Major Coop Progress

Giotto

Before I show you the major progress that happened on the coop today, I'll show you some pics I forgot to put in my last post. Of course my constant companion, Giotto, now 12 weeks old. He is a good boy, although a baby yet. He is learning when I say NO! I really mean it.

He has begun to sort of "bounce" at the chickens, especially the Silkies. It's like he's bouncing on his front feet. I don't know if he thinks it's funny to scare them and watch them scatter or if he's trying to get them to play with him. He usually stops with a stern NO! and so far there haven't been any real issues.

He is also learning to sit still for brushing. He is shedding his baby coat and it is matting up, especially on his hindquarters. I had to get an undercoat rake to help get it out. But he is an energetic, wiggly, bouncy puppy and he just can't sit still for very long  at a time. So I try to work on it a few minutes in the morning and again in the evening.

 

I have some wall pots by the front door of the house. I fell in love with the idea when I went to Italy. There all the little alleys are lined with them. Most have geraniums but I also saw some with basil and different flowers. They are hard to come by here. I got some plastic ones from Amazon and found another at a thrift store. The beautiful ceramic ones I bought at a nursery.  These are planted with lobelia and sweet alyssum.

Almost finished!

I was up early and worked most of the day on the new coop.

Here's the northwest end. This end needs some trim is fill a gap on one side of the door and some sort of latch. I need to put up fence wire on the opening on the left  and fill some gaps under the bottom frame.

The inside partition is finished except for a latch on the door and filling the gap underneath the bottom board.

And here is the southeast end of the coop. It also needs the openings wired up.

mummified frog

Giotto hung out with me all day, mostly snoozing in the shade. But he did go off adventuring this evening while I finished up the painting. He brought back a mummified frog and appeared to be intent on eating it. I didn't think that was such a great idea so took it from him. He didn't object really but he did give 'that' look.

I'm not talking to you....

Harvest Monday

lettuce & other greens, violas, radishes

Welcome to Harvest Monday, a great blog hop hosted by Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions. Stop over there and visit with amazing gardeners from around the world.

This week besides the usual salads of baby lettuces, chickweed, red mustard, cilantro, sorrel, arugula and a few radishes, I harvested a bunch of carrots, some even actually a respectable size.

carrots

I also harvested some Giant Red Mustard from the large tub in the greenhouse along with some spinach and lamb's quarters to steam together, that was very yummy, but I forgot to take a pic!

Dwarf Grey Sugar pea blossom

All sorts of goodies are promising in the greenhouse, the peas have begun blooming so hopefully there will be a few pods on next weeks harvest tally.

Little Marvel Peas in Bloom

Ferry Morse Gourmet Lettuce Mix in a tub

F-B, onion, radish, misticanza lettuce, chard in the greenhouse bed

Wall pots of Sweet Alyssum smell like honey

All over Italy nearly every house and apartment, no matter how small the space has flowers growing in pots, especially geraniums. In many of the towns blank walls are covered with wall pots similar to these, full of blooms. Theirs tend to be larger and made of terracotta, some of them glazed and painted Majolica style. These are only about 13 inches across the widest part and are made of terra cotta colored plastic. I do like that they have built in saucers. They were easy to hang on two screws or nails in the wall. I got mine from Amazon after searching almost every where for them. They are not very expensive and I'm going to order some more. Wall pots are a great solution for those of us that are space challenged! I don't want the moss lined baskets because it is way to hot and dry here-those things would have to be watered three times a day even in the shade.