Does that chicken smell OK to you...?

Our regular readers will still be dealing with the emotional scars of our post last week looking at how a local "cheap" supermarket can stock whole chickens at £3 each and if like us you had previously been Sainsbury shoppers will probably also be testing out the quality of the competition having realised just how expensive their per kilo price is in comparison.  I am afraid there is worse to come and it is right here...

It has been puzzling me since I spent several hours calculating the cost of rearing a chicken ready for the table how it could be done so much cheaper that it can turn a profit at £3 a bird just by increasing the scale of production.  The biggest single cost is the food and just by multiplying the stock numbers you will not reduce the per head feed costs significantly, we know as our flock numbers have grown over the years, yet this is even more true of the table bird industry because if you reduce the amount of per head feed the bird will not grow so big and given the final cost is per kilo a small bird is clearly less profitable.  Sadly my musings on this led me to thoughts of the corner cutting that I have known to go on in the past.  Ideas like keeping the birds in barns with no windows and turning the lights on and off every 8 hours so the chickens live their lives quicker than the natural length of days.  I know that battery houses have been found to do this in the past to prompt the hens to lay eggs more often but would this also mean that chicks would grow quicker?  Another musing I had was of keeping the temperature in the barn a few degrees higher than is comfortable as this prompts the birds to drink more and adds to the weight as well as cramming in so many birds that they can barely move so they dont walk about and use any energy for anything other than producing body mass.  Are these the techniques being employed in current table bird rearing conditions?

The video below comes with my 'brace yourself' warning.  It is a none too pleasant filming of the conditions of one chicken farm in Norfolk and the conditions the birds are kept in, which by any of our standards are appalling.  There is so much wrong with the condition of these birds I would have no intention of placing this meat in my cats' bowls let alone on the plates my girlfriend and me.  It is not the dead birds laying decomposing that most shocked me though, it is the amount of chick down still visible around the necks and wings of these chicks, as that is what they really are, that is so unnatural alongside the size of their bodies.  It is not surprising they have so little feathers as they are probably only 6 weeks old and have yet to feather up, in fact with their bodies growing at the rate they are there would not be enough feathers to cover all the flesh on those that have managed to feather themselves.  One chick is even trying to practice natural chicken behaviours of preening his or her few stubbly feathers in an attempt to continue with the illusion of being a regular chicken.

Thanks to the work of Hillside Farm Animal Investigations you can treat yourself to the reality of Green Acres Chicken Farm in Norfolk right here by clicking on the image below...

Stunning that a place called Green Acres manages to sound lovely and pastoral doesn't allow the chickens to even see the sunlight that falls upon a single green acre. But more concerning are the following thoughts that came to me whilst watching this footage.  The guy packing the birds ready to head off to the 'dressing facility' had no problem grabbing the birds as they can barely move in the first place, but some of the ones he is packing appear not even to flap a wing when hung by their legs in his hands.  Are these birds already dead or near death? He then jams them in the packing case drawers and could very easily kill one, two or several in the method he uses to shut the drawers, so potentially some of the birds are dead in these cases.  Let's assume he starts packing them at 7am and is done by 10am, the lorry arrives at 11am and reaches the 'dressing facility' by 3pm where they are either humanely killed or possibly as is common practice dumped in boiling water and thrown in one end of the dressing machine still barely alive, but of course by this stage some of the birds could well have been dead for over 8 hours already.  Is it likely the people tipping the birds from these cases into the broiler machine will notice or bother with the odd dead bird?
Now move to the next stage these birds come out of the far end of the 'dressing facility' on polystyrene trays covered in neat cling film wrap and a sticky label probably bearing the little red tractor sign of quality.  They make their way to the shelves of your finest supermarket and then into your fridge.  Have you ever unwrapped a pack of chicken breasts and thought the smell was not as fresh as it might be?  Have you wondered in recent years how come the packs of mini breast fillets that you can buy are getting so big they are nearly the size of a chicken breast themselves?
So stop your day for a moment and just ponder where these chickens might go next.  Which supermarkets stock this quality of meat?  Who puts this in their pies and wraps? Which restaurants buy a bucket load of these chicken pieces for their curries and coq au vins?  Which chefs take in vacuum packs of the bones and scraggy bits from these birds to use for making stock?
I have a bet for you here...I bet some much higher classed establishments are using this meat than the ones you have just pondered.  It is amazing when profit is involved and the price is right how standards fly out the window, and after all who is going to know once it is marinated and turned into tasty food?

