Visitors & the Chicks go Outside

snake in the garden

Yesterday while working around the yard I saw/heard something move really fast. It was a different sound than the lizards make running across the dry leaves and a different motion. It was this long thin snake. I think it's the kind we used to call 'racers' because they move really fast. Certainly not a poisonous type. I told it was welcome to stay and eat rats and mice, that I wouldn't begrudge it the occasional toad or lizard, but it best stay away from the eggs & the chicks!

The hens check out the new chicks on the block

The morning I finished fixing up an old cage and rigging up a small pen inside the bigger chicken pen so the chicks can live outside and not in my living room. They aren't quite fully feathered but with day temps hitting 100+ and night temps not below 60 I think they are going to be just fine.  The hens & the rooster all gathered around to check out the chicks when I put them in their new home. When the chicks get bigger I will fix the end of their cage so that they can go in and out, but the hens won't be able to get into it. That way if they are getting picked on too much they will have a retreat.

Mr. Roo

The rooster is not too sure about these goings on. While working on the chicks pen I didn't get the gate shut all the way and Mr. Roo and a couple of hens made their escape. I shooed Roo and a hen back in and shut the gate while chasing the last wayward girl. Roo was running up and down the fence scolding; whether at me for making the hen fuss or at the hen for not getting back inside I"m not sure. When I caught her and put her back in tho, he was still fussing at her and pecked her on top of the head.

Harvest Monday

little artichokes

Well it's Harvest Monday once again. Many thanks to Daphne's Dandelions for bringing us all together!  This week I harvested these three tiny artichokes. There are a couple more buds out there, but I'm afraid they might be even smaller. I don't think my soil is rich enough yet. Maybe next year they will grow bigger.

Chicks in the garden.

I've been terrible about remembering to take harvest photos! But there have been lots of eggs, my usual salad mix, although less of it and of course the mache and claytonia are long gone. Some greens for cooking, red mustard, chard and lambs quarters mostly. Since it's warming up I did spot some red root pigweed the other day; this is a wild amaranth and the leaves are good greens.

Sometimes I let the chicks out in the front garden, they are still small enough that they don't do too much damage to the larger plants. They have a great time chasing bugs and taking dust baths.

On Sunday I harvested a some laughable broccoli shoots and finally more than two strawberries.

Broccoli and strawberries.

This fall I will get the broccoli started a lot earlier, give it more manure and more space. That should take care of getting decent sized heads next year. Although the taste is fine, it's a bit embarrassing to be an experienced gardener and have your broccoli turn out like this!

My posting from Sunday will give you a virtual Garden Tour.

Garden Tour

Front yard path

Things are really moving along here so I thought I would give you a bit of an update.

Here's the front yard path, oreganos in the pots, sweet peas on the arch, the red farther down are oriental poppies. The tall tree, right mid ground is the apple in the driveway bed. The tree on the left in the back ground is a self sown elderberry which is blooming. Remember you can click on any picture to see it bigger.

Bonanza Dwarf peaches

The little Bonanza peach tree has a good fruit set.

Salad Bowl Lettuce

The patch of Salad Bowl lettuce in the shady front yard bed is about big enough to start picking.

Granada, the $2 rose

The Granada rose that I got for $2 last fall has some buds showing. It is dwarfed by the bearded iris and green onion going to seed.

pink rose

This big pink rose grows at the end of the path in the first picture. I don't remember it's name, I'll have to check my garden book. It has some fragrance, but not that much.

potato bed

Here's the potato bed out front that I planted in March. I gave the bed a good soaking yesterday and mulched it with some straw. I'll have to buy another bale this week to finish up.

potted potatoes

Out back on the patio the potted potatoes are doing well.

Currant Tomato

I potted up a Currant tomato into this planter and gave the very last plant to my sister when she came to visit yesterday. Do you recognize what the support is?

Princepe Borghese, green tomatoes

Also on the patio the other tomatoes are growing like crazy, the little Princepes are loaded with green fruit.

Potted Peppers

I moved the pepper plants on up to one gallon pots yesterday.

Back yard garden

Here's an over view of the back yard garden. You can see the greenhouse on the left. On the fence left of the gate is the Fuji apple I planted this year. On the right side is a Grimes Golden planted in 2009. The beds down the left side from front to back, Red Pontiac potatoes, three sisters, lettuce and turnips, then bolting lettuce. On the right, bolting lettuce, tomatoes, onion and parsnip, brassicas. Going across most of the back are the Mammoth Melting peas and behind them, the bean trellis.

