Category: garden

Gardening, and a chicken update

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, garden2 Comments

 Yesterday I worked in the garden. I was glad I prepped it earlier in the year so it was ready to plant. I got seedlings this year so I wouldn’t have to start anything from seed. I planted lettuce, kale, broccoli-rabe, bok-choi, leeks, parsley, pickling cukes, and dill. I also planted spinach but I started with seeds. It’s a special variety I was given by a local farmer. I also put in 100 onion bulbs and planted a little rosemary bush in a large pot. I still want to pick up some rainbow chard, thyme, and several basil plants. Last year I only had one basil and that wasn’t nearly enough – at the end of the season there was none left to dry and use over the winter!

In the chicken world, I lost all power to the shed, so hopefully the older chicks will be fine tonight without heat. They haven’t been sleeping under the heat lamp lately anyway, so I hope they are all able to snuggle together to stay warm tonight.

And as for Mama Hen: she is losing chicks right and left! Yesterday I found one dead by the chicken run gate. I assume it fell in the water bowl because it was very wet. I don’t know if it got out but was chilled and died, or if it drowned and another chicken pulled it out of the water to see if it was good to eat. Anyway, that leaves her with six. She would be down to 5 if I hadn’t rescued the one on the woodpile the other morning. I hate to say it, but she’s the worst mama hen I’ve had so far! I dumped out the water bowl to prevent any further accidents and left them with a very shallow bowl nobody should be able to drown in!

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Workin’ hard around the yard

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, barclay, chickens, farm, garden, jack, naviLeave a comment

We had the most beautiful weather this weekend (our weekend is Tues-Wed). This is why we live in the NW. It was sunny, and in the 50s on Tuesday, 40s today. Perfect weather for getting a bunch of hard work done before the ground either freezes up solid again, or melts completely into a mud puddle.

So I started out with a project that has been nagging at me for a couple years. Several years ago I put in a raised bed garden in an unused part of the yard, and it didn’t really work out there, so it sort of got abandoned, it was hard to mow around, and because it was made of concrete blocks with the holes in them, it was a hazard for the dogs who have been playing around it (especially just recently), and it needed to be removed. But who wants to remove 30-some concrete blocks that are sunk into the dirt and seem pretty permanent? Nobody. But it has to be done.

So I got the mower and the lawn cart, and took a load of wood chips over to the garden area (no point driving over there without taking something along for the ride). I shoveled a bunch of fresh chips onto the path where it was getting bare and muddy. It’s going to take several more loads.

Fresh wood chips on the left, ground that needs some more on the right.

I took the cart over to the drainfield area and started loading up concrete blocks. Each one had to be wrestled out of the ground, wiggling them back and forth like a loose tooth. I loaded 12 into the cart at a time and took them over to the area outside my garden next to the compost piles and..

Used them to build a new compost pile area. I really needed a new compost area to put the alpaca poo I’ve been scooping up every morning.

So that was all yesterday. Dave helped a bit but by the end of the day I was beat. Those concrete blocks are terribly heavy! But I’m really happy with the compost area.

Today I headed right out this morning and got to work on the next thing on my list – the semi-annual cleaning of the chicken coop. (this is the after picture).

The deep bed method had backfired on me as it piled up faster than I was keeping up with it. For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to find time to get out there and clean it up. I cleared out THREE heaping wheelbarrow loads – and I think it’s an 8 cubic foot wheelbarrow! That’s a lot of crap!

I spread the chicken poo thinly over the beds in the garden and put the rest in the new compost pile. Then I took all the straw I removed from the alpaca shelter (which was old straw, sheep poo and pig poo from last year) and scattered that over the chicken poo. I’m hoping all this will break down by planting time (May around here) and make for happy plants this summer.

Back in the chicken coop I got the brooder all cleaned out, because the feed store is getting chicks this weekend, and I want to get some. This way they should be old enough to start laying by winter. In this picture I’ve put straw in the brooder, but I’m going to change that to chips, because I think the straw will be too hard for the chicks to walk on.

Some of my girls moved right back into their clean home. They were a bit put out after being banished from the coop all day while it was being cleaned. Next on the to-do list – put up a piece of plywood to hide the insulation from the chickens. I don’t know how they  get to it to tear it up, but they do.

In the coop the dogs help clean up any poo I missed – yuk!

A beautiful end to a very productive two days. I shoveled until I had nothing left in me! It’s great to finally get all those chores done. Now I need a weekend to recover from my weekend!