So what are the solutions?
Well first in case you were confused this is what a six week old chicken should look like...but of course not kept on the kitchen table as in this pic..!

Secondly the decision can be as simple as taking to a vegetarian diet.  But if you are a lover of decent meat products then find your local farm where you can buy their meat in the farm shop and see the next batch running free in their green acres.

But it has to run deeper than this if we truly want to impact the conditions in which animals are kept.  We have to start asking in restaurants where the meat is from and can they show you or describe to you the conditions the animals are kept in.  Of course some restaurant owners will have rehearsed answers ready to trip off the tongues of every waiter and waitress but you having this conversation will alert them to the raised awareness of their customers, it will be over heard (if you are as loud as me) by other diners and they too will begin to think and question the origin of their meal.

The choices are many but the decision has to be yours.  To end on a Tuesday morning lighter note here again are some chooks that are very well cared for and will not be thrown into a packing crate ever.

Power of the rain...

I am not completely sure it is just the rain that is responsible but I have a surge of creative energy this morning that I have not had for a few weeks.  We have been wading through our jobs todo list over recent days, trying to squeeze in the occasional cycle, be resourceful by making planters and growing structures whilst turning over veggie beds in preparation for autumn sowing of onions and garlic.  But over the past weeks despite still hopping out of bed at 6.40am to tend to cats and chickens and have an early morning cuppa in the garden office enjoying the fresh crisp morning air and accompanying sounds it has then been a bit of a trudge to get moving.  Each day we have either been meeting some calendared appointment or other, or heading off to markets in search of the buying masses and before you know it the night is drawing in and it has felt like little has been achieved that is new, exciting or innovative.  It is challenges of this nature that really float my boat and I imagine there are those of you who would claim this slight dull-drum experience has been due to the onset of autumn and changing of the season, but I love the weather patterns, I embrace the mist, mizzle and chilly edge, so to what can I attribute this slightly lack lustre passage in our journey? I have no idea. Truly it is OK to say I do not know as an answer to any posed question if it is the genuine answer.

A tangential moment to just mention here we recently visited Sainsburys on the Greenwich Peninsular to check out their provision for vegans.  Whilst at their deli counter we saw a green V on some produce and a green leaf with vegetarian written across it on others.  We enquired of the lady on the cheese counter who told us she thought it meant vegetarian but was not sure of the vegan sign so would ask her more experienced colleague.  He firmly told us the V showed it was vegetarian and on special offer.   Somewhat confused by this we pointed out some produce not on special offer with the V on the ticket, he said these were Vegan foods.  "Are you sure?" I enquired and pointed out the chorizo sausage carrying the V emblem.  "Yes" he firmly replied, "this is fine for vegans, not for vegetarian but is good for vegans!"  Somewhat shocked at this response I suggested he really did not know the answer, and it was fine to say so rather than give me inaccurate information.  But he would not have it, he was offended that I might suggest his answer was not correct. So all I need to find now is a meat eating vegan to try some and see if it is any good!.  When I suggested to him it is OK to say I don't know and will find out rather than make up any answer as it is quite important, he walked off upset with my suggestion of his lack of knowledge.

So back to my response to where this creative spurt has come from, well unless there was an unscheduled spurt delivery I was not aware of it must be the rain.  I am a rain lover.  There it is out there now.

