structural as wood.

I used to bring reusable bags until COVID. The stores didn't want the germmy bags handled by cashier's.

They did the same here so I just put the stuff back in the cart/buggy/trolley/ whatever YOU call it and bagged it at the car.

I would say just get one plastic straw and that's it. No need for the paper one if you ever eat out.

They sell metal straws now, a result of the ban on plastic straws I guess. Personally I've never been particularly fond of using straws of any type.

the Donbas region of Russia

Which was in Ukraine until 2014 when Putin invaded the first time. I suspect if the world had helped Ukraine then as it is now, the current invasion would not have happened.

 

[Perris]

this is another way to incorporate a compost heap within a raised bed, called keyhole beds
https://botanicgarden.wales/2022/06/keyhole-gardens-in-the-growing-the-future-garden/

 

[GregnLety]

Probably uses Febreeze


Vermont did that 3 years ago. I've been using reusable bags at the grocery store for 40 years.


Those composite boards are badly bowed, apparently not as structural as wood.


They did the same here so I just put the stuff back in the cart/buggy/trolley/ whatever YOU call it and bagged it at the car.


They sell metal straws now, a result of the ban on plastic straws I guess. Personally I've never been particularly fond of using straws of any type.


Which was in Ukraine until 2014 when Putin invaded the first time. I suspect if the world had helped Ukraine then as it is now, the current invasion would not have happened.

I'd never use composite, I don't trust it to support my 300 pounds. I'll try to repurpose what I can of the composite boards but being bowed will limit my options.

 

[TropicalChickies]

this is another way to incorporate a compost heap within a raised bed, called keyhole beds
https://botanicgarden.wales/2022/06/keyhole-gardens-in-the-growing-the-future-garden/

Keyhole just means the design. Looks like a keyhole. So you can reach into both halves of the garden from the center space. Indigenous people in Latin America and Asia have made similar designs for millennia.

In Ecuador (Kichwa), it's called a "chakra integral. In central Mexico it's a milpa. In Indonesia, a pekarangan.

It just makes sense. But "permaculture" people love to give fancy little names for things so they can pretend they made it up. Thoughtless appropriation. Drives me slightly bonkers.

 

[Perris]

If you go to the website you'll see they say they got the idea from South Africa. They're not appropriating it. They're trying to spread good practice. And it's a national botanic garden, not a commercial anything.