Annie's first egg!



some multi coloured (and multi sized!) eggs, all from my ladies!



 

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of naming livestock. It's just not my thing since I know that livestock is meant to end up butchered some day.

My parents on the other hand...

To be perfectly fair though, I guess laying birds could be an exception to this rule since they are expected to stick around longer than other forms of livestock... this is how my birds (all of the originals, the 5 new comers don't have names yet) got names. I'll have to clean them up a bit and get some photos, but for now you'll just have to imagine the crazy names they could have (they're not that crazy).

But the importance of the name thing is that Annie laid her first egg yesterday!

Annie is one of the 6 Ameraucanas chicks (they were about 4 or 6 days old) that I bought when I went to Thunder Bay to pick up my 6 laying pullets. One of the six didn't survive past the first couple months, and the other 4 turned out to be roosters (I still have them all too! I just can't give them up!). Annie (named by my dad) was attacked by the brown laying hens when she was pretty young and has been a very small chicken ever since (named Annie short for Anorexic by my dad... good name dad...).

When she was still fairly young (probably only a few months old) I was pretty worried about her, she was staying very small, stayed on the roost in the coop frequently through the day, and had a bit of a discharge from her beak. I never managed to find out what the problem was, but for a couple weeks I would put her alone in the chicken tractor for an hour or so in the morning and again in the evening and feed her scrambled eggs with pumpkin seeds and apple cider vinegar in her water. I don't know if this worked magic but she perked right up and after only a couple days of this she was out and about with the other chickens more, eventually she seemed 100%.

I think a result of the extra pampering turned her into a very friendly chicken. The roosters and laying pullets are still pretty skittish (as are the 5 new comers!) but that's ok with me... after all they are livestock, not pets... but Annie, she's like a pet. Before the fox had come and they were all free in the yard during the day when you went out, she came running and would stand at your feet looking up, almost literally saying "pick me up!"

Me and Annie



She's definitely a favourite for me, when the fox went through I was so relieved that she didn't get grabbed (apparently on the day I lost 3 in one go she went missing when Louise (one of my Orringtons) went missing but came strolling down the highway a little while later! I'm so glad I was at work an missed it all or I would have been out there all day looking for the little bugger!) I'll admit, this one is more like a pet... but now with the added bonus that she'll be paying some rent!

So don't be surprised if (when it drops to -40 this winter!) you come to my house and find her chilling in the living room with me.

Autumn Welcome Back!

Ok so I'll be the first to admit that I still suck severely at blogging. But in my defense the last time you heard from me I posted a photo of me haying and if you don't know me, that means I'm 110% focused on getting that hay off the field (and -10% dedicated to the rest of my life... true story!)... and from there things sorta spiraled out of control... here's what's been happening for the last 3 months!

(ps. I did this to the tractor at one point... that's the wheel back there)

When I made that last post I had gone to look at a cute little house a couple kilometers down the road from home. Over the past 3 months I've submitted and offer, and secured financing for said house and should be moved in a month from now (more info to come as things unfold, promise!)!

A friend visited from Toronto and we attended the annual folk music festival in Ear Falls (north of home) called Trout Forest Music Fest. This was the second year Kyle flew all the way from Toronto to attend the small festival (but it's fair to say he's hooked!) and the boyfriends first time ever to attend (he seems pretty hooked too!).

Here's a few photos to get you up to speed!

I attended a Volkswagen Festival in southern Manitoba with the boyfriend and a couple of his friends.

Mum had a pretty good first year in her new gardens at the new house.

  

 I harvested some honey from my hives!! (I didn't get much but I learned a lot and am ready for next season!!)

 I lost some chickens :( (I started with 13, and was down to 8... but I bought some more and am back up to 13!)... here's the old gang before the fox struck

 
 ... no worries though, the foxes made a dent in my chicken population, so I made a dent in the fox population.
(no, I won't show you what I did to him next...)

 



 My birthday happened!!

And I taught myself how to crochet! (blanket in the making! I'll share the super simple granny square pattern that I've been using and show how things go and when I attach them to become an actual blanket!)

So now you're basically caught up with me!

Coming up will be winter preparations, moving, a trip to Hawaii and hopefully me not failing at this blog updating thing!

Lovin' Summer...

I hope wherever you are you're enjoying the same beautiful weather that I am! Updates on the next rainy day!!

The Honey will FLOW!!