When in New Zealand I used to love the rain when it would appear on a sunny afternoon and all the locals would throw open the windows and sniff it in saying how they could smell the tarmac on the road, and it was true you could too.  In Oz the rain would often bring a layer of red dust with it which would coat the car, cabin, deck, beach, in fact just about everything had a layer of red dust next morning and the whole country would unite in hosing it towards the nearest creek, one morning I saw an iguana walk across the deck of my cabin coated in a layer of red rain dust...made her look very tropical indeed.  In spain the campsites prepare for rain by digging moats around every awning and groundsheet because when the rain comes it hammers down for a few hours then steams lightly for another three until everything is dry and sweaty.  But my favourite rain experience has to be in Evian on lake Geneva when the locals hang out of their windows shouting "Tempête!!...Fermer les Fenêtres!" and one by one like a mexican wave the shutters crash across the windows of every residence.  All camping residents grab every article they can and rush them inside.  Tent window vents are zipped shut and sun roofs closed firm.  Anyone who heeds not the warning of the local mountain folk will without doubt have wet feet within the next ten minutes.  I was one of those cautious types who grabbed the chairs, broom and towels and threw them in the campervan.  Shut the windows and rear doors which had been allowing in a lovely summer breeze not more than five minutes earlier and sitting inside looking very pleased indeed had failed to notice the sun roof was still open.  The Tempête arrived at speed with a gale forced wind, unzipped the underside of the cloud cover and unceremoniously dumped the entire contents of its moisture collection on our heads in sheets.  The water ran in the sun roof straight onto my Motorola phone of the day... sizzle..., pop..., fizz..., glug ... it died instantly in front of my eyes.  I could barely shut the sun roof due to the pressure of the wind that had whipped under it, but managed to hang on it and squeeze it closed.  Taking one of my dry trusty towels I snapped open the phone to remove, chip battery and any other working part and laid them out to dry on the dashboard, only to be the luckiest person in Geneva when I put it together next morning and it all worked again.  But yes lesson learned about rain in Evian.
So based on my experience of rain soaked moments it is no surprise I am often to be found in the outdoor office when the rain is splashing on the polycarbonate roof.  It makes a lovely pinging sound and somehow when it is a little gloomy it always seems brighter under the dry roof than elsewhere in the garden...not actually possible given poly-C allows 80% light penetration but its an optical illusion that I like very much.
The freshness of the earth smells is another plus and the chill breezes that mingle the aromas of nearby gardens with ours is just an added bonus.  I had better stop here otherwise I envisage one of you sending a van round to cart me off to the local "lost-it" facility if I continue my rambling love of the wet stuff.  Anyway it can be the only reason for the return of the creative juices and vim and vigor of past months and I must now put those to good use and spend a wet day moving on some of the creative projects we are involved in at the moment.... depending on progress there might even be an update here later...
Go on get your wellies on and a brolly and take a wet walk round your garden or the local park, its a different place in the rain.

Our good friend Pete running the rain gauntlet to get fresh corn for lunch (NZ 2001)

Testing ... Testing ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... Testing..!

There are lots of things I love about twitter and have blogged previously about the advantages of a carefully worded comment in the twitter-sphere which has bought us free tickets, gifts, and lots and lots of free advice and info from fellow growers and urban farmers.  But it has to be said that one of my most favourite things about this electronic media is not the voyeuristic opportunities it offers when celebs wear their heart on their sleeve nor the immediate nature of its newsreel when a world-wide event occurs, it is the opportunity it gives us to maintain a distant contact with other likeminded souls. These contacts we will probably never stand on the same square metre of the planet with simultaneously, but we can observe their projects, plans and ideas and in turn see the outcomes and their thoughts on future developments, and they ours.  It is from just such an encounter that we are currently trialling a new style of veg growing.  In the past we have been garden sowers, setting seeds in drills into the soil in which they will mature.  We have used propagators, seed trays and pricking out techniques but almost exclusively for the production of bedding plants and cucumbers which never seem to take well directly in the soil.