Red Pontiac potatoes planted in January

 

 

Three sisters, the beans aren't up yet

Bolting parsnips

tomato bed 8 Amish Paste

Broccolis

bolting lettuce, chard, red amaranth

Mammoth Melting Peas

Greenhouse, cantaloupe, nasturtiums, chard

strawberries

Epazote and purple petunia

This Epazote and purple petunia volunteered in a pot of lettuce.

The red mustard is flowering

beans and cantaloupe in the coldframe

Purple bean flowers

Red root pigweed, a wild amaranth

With the warmer weather comes a new edible weed, red root pigweed, a type of amaranth. The small leaves are good in salad and when they are bigger, as cooked greens. In good soil with extra water it will go to 6-8 feet.

Lamb's Quarters

Lambs Quarters is another edible weed, used the same as the pigweed. Where it grows in drier poorer soil its a bit tough so I cut those for the rabbits.

Apples & Mushrooms

baby apples

Despite the crazy weather we've had this spring, this apple tree managed to bloom after the late snow and has set the best crop it's ever had. There are several clusters like this of 5-7 little apples. Of course the tree can't support that many apples, so this afternoon when it cools off a bit I'll be snipping off all but one apple per cluster.

This tree was tagged at the nursery as a Granny Smith but it is not. I think it might be a Grimes Golden or some other summer apple but it is definitely not a Granny.

Guess ;-)

And an update on the mushroom experiment. (For more about the 'shroom experiment, check out this post) For about a week it just sat there. I misted with my well water (no chlorine) twice a day and for the most part the bucket smelled faintly of coffee grounds.  Then I noticed a change. Some white fuzzy stuff began to appear on the surface and instead of sinking in, the water I sprayed began to collect on the surface, as if it couldn't sink in. And the odor changed. I'm pretty sure the white stuff is the mycelium (kind like roots of the mushroom) and not mold. It doesn't smell moldy or gross or anything. In fact, it sort of smells, well, spicey. Yeah weird, I know.

Harvest Monday

First Homegrown Artichoke

Monday, Monday, Harvest Monday.... I look forward to this time each week, where we can share our successes and commiserate over the not so good stuff (I refuse to call them failures; if nothing else they are compost!) Thanks Daphne's Dandelions, for being our hostess and getting us all together!

I think my most exciting news this week is picking my very first homegrown artichoke. As you can see it's a bit on the small side and I may have picked it too soon (there was absolutely no 'choke' in it at all). But I was worried about our temps hitting 96 and it going past it's prime too quick. Well, it was tender, delicious and absolutely wonderful.  I don't think I've eaten a fresh arti since I was a kid and we lived in California. I always thought it was great fun to be able to eat with my fingers and get messy and nobody said anything to me because they were doing the same thing!

After I cut this one I could see that there are three more little ones hiding underneath it! Soooo looking forward to more!

Of course I had lots of eggs, (and sold my first dozen!) lots of salad, the Mammoth Melting peas are coming on strong too. And I discovered that even when they are getting lumpy they are still sweet and delicious, they just get a string like an old fashioned green bean. There were a couple of bug eaten strawberries (discovered the culprit, it's the pill bugs aka potato bugs aka rolly polly), a couple of spears of asparagus and a big of broccoli.

The chicks have a good time playing in the greenhouse.

The chicks are growing fast, losing their fluff and growing real feathers. Every day that I can, I put them out in the greenhouse where they are reasonably safe as long as I'm around the yard. At this time it isn't predator proof so I can't leave them out there all the time. Besides which, the far end is where the rat hole is, so I couldn't leave them in there at night, large rats have been known to attack sleeping chicks.

Chicks Day Out

Buff Orpington chicks

Well here are the chicks, enjoying some time outside in the green house. They had great fun running around eating bugs, worms, bits of chickweed.

dust bathes

Then they took a dust bath and later settled down behind some pots for a nap.

west end of the greenhouse

While the chicks were playing I took down the plastic that was shredded in the storm the other day. It's warm enough I don't really need it. It's looking a bit bare since I pulled the Dwarf Grey Sugar peas out. I also took out two large pots of lettuce that were getting bitter.

You can see the chunk of concrete wall  laying on it's side that got pushed over a couple years ago while taking out an old tree stump. It's just too big and heavy to move so I'm just working around it for right now.

concrete wall

So what I'm probably going to do is just build up a rock wall between the chunk of concrete and the wood framed bed on the other end and make another planting bed here. Maybe I'll plant some more cantaloupe in it.

