Garden and Chicken Update from 8/3/2015

I was out of town at an anatomy workshop the previous week so there is no meal or meal plan to post about. 

However!

In chicken news, 13 roosters went away last week for processing.   That left the Husband with 9 girls and one rooster we've dubbed "Red".  Red is an Ameracauna and promises to be a very pretty bird (and a mostly quiet boy).  He's got a red body, iridescent green tail feathers, a black patch on his chest, and various coloring in between.  He's a bit hard to photograph right now, so pictures will come later.

This also means the Husband does not have quite the number of hens he wanted to carry through the winter, nor the number that would naturally keep his coop warm.  In very quick fashion, he built a "chicken cruiser" for the garden (think mobile chicken coop), and we procured some birds for sale off of Craigslist.  The other option was to buy another 15 chicks and go through the whole brooding/butchering process again in November.

Which means we're putting those birds to work!  Now they can start earning their feed.

Which brings us round to pictures of my Summer garden.  No veggies this year due to remodeling the house, building a coop and raising chickens, but the flowers did really well.

Enjoy!

August 2014 Garden Update

Garden is doing really well as we move into August, 

and I had enough photo's to invite you along on a tour.  

Welcome to my garden!

 Maroon clematis on the left, a pink trumpet clematis on the right.

Purple cone flowers

Hops on the back fence, raspberries in the background on the left, and the flower bed in the foreground.

We have framed beds, not raised.  Each bed is approximately 4' x 16'.  Just wide enough that I have to go around to the other side to weed.  Woodchip paths with landscape fabric underneath provide access to everything and help keep the weeds down.

We have 7 beds for veggies - flour corn, drying beans, cucumbers, herbs, butternut squash, 3 tomato plants, one hill of zucchini, and one bed that has our peas, kale and Swiss Chard.  One bed with blueberries and one with summer and fall raspberries.  And two flower beds.  Well, three flower beds actually, because one is outside the fence. 

Yes, there is a 6' high fence around the entire garden.  A necessity if we don't want to have the deer partaking.  The butternut squash bed is also outside the fence since the deer and rabbits leave the prickly vines alone. 

 The mix to the right was a annual flower packet I tried and had success with.  Pretty in pastels! 

I've been partial to daylilies for years, and I found the dianthus seed back really well in my garden so I let them do their thing. 







Some of the flower beds are in a bit of transition.  I'm yanking out the pretty but weedy iris (I will leave some, but not as much as has self-propagated over the years) and replacing with daylilies and dianthus. 

The new and improved flower bed!

The bed on the right was, until Saturday evening, a mess of weeds, overgrown iris, field yarrow (damn invasive stuff), ferns and grass.  After we bought the daylilies Saturday morning, the Husband ripped out 8' of root-bound crap so I could plant our new purchase.  Yay Husband!  

Front: Dill growing everywhere.  Back: Corn and beans.

And my favorites, the violets!  They grow in all these little cheerful clumps and I just let them self-seed back.  I never know quite what I'm going to get or where they are going to pop up.  

The Husband's favorite clump of violets.

Garden Takedown 2010

Almost ready for winter - oregano bush and carrots in the foreground.

 With first frost several Sunday's ago (temps dipped down to 28*) it’s time to start wrapping up the garden. Since day time temps have been in the high 60's, we’ve got a good start this year – corn has been done for over a month, hot peppers longs since picked and pulled, dried beans came out a couple weeks ago, winter squash came out two weeks ago, and zucchini and tomatoes this past weekend. We bought a small tiller last year and that is making a big difference – both in speed of fall bed prep and saving my back.

We still have a fair number of fall crops in, one of the blessings of living in a northern climate (zone 3-4). Carrots, parsnips, onions, cabbage, Swiss chard, and kale all do well into mid to late October depending on the year. In fact, we can over winter our parsnips right in the ground and enjoy them come spring.



