Growing Barley In The Smallholding Kitchen.

To those who of you who follow this blog.  You know that I often go to see an agricultural mechanic who repairs anything and his yard is an Aladdin's cave for us smallholders.  He's currently renovating (supposed to be) an old hand pulper for me.  He also mills grain and sells it.  So the other week I asked him if it would grow if I planted it.  He told me it would so we decided to have an experiment in the smallholding kitchen.

Do you remember when you used to go to school and you would cut up a laboratory white rat (why?) cover your work books in wall paper (why?) and you would grow some peas (Marrow fat) on a wet paper towel?  I think it was summat (proper talk) to do with germination and it was obviously stored somewhere in the filing cabinet in my head.  So there you go we placed them on a saturated paper towel  in a silver foil tray we got from the Indian take away ("any one for Shish kebabs?") the other week, and left them next to the Stanley range.  Hey presto we have germination.  My very own Barley field in the smallholding kitchen.  So this means that I got myself a sack of Barley for 7 Euros.  Instead of paying thirty Euros from the agricultural merchants.  Just got to wait until the end of the month for it to warm up.

Here's a picture taken this merry morning of Bambi, Charlotte and Hippo scoffing some straw under our homemade bovine headfeeder.  Hippo looks like a market stall seller shouting:

"Get your lovely straw."

The lads and lasses have been in the yard, nearly six months.  Do you think Spring will ever arrive?