However due to twitter chatter with a good guy growing micro veg in the midlands we are trialling sowing all our veg into seed trays, pricking them out or transplanting them in slices into growing planters and thinning them out from there to provide sufficient room for development.
The early signs are superb.  The germination rates on seeds sown in this way is massively improved on those directly into soil.  I suppose having 2 cats who love to dig and a resident urban fox that passes through most weeks was always going to give a negative return on drills set in the garden and even our attempts to use netting as a deterrent to all of these visitors to the veg beds only improved the return by about 25%.
We set a packet of beets, one of carrots and one of spring onions in seed trays and within 10 days transplanted 2 planters with beets spaced about 2" apart, 2 trays of spring onions about 1" spacing and a full tray packed with carrots which we will thin out in the coming weeks as they mature into baby plants.  It is our intention to harvest all of these as baby veg, so small sweet beets, likewise junior carrots and lovely thin crisp scallions to dress a salad or be chopped into noodle dishes and the like.



The planters have not cost us a penny as my pallet fetish continues to thrive and in fact be supported by more twitter friends who have offered us their unwanted bases which we in turn strip down to planks and give them a new lease of life as a planter lined with old compost bags poked with drainage holes.
We are now planning some free standing planter holders from our latest haul of free timber, just like the ones sold at garden centres for £100 a piece but ours will cost us nothing other than the time and effort.
So early signs of our test-beds (nice...did you see what i did there!!) is much better yield per packet of seeds, next step is to see how the final produce shapes up...
Watch this space in coming weeks for the results and yet again...

Thanks Twitter.

The Poultry Dressing Facility...!

Whilst I have very much told myself off twice this week for failing to get a new blog post on here in over a week it is also true to say I am at a loss to know which soapbox to jump on and could without taking breath quite easily rant on for over a  hour or two on any one of a number of current issues burning a hole in my head and heart.  But at risk of heading off at a tangent about Michael Gove and his ridiculous exam reform or banging on about the anonymity afforded to the murderer of yet another young life on the local streets whilst the poor dead boy has his story flaunted across front pages for all to see I will make a firm effort to focus on just the one issue that fell in my lap as I opened the free newspaper this week.

This joyful little advert fell form my copy of the News Shopper and I am sure received a somewhat different response on my garden table than it did in some other households in our avenue.  Instead of scurrying off to find my local Nisa store and load up on chicken ready for a weekend roast I was instead astounded that whatever and wherever Nisa is they can afford to stock their shelves with a chicken for just £3.
Having signed many a petition in support of dairy farmers in recent months to try to help them receive a fairer deal with the price they are paid for a pint of the white stuff I cannot overlook this worrying pattern that seems to be spreading into the poultry farming arena.
So I tried to reason how this could be possible and what treatment this chicken may have experienced before it became a household name across every Nisa trading region.
So let's just stop for a minute and consider the life of this product from the moment it used it's egg tooth to break out of the shell and peer into the world to it arriving on a chilled shelf coated in plastic.

By my fairly basic reckoning the following things have taken place; Chick hatches, fed on high protein chick crumb and kept warm, clean and dry for 6-8 weeks.  Birds are generally slaughtered for the table between 42 - 56 days old, it needs plucking, gutting and tying ready for packaging. Then placed on the plastic dish and cling film wrapped, add a sticker and it is ready for the shelf. Of course in there will also be transport from the hatchery to the brooding shed and transport to the slaughter house and then to the supermarket.

So my next logical step was to try to break down these costs to see how a final price of £3 is possible to provide Nisa with their required profit.  I will take a shot at this but would appreciate any of you having a go at correcting my sums if you think I have under or over spent in any area:

The figures in brackets are the costs for raising chicks yourself on a small-holding so I have assumed commercial farms can work at half this cost:

