Our 'Hotbox' used for growing unusual garnishes such as sweetcorn shoots and sweet pea shoots has recently been put to another exciting enterprise. Found dumped on a drove just outside the village the hotbox is an upright fridge freezer that we have recycled, cleaned up and adapted.
With the installation of a small heater, we use the appliance to grow plants which like warmth and need to be in the dark, the freezer became a sealed hotbox.
Micro sweetcorn shoots flourished and were popular for both sweet and savoury dishes. Used as a unique garnish, they provide a rather special taste. The first bite gives a sweetness of traditional freshly picked sweetcorn, which is followed by a taste probably best described as intense sweet bubble-gum that lingers in quite a remarkable pleasant way.
However it also provides the perfect conditions for something completely different...
Meal worms - although eaten in some countries, not popular in the UK, but the hens' favourite and fantastic for the development of the newly hatched youngsters. For the older birds, we currently use dried meal worms, they find them irresistible. In terms of flock management they are an excellent way to bring the flock together and if needed in for safety. This is a technique we use with all our birds as a reliable way to call them round however long they have been with us, young or old. However buying dried food of this nature is always done with caution, to ensure they are of the best quality. But the hotbox presents an alternative - breeding our own!!
All we need is a box, oatmeal, vegetables and live mealworms...
Place the worms on the oatmeal and cover them with vegetables, and place them in the hotbox
and watch them feed and grow...
By the next morning they had pulled all the vegetables below the surface and the oatmeal was a live with activity.
By the end of the day they were on to their second helping!
Maintaining a constant heat of 22'C - 25'C by the third day they had started to pupate, which will in turn become beetles, which then lay their eggs to produce mealworms...
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