If you follow my tumblr blog you'll know that my Honey Flow frames arrived at the beginning of the month. In my region the big honey flow starts right around that time and since I'd had a swarm at the end of June I wasn't sure if I'd have a chance to try the frames out this year.

Cutting the box

I had one more super left over after assembling my current hives and making a home for the swarm so I figured, what the heck? I went for it.

On Monday my resident handyman (read: dad) helped me make the necessary cuts in my last super and we dropped the frames in!

Finished cuts!

My super seems to be a little smaller than the one in the instructions so I (may regret this decision later) decided to not screw the frames into place. They're almost snuggly fit in and I'm sure the bees won't mind.

The weather managed to smarten up last night for a few hours giving me time to visit all my hives, cut off a couple queen cells (I'm not ready to deal with queen rearing just yet!!!) and install the Flow Frame super on my strongest hive (the one that didn't swarm).

Like a knob though... I forgot to take a picture of my three super frame with the flow frames in it so I'll have to stop by after work and give you a quick snap of that!

putting the doors in place

Sunday Breakfast: Diabeties Edition!

What a weekend we had! Saturday was nice and HOT and Sunday was less nice and RAINY!

I spent my Saturday helping my dad bring a tractor home and then horseback riding with my mum. Max was a champ.... Zaira was a brat.

Sunday everyone (except myself) slept in (chickens don't let you sleep in... but I didn't mind!) so the Sunday breakfast was more of a brunch.... actually it was really more of a lunch... but it was well worth the wait!

These waffles are not for the faint of heart, that's for sure! The actual waffle itself is not overly sweet (if you ignore the cup of chocolate chips that goes into it...), making the chocolate sauce necessary, while the frozen yogurt and cherry pie filling makes it healthy.... I swear!

... ok so one serving (and I mean a while 4 section huge waffle with 3 scoops of vanilla frozen yogurt, cherry pie filling and chocolate sauce.... no one could manage a whole waffle, not even me!!) clocks in at about 920 calories... but it tastes SO GOOD!

You have been warned.

Oh lordy...

Black Forest Waffles

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips (I didn't have any... and I didn't have any regular sized ones so I ended up using Hershey's Kisses... the slightly smaller ones that you can find in the baking section with the other chocolate chips... they worked just fine!!)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups your favourite milk (I used 2% cow this time but almond or coconut or goat or whatever you have on hand works!)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter melted

Directions

1. Preheat the your waffle cooker according to your own waffle cooker's directions
2. In a medium to large sized bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, chocolate chips, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Whisk together the milk, eggs, and vanilla together in a large liquid measuring cup.  
4. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry, and stir just until combined.
5. Add the melted butter and stir to combine
6. Deposit batter on hot waffle iron according to how big your waffles are (I got 4 large waffles out of this recipe)

Top with vanilla frozen yogurt (or ice cream, or whipped cream...), cherry pie filling and chocolate sauce and attempt to eat it all!

Sunday Brunch!

So before the whole bee fiasco this past Sunday I made brunch for the boyfriend and the family!

My absolute, without a doubt, favourite flavor in the WHOLE world is s'more. I'm a chocoholic, marshmallow lover and no dessert is quite complete without graham crackers!

After entertaining the idea of making some chocolate pancakes with some marshmallows and throwing some graham crackers at them I decided the best course of action would be to put the graham crackers in the pancakes!

(please don't ask about the caloric content, I think I'm still full from these!!)

They weren't sweet enough for the boyfriend, he needed to add some Aunt Jemima! (photo courtesy of the boyfriend <3)

S'mores Pancakes
Ingredients

• 1.5 cup whole wheat flour**
• 1 sleeve of Honeymaid graham crackers (that's 9 sheets made up of 4 wafers!)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond (or cow, goat, coconut... your favourite!) milk
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

How-To

1. Preheat your pan while you whip everything up, this'll get you to your pancakes faster!.
2. In a bowl, combine the baking powder, cocoa powder and sugar.
3. Crush the graham crackers mostly (I left some chunk in there, they turned out just fine! But you can crush them up fine if you want!).
4. In another bowl, beat eggs, milk and butter.
5. Mix together your wet and dry ingredients.
6. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto the preheated surface brushed with melted butter, margarine, coconut butter or oil.
7. Top with mini marshmallows (I was out so I cut regular sized ones into thirds) and use a blow torch to caramelize them. (alternately, spread your marshmallows out on a baking sheet and broil them quickly in the oven... you need the roasted taste, so this is crucial!!)