Rainbow Swiss Chard, Kale, and Cabbage



Fall garden prep goes a bit beyond just picking – there’s the processing part too. Even the winter squash needs to sit outside to cure a bit before we can bring it in and store it in the basement. I love growing dried beans; so very versatile with good shelf life, but it takes time to shuck the little buggers. The husband and I took advantage of a beautiful fall day, sat on the porch in the sun while doggies ran around and shelled two paper grocery bags of Northern Beans. We would have had more but some late fall rains drowned out part of the bed. Still, final weight was just over 4lbs. Not bad!

We have about 10 winter squash of various sizes. Not a record, but not the worst either (that was last year with one small squash). 

I've already mentioned we've canned zucchini relish and hot peppers.  Next up will be apples.  They are already indicating they are not going to store well this year so I need to start drying some, make pies out of others, and perhaps can or freeze some more applesauce.  We have several bags of frozen cherries and raspberries to make into some fall cobblers.  Yum! 

Summers last hurrah - the clematis is still blooming!

Garden Update

With Summer drawing to it’s languid conclusion, I’ve been busy busy busy trying to wrap up various yard projects and still have a bit of fun. Much to my surprise, despite our very cool summer, my garden has done all right.

I pulled out the peas a couple of weeks ago as powdery mildew was taking over and they were mostly done anyway. My zucchini has been coming on nicely; not so much that I’m overwhelmed, but enough that I can have some and give some away. The corn is ready to eat right now and I grilled a couple cobs on Sunday night when I had the parents out for dinner. Tomatoes are slow to ripen, even with my makeshift green house. The swiss chard is absolutely fantastic and I’m wondering when I should be picking my brussel sprouts and how.





Since the garden can be left alone to do it’s thing these days, I’ve been busy with a couple landscape projects: a retaining/decorative wall along the north side of my garage and a smaller decorative wall along my front lawn.

The Greater Wall, as I am calling it, is basically finished. I’m waiting for the sand to settle behind the blocks before I put down landscape fabric and rocks. The whole wall is about 40 feet long and has little steps on the far end.





The Lesser Wall is completely finished – that was my Labor Day weekend project.
To date, between the two walls, approximately 250 blocks have been moved in this endeavor and probably about 5 yards of sand.



But lest all that seems relatively dull, we had some further excitement:



Yes. A skunk. He showed up one morning and hung around for an hour. Not good when I need to leave for work and the two hounds need to pee before being kenneled. Then he was back the next day. Dogs and skunks are a bad combination; beside the obvious potential for being sprayed, skunks can be a carrier for rabies. The last think I wanted was a dog-skunk encounter. So the not-so-little skunk needed to be removed from the area. Two weeks after our first sighting, he was caught in a live trap and taken away.

Garden Update

I can safely say that this is going to be one of the more unsuccessful years for a vegetable garden. With daytime temperatures that have stubbornly refused to go above 70* and nighttime temps consistently at 50*, it really doesn't make for a good growing year.

However, it has been good for the peas, brussel sprouts, lettuce, some of my herbs, and Swiss chard. It remains to be seen how the dried beans, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini do. Winter squash and corn are a bust.



On the other hand, it has been a delightful year for the flowers. They are still lush and full. Sunflowers are struggling a bit - they too like hot weather, but there is still time...maybe...



And I have been very busy with a yard project (other than mowing). I have started a retaining wall on the north side of my garage. It was initiated as a "lawn reduction program" (I didn't want to keep mowing this bit). Back in May I went out and purchased 275 stone blocks (woot! they were even on sale the day I bought them!) and a couple weeks ago a co-worker came out and we got a good start in laying about 12 feet down. My Dad came out a different day and we plunked down another 12 feet. I have about 15 feet left to put down, but that part of the wall will only be a couple of blocks high.



Kia checking out the new blocks.

Then the rains came...3" worth, and I discovered I had some erosion issues. Erosion control consisted of building a set of smalls steps. Subsequent rain has proven the effectiveness of this endeavor.



Stay tuned for more garden updates as we move into Fall!

Garden Update!

Hooray! We hit 82* this past weekend! It was wonderful...a light wind kept the bugs down and made for working outside an absolute delight!

