We typically collect all our chicken eggs for eating. However, one of our hens, Mrs. Black, decided to go broody and start sitting on them a few weeks ago so we decided to let her hatch them naturally. I never got to inspect how many eggs she was sitting on, then when I went to check on her today we found 10 chicks and only one unhatched egg. The last egg could hatch in the next day, but if not it is still a 91% hatch rate which is very good.

Not only have we proven Straw Bale Gardening is an absolutely awesome gardening system that you should incorporate into your garden, farm or homestead, it also creates an additional output besides growing your groceries. After the season is over the cardboard under the bales and the straw them selves decomposes into some amazingly rich and biodiverse mulch that you can amend into your soils, put into your compost, or apply as a mulch in your garden beds. We created about 40 gallons worth of mulch after using about 12 bales at the beginning of the growing season the previous year. We did wait all the way to this spring to collect the mulch. Had we collected it in the fall we would have almost double the amount. We are not only very happy with the SBG but also the mulch it produces.

Coe's Comfrey: http://coescomfrey.com/comfrey.html

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Mayfield Family Farm
North Dallas Area - Denton, TX