I was going to top these bad boys with some hot chocolate fudge sauce (I'm still tempted to do that next time!!), but I am sort of glad I didn't... they were filling!!

**flour amount may vary, I'd say start with a cup and add if you have to. It's been SUPER humid here lately making most of my baking turn out a bit wetter than usual.

What a wild weekend!

I don't even know where to begin!

Last week was so rainy and miserable (I think it actually rained all week.... a double curse and you'll see why!) So this weekend I tried to play catch up! Saturday I really only managed to clean out the chicken coop before it stormed again all day but Sunday was nice enough to be outside!  I started the day with cooking up some s'mores pancakes for the family (recipe to come!) then the clouds finally parted and I headed outside to do a bit of work.

I didn't really have any massive plans, just some gardening, inspecting my bee hives and possibly giving my horse a workout to test out his freshly trimmed feet that got done in the rain on Saturday (those farriers are a tough bunch!).

While I was in the garden helping my mum relocate some currant bushed to the new garden (so the chickens can stop feasting on the leaves....) we heard a pretty strange sound over by the house.... lots of buzzing. Looking over we saw a few THOUSAND bees flying en masse from the hive.

Not good.

Turns out pretty much everything that could have happened for that hive to want to swarm... did. The dandelion "flow" just ended, the weather had been rainy keeping them all in the hive for a few days making them think it was extra crowded, and the final nail in the casket.... I hadn't checked them in over a week. My bad.

So I watched $220 fly away. Crap.

Then I saw them hanging around a tree just at the edge of an area we had recently cleared to move the chicken coop to.

Score!

I called my "bee mentor" from our newly formed local beekeepers association and got together some necessary items to catch a swarm!

Before Tim showed up I laid a tarp under where the swarm had finally settled (thankfully it was only a bout two meters off the ground, this could have been a lot worse!), and brought out a pair of tree nippers, a pair of supers, one empty and one full of frames, a lid and a bottom.

Tim arrived, followed shortly by Susan (another member of the club who has had bees for a year now) and we got to work.

Turns out that capturing a swarm isn't as hard as I'd feared. We positioned the two supers (one full of frames on the bottom, the empty one on top) on the tarp under the swarm and Tim climbed up a ladder to slowly cut branches until he had a handful of small sticks with a few hundred bees attached to it (the Queen should be somewhere in the middle of the bees so it was crucial that they stay as undisturbed as possible so the Queen ended up in the hive!). I took the bee covered sticks from Tim and carefully laid the works on top of the frames. We lidded it and ratchet strapped the bottom, supers and lid all together (to be easier to move later)... and that's it!

The only other important piece of material I haven't mentioned yet is the queen excluder. Normally when you see a hive the queen excluder goes on top of the brood super (or supers if you have two)... but in the case of this swarm, the excluder was on the bottom, between the bottom board and the bottom of the bottom super. This means that all the worker and drone bees could come and go but the Queen was stuck. The reason for this is that the Queen might not be happy yet with this new location, so she needs a bit of time to get used to her new home. That's assuming she's in there! I went back after the lid was on a few hours later and saw that bees were coming and going just like they do with my other hives... She's in there!

After all that I now have three hives! One very strong one and two that are a little smaller (one with a bunch of brood and starting in on honey production, the other... thanks to Susan has one frame of honey, one frame of brood combs drawn but empty.... but nothing else! That's what you get for swarming right before the honey flow!!)

I'm going to be leaving original hive alone for a couple more days then I'll be getting in there to look for a Queen. I think I saw my original marked Queen in the new hive so I have to make sure that there is another Queen in her place in my old hive. I have spread the brood out in both of my original hives and given them something to think about in these last couple weeks leading up to the honey flow.

I learned a very important lesson in all this though! You can't procrastinate on a farm. When you need to get into your hive, get in there before they swarm! When you need to fix the fence, mend it before the livestock gets on the road!



photo borrowed from mainbee.com which is actually a BRILLIANT resource for swarm capture!!

Happy Solstice!!

Ok so I'm a couple days late, sorry! With the busy weekend I had I am just now looking at some photos I snapped over the warm weekend! Hope the weather is as beautiful where you are as it is here (even the rain we've been getting is beautiful!).