As of Sunday, this is what is up and growing:
peas
radish
lettuce
cabbage
carrots
Swiss chard
corn
parsley
basil
cilantro
onions
parsnips
nasturiums
some marigolds

Planted as plants:
brussel sprouts
peppers
tomatoes (I had to snip off some flowers already!)

Still waiting on:
summer squash (one has come up...)
winter squash
soldier beans (just replanted on Sunday)
great northern beans
rest of marigolds
dianthus

Half of garden with tomato "greenhouse"

Since the garden is in I can now concentrate on small putsy projects around the yard. I finished planting my container pots on Saturday, put in some moss roses by my Japanese pagoda, finished the landscaping off the side/front of the porch (big HOORAY!, washed out Ben's pool, put up the kennel shade, watered the compost piles and added some enzymes to help with composting, watered everything and measured out my next landscaping project - a retaining wall along side the garage. I have the rocks, I just need to start digging the trench.

Finished landscaping!


So now it's just a matter of keeping up with the mowing, working on the projects and watering!

Happy June! Garden update

Well, I think I have set a new record - I made exactly two new recipes the entire month of May. I honestly do not recall the last time I made so few. Wow. Why so few? I just haven't been in a cooking/baking mood; I've been outside working on garden and landscaping and by the time I'm done it's almost 8:30pm at night; and I was gone for four days over Memorial Day weekend.

Good news - the garden is almost completely in! I just have the tomatoes, peppers and brussel sprouts to plant; and one bed to dig up and plant to dried beans (Great Northern variety).

To date I have planted:
radishes (up)
carrots (up)
lettuce (up)
swiss chard (up)
parsnips
snap peas
summer squash variety
butternut squash
corn
soldier beans
cabbage

Flowers (from seed)
nasturiums
dianthus
marigolds (some came up - I was a bit too early with these)
moss flowers

The landscaping around the house is nearing completion. I just have to apply a bit more sand then I can put the plastic down and start hauling the rocks. It's just one side of the house that's left - whew! If I get off my tush and get outside (rather than sitting here blogging) I should be able to get some sand moved today.

THEN! I can start with the retaining wall on the north side of the garage. I think it will go quickly once I get the Dad out to help with the base layer. Once that bottom row is in it's just plunk! plunk! plunk!

And there is the never ending lawnmowing. Typically during June I'm mowing 2x a week. I have one lawnmower in the shop right now and they said it would be three weeks before it's done! I sure hope my second lawnmower doesn't poop out!

So there it is. No recipes but a garden update. I hope to pick up on the recipes again once the gardening/yardwork calms down. Vegetarian Times and Cooking Light both had some yummy looking recipes that I would like to try.

Garden Update, May 09

This past weekend was the first time this year I was really able to get out into the yard and garden and get some decent work done. The ground had thawed and was mostly dry, it was nice and sunny, the wind was blowing briskly enough to keep temps on the cool side.

I've puttered a little bit in the yard before this - I got the front and side yard raked, dog poo picked up (when you have two dogs and it's been a long winter, there is A LOT to pick up), and some of the residual garden debris cleaned out of the beds.

On Saturday, I was able to start working the soil in the beds. I have eight 4' wide by 16' long garden beds, and about 6 flower beds of various sizes. I got two garden beds tilled so the soil will warm faster, and one flower bed tilled up.


The hounds are less than impressed with my new statuary.

On Sunday, the folks came out with my cement Japanese pagoda and to help with a bit of yard work. The Dad and I moved rocks and sand while the Mother weeded my most neglected flower bed. This raised bed has my peony's, miniature daylilies, and some iris and was being over taken by crabgrass. Crabgrass is my penultimate enemy - it gets into everything!

Landscaping around the house - last side!



The main garden. Clickity clickity to make it bigger.

Where I live I am in gardening Zone 3 - I shouldn't even THINK about planting seeds until Memorial Day weekend. But I did - my Aunt Connie gave me a packet of seeds last winter and I planted them yesterday. I had instructions to plant them last fall, but with my soil and temps, I know they would have just rotted. We are expecting some rain and warmer temps this week, and the bed is on the south side of the house, so we'll see if this works.


The peony bed. They are just starting to come up!