Farming Friends

This is a video clip of my week old guinea fowl keets and their antics in the brooder. Watch as the 10 guinea fowl keets scrat, scratch, peck and cheep their way around the brooder. Wheat straw has never been so exciting!!

Potato crisps are a snack made from potatoes. The potatoes are peeled, washed, sliced and then fried in vegetable oil before they become potato crisps.

The Journey From Seed Potato To Potato Crisp

1. Field Preparation - The fields are prepared for potato planting. They are ploughed and then fertiliser is applied. Then the field is cultivated using a bed tiller followed by a declodder/destoner.
2. Purchase & Delivery - The seed potato is bought or delivered to the farm.
3. Planting - The seed potato is put in the potato planter and planted in the fields.
4. Fields Treated - The weeds are treated before the potato plants emerge.
5. Plants Treated - The potato plants are treated to prevent blight.
6. Irrigation - Through dry weather the potato plants are irrigated.
7. Harvest - The potatoes are harvested from the ground.
8. Grading - The potatoes are graded so that mud, weeds, stones as well as mis-shaped, small or rotten potatoes can be removed.
9. Transportation To Factory - Lorries transport the graded potatoes to the crisp factory.
10. Quality Check -The potatoes and all the other ingredients (vegetable oil and flavourings) used to make crisps are checked for quality.
11. Storage - If the potatoes are not used straight away, then they are stored in controlled temperatures and humidity to keep them in good condition.
12. Grading & Washing - When it is time to use the potatoes, they are graded and washed.
13. Peeling - The washed potatoes are then peeled in a rotating drum which has a rough surface.
14. Quality Check - Once peeled the potatoes pass along a conveyor belt for visual checking and any substandard potatoes are removed.
15. Slicing - The potatoes are then sliced into very thin slices about 1.27mm thick. The blades in the slicing machine are changed regularly to keep them accurate and sharp.
16. Washing - The thin potato slices are washed by jets of water to remove starch from their surfaces to prevent the slices from sticking together.
17. Cooking - The potato slices move on a conveyor belt to large cookers where the slices are cooked in vegetable oil.
18. Quality Check - A camera checks the colour of the crisps after cooking and crisps which are too dark or too pale are rejected.
19. Flavourings - The crisps pass through a rotating flavour drum where they are lightly sprinkled with salt or other flavourings. The rotating drum makes sure that the crisps are covered evenly.
20. Primary Packaging - The crisps are fed from a conveyor belt into a hopper and automatically weighed into portions. The packets are formed from a reel of packaging film. The crisps drop into the open packets which are then sealed.
21. Quality Check - The packets of crisps are checked to see if they weigh the correct amount and that the packets are sealed properly. A detector checks for foreign bodies in the packets.
22. Date Stamping - Each packet of crisp is stamped with a special code as well as a best before date. The special code allows the manufacturer to trace when the crisps were made which is particularly useful if there is a problem with the crisps.
23. Secondary Packaging - The packets of crisps are packed into cardboard boxes and then stamped with a best before date. This secondary packaging protects the crisps during transportation.
24. Loading - The boxes of crisps are stacked onto pallets ready for loading onto the lorries.
25. Transportation & Delivery - The crisps are transported by lorry and delivered to distribution depots, shops or supermarkets.

It is very difficult to find the guinea fowl nest if you free range guinea fowl like I do. The guinea fowl love to lay their eggs in a nest in the middle of a nettle or bramble patch which obviously makes the nest difficult to find. In addition to the problem of locating the nest, I also have to beat the magpies that are nesting in this area as they are rather partial to the guinea fowl eggs as well. Magpies will eat eggs and small chicks. At the moment we have 3 pairs of magpies that are circling our fields on the lookout for my guinea fowl eggs.

Well this morning I have foiled both guinea fowl and magpies by finding a nest of 20 guinea fowl eggs. Hurrah!! I went out early this morning and tried to observe the location of the poultry and just before I came in to sort lunch, I thought I would have a walk along the hedgerow. It was about 11.15 and I could see a group of guinea fowl forming in the hedgerow. My guinea fowl can lay their eggs any time from 9am until 2pm but this grouping looked like a good sign.

Whilst the females are laying their eggs, the males stand guard and watch for predators. They have obviously forgotten that I feed them because as I casually approached the group, more flew towards me in an attempt to protect their large clutch of eggs. I was not deterred by the birds in flight and as luck would have it I quickly spotted two eggs in the nettles. When I carefully pulled back the nettles, it revealed a whole nest of shiny guinea fowl eggs.

I quickly filled my boiler suit pockets with my find and headed for the kitchen to count up the eggs. It is important to try not to leave any signs that the nest has been disturbed so I made sure that the nettles were put back carefully, whilst trying not to sting myself!

