Cure for sour crop or crop bound

Looking for a sour crop or crop bound cure? Hard to believe the speckled hen on the left was lethargic and had stopped eating last week. Turned out she had sour crop, when her crop becomes blocked (known as crop bound) and the blocked food starts to ferment. This results in a fungal infection. Additional symptoms are obviously a crop which appears full and stiff.

What worked wonders was force feeding small amounts of olive oil and yoghurt with a syringe twice a day. The olive oil helps to get the blocked crop moving again. The yoghurt combats the infection. Crushed garlic cloves have the same effect.

After applying the treatment, gently massage the crop to encourage it to unblock. Best wear old clothes, since at the beginning it's likely the chicken will vomit some pretty foul (fowl?) smelling liquid.

Within a few days she was back to her old self. Of course the sooner the problem is spotted, the better the chances of success.

Just give tomatoes a go!

Not sure about this vegetable growing lark? Afraid of wasting money on seed packets? Then just try growing tomatoes. Why? Because...

• They're as easy to grow as weeds
• With pale yellow flowers and ripe red fruit, they're attractive enough to grow in the garden
• Supermarket tomatoes are a pale comparison to your own

Just sprinkle the seeds on a tray almost full of compost, cover lightly with some more compost, and keep moist (but not too wet) and warm. A windowsill that gets some sun is perfect. After a week the seedlings will start to appear.

Once the second set of leaves appear, pot the seedlings individually into their own pots of compost and continue to keep somewhere warm and light. You can continue to use a windowsill, but the plants will tend to strain towards the light even if you turn them daily, and become leggy as a result. If you're in May already this shouldn't be too much of a problem since you'll be planting outside very soon. A conservatory full of light, or even better a greenhouse, are more beneficial locations.

Don't plant outside until all risk of frost has passed, say late May. Transplant into special tomato growing bags or large pots of compost, and stake with a cane. Feed periodically with liquid fertiliser, or even better your own nettle fertiliser or comfrey fertiliser.

Lots more detail about tomatoes at Allotment Heaven: Tomato.

Only the four trays on the right were planted with tomato seeds. Here are the seedlings appearing...

... and here are some of the 150 plants raised from those four trays, now developing in the shed.

Large White butterfly pupa

Relaxing in the shed with a cup of tea after a digging session, noticed I was sharing the space with a gorgeous coloured chrysalis.  It's the pupa of a pieris brassicae, to quote its fancy name. No wonder it's got that brassicae bit in it's official title since it's more common name is the Cabbage White, the bane of allotment holders. Suppose I should have squashed it, but it was just too beautiful to damage.

Having been laid in late summer as a brood of 40 to 100 eggs, within two weeks she emerged as a caterpillar to decimate the surrounding vegetables. Highly visible to predators, she accumulated poisonous oils in her body as protection. After a few weeks she wandered off to find a suitable winter home, well away from her normal food source. This one has been overwintering since early autumn and will emerge as a butterfly in May.

Although we have our own home grown population, additional numbers migrate from the continent. The female can be distinguished from the male by her two black wing spots.

Here are a few images of her different stages...

Windowsill gardening

My study windowsill, with tomatoes and sweet peas.

Got an unused windowsill that gets plenty of light and is draft free? If it's not full of trays propagating seeds or cuttings you're missing out. You just wouldn't believe how many plants you can raise from such a small space!

It's really easy to grow plants from a windowsill, giving you a head start in with vegetables or flowers in the garden or allotment. Here's how to raise seeds. Also works for cuttings, though you should use plant pots rather than seed trays.

What you need

1. A draft free windowsill that gets at least five hours of light each day.

2. Trays that fit the windowsill and hold water.

3. Smaller seed trays with watering holes in the bottom, that fit inside the watering trays. 

4. Standard seed compost.

5. Vermiculite.

6. Plant tags

How to plant

Mix compost and vermiculite. I generally use a small handful of vermiculite to a large two handed helping of compost. The vermiculite helps to keep the compost light and airy and aids watering.

Fill the seed trays with the mixture. Follow the instructions on the seed packet for planting. For example, with small seeds such as tomatoes I make four shallow drills running lengthways and carefully place individual seeds along the drills, leaving a small space between each. Cover the seeds and label the variety with a tag.

Some seeds, such as begonias or Livingstone daisies, need light and should be sparingly scattered on top of the compost, covered with a plastic freezer bag and kept moist.

Aftercare

Besides being draft free, the windowsill needs to reach the required germination temperature indicated on the seed packet at some point in the day, although you don't need that temperature all day. Lettuce and spinach will germinate even if the minimum temperature drops to near freezing, but the germination rate for all plants will be affected if the temperature drops below 40ºF. Ideally keep the minimum temperature above 50ºF.

Some of the tomato seedlings repotted, 150 from a small windowsill!

Unless the packet instructions indicate the soil needs to be kept moist, allow the compost to almost dry out before watering. If you lift a seed tray up it should feel quite light. To water, fill the watering tray to half an inch of water so it can soak up into the seed tray from the bottom. Don't overwater; if you do the compost may become musty.

Once the seedlings appear, turn the tray around each day so the seedlings don't get too leggy and bent towards the light.

Planting out

Generally you can replant the seedlings once they grow their second set of leaves.

If the plants are sun loving varieties such as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, you'll need to transplant into pots and grow on in a greenhouse or shed with plenty of light until all risk of outside frost has passed. If to be transplanted in the ground, acclimatise the plants first by leaving outside on a warm day, gradually increasing their time outdoors.