Have a couple pretty flowers!

Pink Lady Slippers are more common here but there were three of these beauties hiding on the property!

A Tiger Lily was growing near the road too!

Free the chicks!

The forecast for this weekend called for rain, rain and more rain, but for a weekend with rain scheduled, it was pretty dry! Precipitation managed to hold off until this morning (at 5:30am! It woke me up!), so I took advantage of the nice weather and got some yard work done.

But before the rakes came out I freed the chicks!

My poor little babies (who REALLY aren't babies anymore!) were left to fend for themselves for an hour before bed on Saturday then they joined the big girls in the coop for the night.

I realized that the bottom wrung of the roost is just a little too thick for the chicks to hang onto when I went in at 5am to put them back in their tractor for a few hours... they were all sleeping in a pile in the nesting boxes!

On Sunday I freed the chicks from the tractor again and they got the lay of the land. There was a little bit of squabbling with the hens, but for the most part they kept to themselves (except when one of the little roosters decided he wanted to get "down to business" with one of the bigger hens... not yet little guy!!). I trusted them all together and went in for a late breakfast (which of course was fried eggs and toast!).

While I was helping my parents sort out their garden we realized that I was down one chick! I walked around the house, behind the garage to the creek and even along the pipeline which cuts through the middle of the 25 acre property... still no chick! I went back to work (even though my parents thought I should have kept looking). I told my folks that either a) it got picked up by something while we were inside having breakfast (which I thought unlikely since we would have heard, also there were no feathers in the yard) or b) it went for a walk and was taking its time coming home. Either way, it would or would not come home... That's how free range works!

After about two hours I figured I'd be down a chick... even the hens never left the yard for more than an hour... and they always went in a group for their longer outings. My mum went back into the bush to look for it and on my way to the compost pile with a load of manure and hay, guess who came strutting from who-knows-where behind the garage! I guess there must have been some good bugs back there!

My new "puppy"!

One more bonus! This little guy (not the one who went on a hike, but it's twin) seems to be more friendly than your average chicken! It comes over to me and looks up at me like a dog does (which to me, quite plainly says "pick me up.... pick me up!")... so I do! It just relaxes in my arms and on Saturday I sat in the coop with it for a bit, while it tried out the roost, then perched on my arm, then sat in my lap, then tried the roost again.... I'm hoping that it stays this friendly... everyone should have a pet favourite chicken!



 

Chicken selfies are the best selfies!

I guess it was a bit premature...

Last nights little bunny died in my lap today. Might have been traumatized or injured internationally by the dig I saved it from last night... Either way I'm pretty upset by this little loss. 

I'm trying to bit blame myself and remind myself that farmers don't cry... Sometimes farming sucks. 

I'm hope it's not premature...

I rescued a baby bunny from the neighbours dog this evening, it's still a little young to be on its own... The neighbour thought it would be a good idea for me to take on the little guy... Here's hoping it stays strong!!

The little cutie is sleeping on my chest at the moment (I can't help myself!) this is definitely a cuter aspect of farming. 

Party weekend!

This Sunday was my mum's 50th birthday!

Happy Birthday Mum!

I hosted a party to celebrate the big day, inviting friends and family over for a BBQ and was pleasantly surprised that almost everyone I asked came (and even a few extra which resulted in a busy house!)!

The chickens were loose all day and the bees were VERY active (with rain coming and going all day they could feel a storm trying to come so they were busy stocking up food) but everyone coexisted well. The chickens crossed the creek to see the horses in the bush paddock for the first time (that I'm aware of) and the (not-so) chicks were admired by everyone for their pretty feathers.

I may share the recipe for this pink angel food cake with pink marshmallow frosting too!

Pink was the colour of the day for mum's party and I made a pink vanilla angel food cake with very pink marshmallow frosting and vanilla macarons with raspberry purée and pink vanilla buttercream.

I want to share with you the recipe for the macarons because I found them to be very successful. They were a little "rustic" because I couldn't be bothered to do step 2.... they still turned out good (maybe a little taller than they should have been) but they were delicious regardless!