Cost of chick (£1.50)  75p [possibly as low as 36p if buying fertile eggs and using incubators]
Heating (25p)  12p
Transport to brood shed  (12p)  6p
Feed for 6 weeks (assuming minimum lifetime used) (£2.20)  £1.10
Care for 6 weeks (cleaning and supplying fresh water) (N/A*) 10p
Transport to slaughter house  (12p)  6p
Slaughter (N/A*)
Plucking (N/A*)
Gutting (N/A*)
Tying (N/A*)
* All of these are provided by the smallholder at no cost other than time.
A chicken processing machine, carefully named a poultry dressing facility by providers, can do 10 000 chickens per day and it is not unknown for chickens to go in one end alive and appear out the other end having had their guts squeezed out under pressure rollers so the person gutting just grabs the guts and cuts the connecting tissue around the neck which of course saves even more money on not having to actually humanely kill the birds. So the cost of processing per bird is likely to be about 6p To include the per chicken cost of the knife wielder let's say another 10p.
Packaging 2p
Label 2p
Transport to supermarket 6p

Total for the smallholder is £4.29 assuming you give your time for care, slaughter, plucking gutting and packing free of charge to yourself as a smallholder which provides a free range quality product probably a little heavier than the small bird in the image above.
Total for commercial production £2.06

So at a price of £3, it would appear Nisa are making approx 94p per chicken, a profit margin of 45% which must be one of the lowest on the shelves of most supermarkets.  Now my question remains why do they do this?  Why mass produce poor quality chicken that cannot be treated with real care and attention at the speed and rates they have to work to provide a bird too small for a family and lacking in the flavour and nutrition of a free range quality one makes little or no positive contribution to the food supply in Bexley or any other area in which they have a store.

A little surf checking shows me the price of a similar sized whole chickens in other stores is very comparable ;
Nisa for 1.4kg chicken : £2.14/kg
Sainsburys £2.96/kg or 3 for £10
Waitrose £2.18/kg
Asda £2.07/kg
Tesco £2.29 /kg
Whereas the average price of a free range small chicken is £5.09/kg

Yet this chicken has the little red tractor sign so surely it is good quality, isn't it? Well this means it was produced to  "Assured Food Standards" where a little read of their website will reassure you they work to standards of  "safety, hygiene, animal welfare and the environment amongst other things." The foods are "Produced to independently inspected standards" and "Meets the standards you expect for you and your family" Well if my reckoning of the costs is in any way accurate it cannot meet my high standards of care for farm animals given how cheaply it has had to be produced.  It is interesting how the Little Red Tractor website carefully avoids defining the standards, they are not high standards, not legal standards, not even good standards, just the standards.  In addition the website does not provide any detail of these standards as they are applied by their inspectors.  No mention of how many poor little chicks are crammed in a shed together, or whether they have access to daylight at all.  Not a comment about acceptable methods of slaughter that can be used among many other concerns that this has raised in my mind as the farmer, processor and supermarket work to cut costs in order to raise their profit margin.!

So what have I concluded from this post, well firstly we shop in the most expensive local supermarket, so that can stop right now and it's back to the markets for provisions for us and secondly maybe it is time we had another stint on the pescatarian diet we have enjoyed in the past...so how do they slaughter prawns...?
Here's one chick that is never going to face the angst of the 'Poultry dressing facility"..!

This way to the start line...

It has been my wish over the past months to use this lifestyle change not only to massively improve our emotional and mental health by stepping out of the rat race and into developing our own business but also to have an impact on our physical health by taking every opportunity to include exercise and healthy eating into our daily routines.  I can safely evaluate our success so far as top class in the emotional and mental health improvement zone, but frighteningly poor in the physical aspects.