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Chickens in the garden

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens, garden2 Comments

Last year I planted winter crops, and they got killed by a hard frost we got early in the winter, and in the rain and cold and frost I just didn’t have the umph to go out and clean everything up like I should have. I did clean up a bit and fill the compost bins, but there were still some old squash and whatnot laying around, and of course all the frost killed winter veg. So today I took the cleanup crew out there.

Something has been digging up my carrots and eating them (bunnies?) and there’s nothing really left out there except the sage, and a little sprig of rosemary that refuses to grow into a bush. So I let the girls have at it. I’m going to clean up all the weeds and lay down some fresh chicken poo from the coop, then cover that up and let it sit so the garden will be ready to plant in May.

Beautiful, my fat and friendly old hen, enjoys the selection of greens and bugs available 🙂

While the roo watches for hawks, the girls are all ‘tails up’ looking for goodies. Keep scratchin’, girls!

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The Garden is done

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, garden, navi1 Comment

We had a cold snap last week, and I was home with a cold so I didn’t want to go out and do anything to the garden. Everything growing out there, except a few herbs, was cold-weather plants like cabbage, broccoli, and kale, plus the remaining chard, spinach and onions, so I let them tough it out.

Ouch! Bad idea! Everything is wilted flat to the ground!
 The winter greens…
The chard and spinach
 The sage was the only thing tough enough to look unfazed by the drop to 19 degrees!
I think I’ll be turning over the dead stuff into the rows and toss some of the cut grass from the field on there, or compost, or I have a friend with  livestock who’s going to bring over some manure to put down. I’ll let it cook until spring and then we’ll be ready to go again. Eventually I want my garden to produce year around, but I’m pretty happy with how this year went – even though the weather never cooperated for most of it. I learned a lot, and I’ll be looking forward to pickling my own cukes next year!
 
 The pasture looks beautiful. The cold has slowed the grass down, and it’s been flooded a couple times. 
Barclay the farm dog! Just hanging out with me.

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Garden Update – Almost October

On By stefrobrtsIn garden4 Comments

I did come cleaning up in the garden today. The recent rains and cold snap have finished off the poor tomato plants. They really didn’t have a chance. What tried to ripen ended up just rotting on the vine. So today I started pulling them out and putting the vines in the compost pile.

So sad, all those tomatoes that could have been spaghetti sauce, or salsa…

With the tomatoes gone, the giant fennel plant looks lonely. I still haven’t decided what to do with it. I planted it on a whim. I’ve never used fennel before.

There are carrots growing in the raised bed. It’s the only place where the soil is soft enough for them to stretch down without getting all stunty.

The wax beans are done, and I collected some beans to plant next year from them. But the Blue Lake pole beans are crazy, and were tipping the trellis over!

I picked this huge bucket full of green beans! I’m going to pickle some, and freeze the rest.

UPDATE: Last night I pickled & canned 8 pints of green beans – four HOT, four regular, blanched and froze 4 packages of beans for later, and had fresh beans sauted in garlic & bacon for dinner. Yum!
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Saving Seeds

On By stefrobrtsIn gardenLeave a comment

I think summer is officially over. I turned on the tv this morning, and the weather report described the next three days as ‘a good soaking’. Oh well. I went out to the garden and found a few ripe but rotten tomatoes off of each of my heirloom tomato plants and brought them inside. The tomatoes have been rotting before they can ripen, so there haven’t really been any for eating. Time to think about next year.

They are neat looking tomatoes, would be even better if I’d got to eat some! These are Snow White (yellow cherry), Black Cherry, Striped Roman, Brandywine (the big red one), and Azoychka (medium yellow).

So I crack them open and dig around with a spoon looking for the goopy part with seeds in it. I put all the seeds I can into the cup.

The goo needs to soak in water for about a week to let the seeds go. Then I can dry them off and save them for next year.

Hopefully next year will be a better year for tomatoes!
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Gardening, and pickled 3 bean salad

On By stefrobrtsIn food, garden2 Comments

The garden has been pretty unusual this year. I am getting green beans out of it now, enough that Dave is already tired of them. I’ve frozen some. I was flipping through a recipe book and saw a recipe for canning pickled 3-bean salad, and that sounded like a good way to use up some beans.

Dave thought it tasted ‘interesting’, which is pretty good for him, since he hates beans.

I’m getting tomatoes off the ‘4H’ tomato plant, they are kind of like big cherry tomatoes. Very nice. Martha said they were always the earliest tomatoes, and they are this year too, it’s just that ‘early’ has come really late! Next year I will limit my tomatoes a bit more. I planted 8 plants this year, filling two rows, and that was overdoing it. We trimmed the plants back to try and encourage them to finish the tomatoes they’ve already set.