Vanilla Macarons with Raspberry Purée and Pink Vanilla Buttercream

Vanilla Macarons

Ingredients

Shells
ingredients

• 120 g egg whites (separated into 60g and 60g), room temperature
• 150 g almond meal (ground almonds)
• 150 g icing sugar
• 150 g white granulated sugar, + 35g for the meringue
• 50 g water
• 1 tsp vanilla (clear if you have it, pure otherwise)
• sprinkles or other decorations (if you just want them plain, skip this and skip step 13, going for 15 minutes at step 12 instead!)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. If you don't own one of those fancy macaron mats, trace 1 inch circles on one side of parchment paper and put the paper pencil-side-down on a baking sheet (so you can still see the marks through the paper but don't make a mess of your pretty meringues!)
3. In a food processor, pulse together almond meal and icing sugar and sift into a bowl.
4. Mix in 60 g of egg whites and 1 tsp vanilla extract until you get a smooth paste.
5. In a pot on the stove, start to boil together 150g of sugar and 50g of water while you whip you whip the egg whites (you're aiming for 230F on your candy thermometer!)
6. In a clean, grease free bowl (I usually wash it out with hot water and soap before mixing, just to be sure it's clean) whip the egg whites and remaining 35g of white sugar to stiff (not dry!) peak (when you lift the whisk, the egg whites will stand straight up).
7. When your sugar reaches 230F, slowly stream the hot syrup mixture into the meringue while mixing. Continue to whip the egg whites until they become room temperature and it gets to stiff peak.
8. Not-so-gently fold about a third of the meringue into the almond paste mixture to loosen it up (you won't completely deflate your meringue here).
9. Gently fold in the rest of the meringue into the batter until no streaks of meringue remain (It will become a thick, lava-like texture that reincorporates itself into the batter within 25 seconds).
10. Transfer mixture to a piping bag and pipe onto your prepared parchment lined baking sheet or macaron mat.
11. Rap the sheet against a table to get out the air bubbles, if that doesn’t get them all out use a toothpick to pop any big air bubbles.
12. Let them sit for about 10 minutes to form a skin.
13. Add sprinkles and let them sit for 5 more minutes.
14. Bake in preheated oven for about 7 minutes, turn the pan and bake for another 7 minutes.
15. Allow macarons to cool on the sheet (since they're so light it only takes 10 or 15 minutes)

Buttercream
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla (clear if you have it, otherwise use pure)

1. Whip the butter and vanilla in a mixing bowl until lighter in colour.
2. Add Icing sugar in 3 stages and whip until light and fluffy.
3. Transfer to a piping bag with a small appropriate sized tip to fill the macarons.

Assembly

1. When all the macaron shells are cooled, pair the shells to matching sized halves.
2. If you want a fruit filling (I used a thick raspberry purée), pipe a ring of buttercream and put the fruit in the middle before sandwiching the other half of the macaron together, if not, fill the whole shell with buttercream, then sandwich together.
3. Store the macarons in an airtight container in the fridge at least overnight which will result in a soft, chewy macaron (otherwise they shatter when you bite them which is yummy, but not a macaron!).
4. Try hard to not eat them all!

I'll have to share the recipe for that cake too, it was a HIT! The cake was perfectly springy, fluffy and delicious and the frosting was SWEET and sticky and yummy! Not a crumb was left from the party!

Happy 50 mum!!

The bees have arrived!

Sorry for the radio silence this past week, it's been a crazy one!

Last Friday I took the day off work to travel with my boyfriend from my home in northwestern Ontario to a farm in southwestern Manitoba where I would be picking up a pair of honey bee nucs!

The day began early with feeding the chickens and moving the chicken tractor for my adolescent chicks. We grabbed some gas and hit the road. My Honda is involved in that huge recall going on (with the passenger side air bags) so we stopped in Kenora to get that all sorted then after picking up some coffee we continued west to Winnipeg!

We did the trip in stages because frankly I don't like sitting for 6 hours, so when we reached Winnipeg we went to a HUGE antique store and ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory (omg, can you say tortellini!! YUM!), made a quick stop at the BeeMaid store to get some bee supplies and we were off to Brandon!

We didn't do anything too spectacular in Brandon. After a long day of travel we were pretty zonked so we ordered in some pizza to the hotel room and relaxed.

Cute little things they are!

By noon the next day we were out at the Bygarski Honey Farm talking with Bill about bees and everything we could think of to do with them. We loaded up between 20,000 and 40,000 bees (in nuc boxes!) and headed home.

The drive home was (thankfully) uneventful with only about a dozen or so bees escaping from the boxes (apparently they can do that!). They were put in their appropriate location and waited for a friend and member of our local beekeepers association to come out on Sunday to help install them into the hives.