It is true to say that everyone that I bump into who used to work with me in a school environment cannot pass without comment about how well I look and how relaxed I appear.  Now I must have looked shocking for all the years when turning up to school at 7.30am given the huge improvement being remarked upon since we changed our lives.
We have gained a sense of calm in our lives, we allow ourselves to have days off when the mood takes us or when the weather and events are most inviting.  It's odd to describe but I can feel the inside of my head is less crammed with things to remember, things that are vital to be done by yesterday and things that just rumble around in there driving my senses mad at 4am when I would wake in the dark with a good idea or irritated by some ridiculous comment or suggestion from someone who tells everyone they know what they are talking about but in reality hasn't a clue.
We still work hard, very hard, in fact when the outcomes are for the benefit of your very own business it is incredibly rewarding to work hard and reap the rewards in whatever the aim.  Whether it is physical labour in making planters and weeding beds or the frustrations of tying down market organisers to secure a stall for trading purposes, it is all equally rewarding when you are achieving goals that we have set for our business.  Not in the selfish way that this sounds, because often the pleasure is in seeing the people you have arranged party catering for are overwhelmed at the quality and beauty of the platters you deliver or just seeing the smiles of appreciation on mates' faces when you drop in some home grown produce or better still swap ours for theirs as we are these days.
In this my evaluation of the first few months it would also be fair to include a huge increase in healthier foods being eaten.  We have always grown our own, but in the past not always been as inventive or experimental as we might in using them to create truly scrummy dinners.  Now we have the time to read about the successes of other growers and avid foodies and experiment for ourselves, so yes we make all our own breads, crackers and biscuits as well as making home made tarts, pies, wraps and the like to use our beautiful harvest rewards. However all this tasty scrummy food has not been good for the waistlines and without an increased exercise program will not bode well for the future. This give the final fair assessment of our physical health as could do much better.



I think this means our report card looks a bit like this:
Emotional and Mental Health A*
Physical Health D-
Overall progress towards long and happy life C+



Now I have delivered units in BTEC courses which included huge projects on improving a client's health and wellbeing.  I have graded students work down when they write huge plans insisting the client will eat half a grapefruit for breakfast,  have cottage cheese on Ryvita biscuits every day for lunch, and boiled chicken salad for tea 6 days out of 7 and a pizza on day 7 as reward for being so good.  One time I had so many of these poor diet plans presented that I went to Asdas bought all these hideous foods they were suggesting and made them try them.  Plain cottage cheese on celery stick was least favourite and soon removed from all their diet sheets.  They also lost lots of marks for arranging their client's weekly exercise classes every evening and most of the weekend which barely left time for a bedtime story with the client's children or the watching of a single TV programme.  Now I am not a keen telly viewer myself but the point was the exercise needed to fit into the daily life of the client, not encompass every waking moment and of course cost the earth given gym class prices.  I suppose the clients may have lost weight due to lack of disposable income to spend on food once they had signed up to spin, bum and tum, jog, swim, moon walk and gym ball their way around the floor of every polished wooden floor in south east london.
So no excuses I am perfectly placed to sort this problem out and include more exercise in our daily lives.  In fact we began just that a few weeks ago and now have 2 beautiful pieces of modern art that live side by side on the drive and used to be called cars.  One of these we occasionally take out when collecting Freegle loads too big for the bikes or going to trade at markets and we can carry the bikes on the back of it so it does facilitate our plans to take part in longer coastal cycle adventures.  But this process will work best if we use our bikes wherever possible to go to the shops, pop to the post office and visit friends as well of course as walking to places.  It is beginning to work and I am feeling stronger and a bit fitter already.  Alongside this comes the use of our own tasty fruit and veg in fresh healthy meals which we are working on too and further into the future I have a crazy plan for a mobile selling bike...but that needs some more thought and design ideas...shame I have stopped waking up at 4am with brilliant inspirations, will just have to try sitting in the sun dep in thought and hope the answers come that way.

Happy Sunday one and all...off on the bikes now to plan some party catering and swap more fruit and veg, have fun.

Reward for rapid return...