Tomato Planting

olla

Well I took out that bed of brassicas that weren't doing much and fed them and the weeds to the chickens. I think a big part of the problem was the bed was too dry and I didn't realize it. I decided to plant my 8 Amish Paste tomatoes here.  To help with watering I bury this olla (unglazed clay pot, about 2.5 gallons, I think) in the middle of the tomato circle. You then fill it with water and the water seeps out the sides of the pots over a few days. I would love to have a lot more of these, but I only have one. Since this bed will hold two large tomato cages, I put the olla on the end of the bed that gets the hot afternoon sun and dries out the worst.

claypot waterer

What to do for the other tomato circle? I had a 12" clay pot and found a stick that would exactly fit the drain hole to act as a plug. After adding some sulfer and potash to the bed and some rotted horse manure, I dug the olla and claypot into their positions.

tomato cages with clay pot waterers

I then set up the tomato cages and pounded in some rebar to stake them. This is very important, a few years ago I didn't do this, thinking that burying the bottom six inches of the wire would be enough and a bad summer storm took both cages over, doing a lot of damage to the crop.  My cages are concrete reinforcing wire with 6x6 inch openings, so I can get my arm to the center for picking. The cages are sized to fit into a 4x4 ft square. I plant four large size tomato plants on each one. In other years with slow, cool springs I can then wrap plastic around the cage to keep the plants warmer. In hot summers I drape shade cloth or even old white sheets over the sunny side to help prevent blossom drop in the heat. I will put scrap lumber or flat rocks over the tops of the clay pots to keep out mosquitoes and rats. I did get the tomatoes planted, but by then it was dark so no picture.

Another hint for growing melons of any kind. I don't do this with the clay pots because they would just get really crusty with the fertilizer salts, but I sometimes bury a 1 gallon pot in the middle of where I plant melon seeds and always run the hose into the pot. Then if I need to feed the plant I'll fill the pot with manure or compost, adding in blood meal, potash or kelp meal. That way every time I water the melons are getting a nutrition boost.

Harvest Monday

homegrown salad!

Well now another Harvest Monday rolls around; gosh some weeks just seem to be flying by and I'm not always taking a picture of every harvest. Linking up to our hostess, Daphne's Dandelions, hop on over and visit with gardeners from around the world.

Of course I harvested salad this week, although the lettuce harvest is a bit light, there being a slight gap between the old lettuce getting too bitter to eat and the new baby lettuce being big enough to pick. Besides lettuce there is sorrel, lambs quarters, chives, radish and viola blossoms.

first strawberries

The straw mulch helped keep these strawberries from rotting, but some kind of bug or maybe a small bird was tasting them. However they were ever so sweet and delicious. Can't wait until I have more plants and can get more than a taste!









Besides these of course there were eggs, some greens for cooking (red mustard, lambs quarters, chard) and lots of peas now that the bed of Mammoth Melting Sugar are producing.

storm damage

And the storm we had a week or so ago caused some shredding of the plastic on the greenhouse.  You can see the Dwarf Grey Sugar peas here. They are even more pathetic looking now. I've been picking off yellowing seed pods and when I've got most of them then I'll feed the vines to the rabbits and chickens and plant something else in the tubs.

You can see more stuff going on around the garden in my post from Saturday and the one from Wednesday.

Also, I've gotten my harvest totals, feed totals and chicken page all caught up. A quick scan of this month's harvests tells me that we are likely going to be at about half of what we had in March. I think this is mostly because I don't have my lettuce succession down yet, so will need to work on that.

More Happenings Around the Place

Pearl Oyster Mushroom kit

So my mushroom spawn finally arrived. Here you see a 5 gallon bucket with a big bag of coffee grounds dumped in, the instruction book and the bag of spawn. Seems pretty simple; mix up the bag of spawn with the wet coffee grounds, cover the bucket with the perforated plastic bag (included) mist twice a day with non-chlorinated water and wait about a month ;-)

View into part of the front garden

I got those plastic urns at a yard sale a few years ago for about $3 each.

Oriental poppy

The splash of red in that last picture is this, the first Oriental poppy of the year.

Salad Bowl lettuce seedlings

In a shady corner of the front yard is some Salad Bowl lettuce. You can't really see it here, but towards the upper left are also some dill and sunflowers coming up.

potatoes are sprouting

Most of the potatoes that I planted last month are beginning to show above ground now. When they get a little bigger I'll mulch them well to help keep them cool.

laundry sink becoming water feature

Over on the terraced garden an old laundry sink is in the process of becoming a new water feature.

west side planter

The planter below the kitchen window on the west side of the house has one or two pea plants that escaped the birds, along with sweet alyssum and snapdragons. I'm going to plant some beans along here.

Princepe Borghese

And here is the promise of tomatoes to come! The Princepe Borghese are making little green ones all over.

Buff Orpington chicks

Well I just couldn't help myself. Since I ended up with only one BO hen I grabbed four chicks when I saw them at the nursery today!