Even installing the hives was uneventful (but fun, even for someone like me who has no bee experience and is pretty scared of getting stung!). Tim showed me the ropes, we even spotted the queens in the fray, and that was it!

By the end of the day all the dandelions in the area had been well pollinated and the bees were settled into their new homes.

speedy little guy!

So the bees have been home almost a week now, so far no stings, I'm hosting a birthday BBQ for my mum on Sunday so it'll be interesting to see how the new livestock gets along with guests, open drinks and food!

I lost a chick.

Well it was bound to happen eventually, I just really hoped it wouldn't be with my first batch.

Chicks coming home last month. (I'll not be morbid and point out the missing one.)

I've been putting the chicks (who are really more like awkward adolescents than babies now) in their old brooder but relocated to the garden shed for the nights lately. There are a number of wild cats, large rodents and dogs in the area that would love to make a snack of the little guys in their tractor and since we don't have any large enough dogs to scare these critters away, safety is indoors.

Yesterday morning before I left for work at 7, when I transferred the chicks from brooder to tractor, I realized that I had a goner on my hands. My little brown chick (who had come to me with paste bum, but had seemed to overcome it as it grew) was very limp and didn't even attempt to stand. I made a makeshift triage of chicken wire and Rubbermaid container and left the poor baby on clean grass in the sunshine and left a note for my mum to check up on it.

Work doesn't wait for sick chickens.

When I had a few minutes between my morning work tasks I did a few google searches and determined that either the paste bum caught up with the chick or (my guess) it had gotten sour crop. I texted a few treatment suggestions to my mum but she responded at about 10:30 that it was gone.

I realize that death is a part of a farm, its nothing I'm afraid of, I just had high hopes that my first batch of chicks (who were all doing very well!) would be spared!

Welcome to the life of a farmer, folks! Sometimes it suck.

But sometimes it doesn't. I did gather 6 eggs yesterday. I do gather on average 5 eggs every day.

Balance.

That's what a person looking to farm needs to remember. There is a balance on a farm. Sometimes animals die (unexpectedly or planned) sometimes that results in a freezer-full, other times it results in one less future egg per day. Its a balancing act between life and death, ups and downs, surviving and thriving.

The different shapes and sizes of my hen's offerings

Beautiful Weekend!

We had a really beautiful weekend (my shoulders can tell you just how much sun there was!) and I just have to share some of the photos I took while cleaning up the front paddock and hanging out with the chickens!

 

one of the ladies visiting me while I was laying on a blanket, knitting

 

 
 

Oh and maybe having a drink too ;)

 

A storm blew right by us, not a drop fell on our party

 

The chicks still hang out in the tractor (they don't get along with the hens yet)

 

My babies are growing up!

 

A couple hens like the chicks though

 

Max wasn't too keen on sharing his paddock with the ladies...
To be fair, they get all the green grass out there, but he's stuck in here.

How does her garden grow?

Over the past few months I've been experimenting with a few different methods of growing Avocados.

My first Avocado plant is doing great!

I LOOVE eating avocados but am always sad that I have to throw out almost have of what I buy because it's a huge seed! A couple years ago I followed the instructions of my grade 12 biology class from years ago and went through the whole "put three tooth picks in the middle of the seed and rest the bottom in water" and that took AGES! (but the result was and IS a happy and thriving avocado plant going on three years!).

I've read a lot of different opinions about different ways of convincing a grocery store bought avocado's seed to germinate, so not too long ago as mentioned back in January's post, I tried a few more in that "traditional" method" but didn't see any change until the end of May (when one FINALLY split and sent out a little root!)!

So I got frustrated and threw them all in some soil.

I didn't mention it, but not too long after I had started those three seeds in glasses, I decided to just burry a seed in a yogurt container full of soil. I kept the soil watered (no special care, I just watered it when it was dry with all my other plants) and holy, it took off!!

Look how good it's doing!

Now I have a whole windowsill full of small planters of soil with avocado seeds hiding in them and hopefully soon I'll have Avocados to share with family and friends! (I'm not crazy, I don't plan on keeping them all!!)

(ps. the one who sat in water from the end of January until the end of April before sending out a little root then ended up in soil has sent up two stems this weekend!)


New Avocado shoots sharing their pot with a spider plant baby!