Likewise a whole row of green and yellow beans was overkill. I have to remember we only need enough for two people! Of course one zucchini is overkill, but you can’t really plant less than one!

My 12 foot row of potatoes produced about a colander full of potatoes. I should have just bought some at the auction last week. They weren’t even worth the trouble! Potatoes are going on my list of things it’s better to let someone who knows what they’re doing grow.

Today I planted a 4×4 area with lettuce and winter greens (chard, broccoli rabe, stuff like that). I’m going to clear one more area for my cold frame and plant that in October. There are still chard and spinach out there, and carrots are coming along now that the cucumber plants are gone. So the garden is slowly moving into it’s winter phase. And that’s ok because today was a gloomy, rainy day, reminding us that winter is not too far away.

Garden update – pickling things

On By stefrobrtsIn food, gardenLeave a comment

This year’s garden is all about learning. I’ve been enjoying a few fruits of my labors, despite the weird weather this summer.

We’ve had lots of Yellow beans, too many spaghetti squash, and a few new red potatoes.

More yellow beans, eatin’ cucumbers, and a few precious tomatoes

And a bushel of pickling cucumbers!

The pickling cukes have been coming along all month, but even when small they were starting to turn white. I thought that meant they needed to stay on the vine, but they just got bigger and bigger. Today I went out and picked them all, and many were HUGE. None ever got that nice dark green color I wanted to see. So I went ahead and picked out the greenest, smallest of the bunch, and set them up to ferment. I really wanted to brine some pickles this year, I planted them with that in mind.

I have a food-safe bucket, and cleaned the pickles, removed the blossom ends, and weighted them down in the brine with a plate. Now I just need to clear the scum off the top every day or so until they stop bubbling, and I should have pickles. I’m a skeptic – maybe people have been doing this for 10,000 years, but I still need to see it for myself!

I think the rest of the oversize cukes will go on the compost heap. They are too big and seedy, and they’ll just get soft if I try to pickle them. It’s my own fault for not knowing when to pick them, or maybe it was just the weather this year.

Maybe I can still get some smaller cukes at the farmers market. I did that earlier this summer, picked up some from Hermiston, Oregon, and made quick kosher dills, and I just opened them this week and they taste delicious!

 And don’t they look pretty?

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Hot hot hot!

On By stefrobrtsIn garden1 Comment

I almost lost my baby cabbage/broccoli/brussel sprout sprouts to the heat (it’s been up to 100 the last few days). Today I got them planted in the dirt, watered everyone really well, and then hung a shade cloth along the row to try and keep the sun off them. I hope they make it!

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My crazy garden!

On By stefrobrtsIn garden, navi2 Comments
In my mini greenhouse (two clear storage tubs one on top of the other) on the back porch, my future winter garden is sprouting and looking for room to stretch out.

 I cleared out the lettuce and spinach that had gone to seed and laid down some fresh compost to get the beds ready for the winter garden.

There’s plenty more lettuce and spinach growing elsewhere in the garden 🙂
 Elsewhere in the garden the spaghetti squash plant is HUGE, and stretching out into everyone else’s personal space. It covers about 10 sq ft, easily! I don’t know what to do with all those squash. Better start looking up recipes…
The green zucchini and yellow squash plants are doing well, though not as insane as the spaghetti squash plant. They are producing well, but the slugs have been poaching my squash. Wort of all, the slugs just eat the tips off a squash and then move onto the next! If they would just eat one and finish it, and leave the rest for me, that would be fine, but just nibbling and moving on – that’s just rude!
Ok, it’s hard to see, but that green hedge is the mass of tomato plants. They’re quite tall and unruly, but they still have not produced much.
They tasted good, I hope this means buckets of tomatoes are right around the corner!
 The bean plants are climbing high up their trellis, and are covered in little flowers.
The cukes are ignoring the trellis and stretching out over the bed, where I have carrots planted. At this rate I might not get cukes OR carrots! The carrots are over-wintering varieties, so they should still be there long after the cukes are done.
Future pickles!
I took my extra squash and a few onions, the only things I’m producing reliably, and gave them away to friends (after Navi inspected the basket). 
The garden has been great fun so far this year. I don’t know if we have enough summer left to get some of the stuff that’s coming along to picking size – beans, tomatoes, and cukes. Only time will tell! Either way, I’m looking forward to moving on with the winter garden and seeing how productive that will be as well.
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