Although this is my best record for finding my guinea fowl eggs, I have not collected any for four days as the guinea fowl had moved their nest. Lets hope that they do not move it again in the next few days, but I won’t hold my breath though!!

I love little gem lettuce and have had a tray of seeds germinating in the greenhouse for some time. This week the tray of lettuce had got to the point where it desperately needed to be planted so I took the tray to school for the school gardening club to plant.

At 12.30pm on a Tuesday the Year 3 and Year 6 children gather in the courtyard of our school for our weekly gardening club. Weeks ago we planted carrots and sunflowers for the grow the tallest sunflower and longest carrot competitions. It is great to see the children come into the courtyard and head straight for the plant pots to see if their seeds have germinated. As I said last week, some of the seeds have already germinated and this week there was great excitement as we realised that some of the sunflowers and carrots are doing really well. In fact some of the sunflowers are already 10-15cms long. Next week we are on half term so we are keeping our fingers crossed that if we have sunny weather, the caretaker will water our prize plants! So in two weeks time we will be transplanting the sunflowers and carrots to sunnier locations and deeper pots! I will report back with some measurements for the sunflowers so that we can keep a track of the lengths as the weeks go by.

Anyway back to this week - I took the lettuce and we headed for the back field to try to find somewhere to plant the somewhat straggly lettuce. The children are very patient as they wait their turn to receive their plant which they then carefully carry to it’s planting position. At the moment the school does not have a specified vegetable plot, so we are trying to squeeze the vegetables into any available space we can find in the borders. Some of the plants have been planted very close to the grass verge of the back field so we might find that they become victim to the school lawn mower. Each child planted at least two lettuce so hopefully the children will end up with at least one lettuce to take home.

Children just have a way of making you feel great when they show enthusiasm for things that you are interested in. One of the boys in my class obviously enjoys gardening with his Grandad and has talked about our club to his Grandad because this morning there was a tap on the staffroom door and the Year 6 boy in question thrust a plastic carrier bag at me with lots of plant pots in. Enthusiastic children just make the job of teaching worthwhile.

In two weeks time I will report back with more news from the school gardening club.

When I opened my curtains this morning wishing I didn’t have to leave the idyll I call home, I was met with another reason not to go to work - a roe deer in the wheat and barley fields. Until this year I had never seen the deer that frequent our land (possibly because I’m rarely found sitting in a tractor!).

As I drew back the curtains I could see the beautiful slender body of the deer leaping through the wheat with it’s white rump flashing from behind. If I hadn’t been so mesmerised by this wonderful sight, I would have dashed off to grab the camera. But sorry folks, I was too entralled by the deer bounding through the sea of wheat and barley stopping only fleetingly to glance my way before moving gracefully out of view.

What a fabulous way to start the day - the wonder of nature just makes me glad to be alive.

With no photograph from this mornings sighting, I can only offer you another view of the deer I saw earlier on in the year.

Guinea Fowl Past & Present

• Written by Michael Roberts.
• Published By The Golden Cockerel Series.
• Priced £8.50 / $17.51.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone starting out with guinea fowl because the information is presented in a clear, concise and easy to read format.

Michael Roberts states in the introduction, “This book covers all aspects of keeping guinea fowl, whether for pleasure or commercially.” It does what it says and covers every aspect of guinea fowl rearing and breeding with interesting chapters on the history and origin of this fascinating species of bird.

The book has chapters on;

• History of Guinea Fowl.
• Names of Guinea Fowl.
• Origins and Types of Guinea fowl.
• Letter from Zimbabwe.
• Keeping Crested and Vulturine Guinea Fowl.
• Keeping Guinea Fowl on a Small Scale.
• Housing, Breeding and Artificial Insemination.
• Eggs, Incubation, Hatching, Colour Breeding and Pinioning.
• Sexing.
• Commercial Rearing, Intensive and Free range, Capons.
• Catching, Killing, Plucking, Evisceration, Trussing.
• Packing and Labelling.
• Marketing.
• Health, Diseases and Ailments.

I found this book to be inexpensive and invaluable when I started out with my guinea fowl as a quick reference guide. The 41 pages of this book are packed full of useful information which is easy to find when you need specific information in a hurry.

An excellent starter book for anyone thinking of keeping, rearing and breeding guinea fowl commercially or for pleasure.

Click on this link to go to Gold Cockerel Books.

Recycled cream pot with sunflower seedling.

Recycled cress tub with tomato seedling.

Recycled strawberry punnet with pepper seedling.

Recycled yoghurt pot with pepper seedling.

Another recycled yogurt pot with pepper seedling.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of recycling these pots before now, because not only is this environmentally friendly but it is also financally friendly aswell!

Click on the link below to visit Amazon.co.uk to find out more about this book or visit one of the Farming Friends Bookshops.