Monday Harvest -- the Double Yolked Edition
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At the moment, only one of our four chickens is laying eggs. Harriet stopped when she got sick, and the two Easter Eggers do not seem to have started. Say what you will about Anne Elliot's bossy character traits. That hen is an egg-laying machine.
Twice now, she's laid an especially large egg. Which is to say, that those particular eggs were significantly larger than her regular eggs. She's still a young bird, and the eggs she's laying are smaller than what you'd buy at the grocery store. The "big" egg was about "normal" grocery store size.
And, unsurprisingly, these gigantic eggs have double-yolks. When I was little, we used to vacation on Maryland's Eastern Shore, and would often stop at farm stands along the drive. I was always delighted by the eggs we bought there, because so many of them were double-yolked.
Other than eggs, our backyard harvest consists of kale and chard and a few beans and strawberries. I chopped back our enormous lemon verbena bush, because it was starting to block access to our garden gate. We'll make lemon verbena ice cream some time this week.
I totally failed to start seeds for the autumn garden, and instead bought some beautiful starts at a local nursery. I'll be putting in a couple of kinds of kale, napa cabbage, chard, onions and some chickory.
If you want to see what other gardeners are harvesting, mosey on over to Daphne's garden blog.
At the moment, only one of our four chickens is laying eggs. Harriet stopped when she got sick, and the two Easter Eggers do not seem to have started. Say what you will about Anne Elliot's bossy character traits. That hen is an egg-laying machine.
Twice now, she's laid an especially large egg. Which is to say, that those particular eggs were significantly larger than her regular eggs. She's still a young bird, and the eggs she's laying are smaller than what you'd buy at the grocery store. The "big" egg was about "normal" grocery store size.
And, unsurprisingly, these gigantic eggs have double-yolks. When I was little, we used to vacation on Maryland's Eastern Shore, and would often stop at farm stands along the drive. I was always delighted by the eggs we bought there, because so many of them were double-yolked.
Other than eggs, our backyard harvest consists of kale and chard and a few beans and strawberries. I chopped back our enormous lemon verbena bush, because it was starting to block access to our garden gate. We'll make lemon verbena ice cream some time this week.
I totally failed to start seeds for the autumn garden, and instead bought some beautiful starts at a local nursery. I'll be putting in a couple of kinds of kale, napa cabbage, chard, onions and some chickory.
If you want to see what other gardeners are harvesting, mosey on over to Daphne's garden blog.
Comments
Did you see Pam Peirce's article in yesterday's SF Chronicle, she did a great piece on growing cool season crops in the Bay Area.
Erin
We are new backyard chicken raisers and gardeners too. Your blog entry today could have been written by me with just slight variations. Last week my only layer laid a double yolker and this weekend I cut back the large verbena that was starting to blog our garden gate. Too funny!
It generally happens with young hens who are still maturing because their system is still figuring out the right "timing". Although it can also be a hereditary thing with some hens.