Ok give it back... If you stole the first week of September or have hidden it somewhere then please return it immediately.  Is it just us or did the first week of this wonderful month just fly past in silence without so much as a ripple of air to evidence it's movement?
What with the return of the masses from holidays, then the return to school for all those spending their daylight hours in centres of learning across the area it has been a busy time of welcome back coffee brunches and catch ups on the plans for the coming months that take us into the short days and cold fronts that will no doubt soon be upon us.  Amidst all of this we have had a busy time with lots of projects and growing developments and have to admit to being less than attentive to this blog, but having enthused at the growth in our reader numbers over the past month we will now try harder again, promise.
The round up of the first 7 days of September brings you good news that little Peep, now named Lady Hoshi is growing well and bossing the flock about as well as playing face off games with her dad.  He bustles her to stay together with the others when they are wandering the garden and she runs off and dances about in front of him then they both stare each other out and stand face to face for a minute of so until one gives in to blinking or the need to peck for food.  It's a very odd but enchanting bit of chicken behaviour we have never seen before and puts you in mind of a little girl running rings round her dad and driving him mad with her silly games.  We will have to try to catch it on video soon.
We have put our Freegle pallets and boards to good use not only adding some much needed shelves to our airing cupboard but also creating larger veggie planters which we have all along the side of the house now catching the maximum daytime sunshine hours and have planted out more beets, carrots, lettuce and spring onions.  We will report on the success rates at the end of this trial but early signs show the germination rate of seeds grown in trays and transplanted to larger planters is hugely improved on the direct sowing into the garden beds.  We have done some fruit and veg swapping with friends who have provided us with tasty fruit from their gardens in return for chutneys or veggies from ours. The week did not pass without us managing to squeeze in another couple of Paralympic visits during which we managed to marvel at the beauty of Greenwich Park as a venue, see 4 GB Golds won, sing loud to the National anthem repeatedly and experience the most amazing night in the main stadium watching some of the hardest working para-athletes ever.  A timely reminder if anyone needs one that anything you really want is worth working hard for.
The season is definitely running a little late by average standards due mainly to the long wet cold period at the start of summer which means all our summer tubs and baskets are still in full bloom and looking awesome so taking geranium cuttings and the like will begin this week and our winter bedding plants still have a month or so to grow on in their trays before the space will be available for them to be planted out.  Call me a genius but thats why I left sowing the winter bedding until later than usual too, or call me a little disorganised and lucky.!

Big news for our business is that we have booked ourselves into lots of exciting markets in and around the local area and have been really welcomed by the market and fair organisers.  Some of the Christmas markets are now being arranged and we have also managed to secure stalls at some of those so trading hours are very much open in the coming months and we are busy ensuring our stock levels are high enough to cater for the anticipated trade.  Our to do list is headed up with the task of updating our website and Facebook page to let everyone know where they can find us and our tasty produce.
Finally we have discovered a top money saving tip that we can share with you all.  If you want to reduce your grocery shopping bill go to the shop on your bike.  It is impressive how many bulky items you decide you don't really need when you contemplate the idea of dragging them home on the back of your bike....so get peddling.

A serious challenge to all growers...

And the answer is .... Jimson weed or Datura Stramonium ... just don't eat it.!

Jimson Weed, (scientific name Datura stramonium) is a toxic  plant found all over Illinois.  Some of its other common names include devil’s trumpet, thorn apple,  Jamestown weed, stinkweed, and  locoweed.  Ingestion of parts of the plant can cause delirium (inability to differentiate reality from fantasy), hallucinations, elevated temperature, flushed skin, fast heart rate,  and agitation (bizarre, and possibly violent behaviour).  The changes in mental status can last for days in cases of severe intoxication.

All parts of the plant can be considered toxic, but the leaves, juices and seeds can cause the most effects.  The plant is a perennial blooming plant; the leaves and flowers bloom in the spring and summer and the seeds set in the late summer and fall.

Ok here's the details:

This little beauty is a bushy plant that bears a large white trumpet flower and this very spiky seed pod or fruit...not sure which.

It is growing in the garden of a house that the parents of a friend of ours  have recently moved into in southern France and in his words has grown out of the middle of a pile of chicken poo...

So our question to you is what is it?

Please use the comments option at the bottom of this post to give your answers and if you would like to win a small selection of our deli produce by special delivery for being the first with a correct answer then you will need to provide an email address in your post.

Good luck...