May flowers

Well, things have been growing well in the past month.  We have had tons of lettuce and bok choi as well as a few strawberries.  I just wanted to post some updated pics!

our grapevine

our squash

spinach, lettuce, carrots and onions

cucumbers and brussel sprouts

brussel sprouts, bok choi, tomatos, peppers

more peppers, tomatillos, eggplant

bok choi, and peppers

peppermind, parsley, catnip and arugula

lavender, sage, strawberries, oregano, chives

another view of eggplant, peppers and tomatillos

Jay's new quail cage

Jay's garden

butternut squash and corn

corn, tomatoes, and pepper

closer look at the tomatoes

from the other side

eggplant

closer look at Jay's quail

Overall our garden is coming along nicely.  The chickens are still fat and happy and we will be getting 8 more next week so expect new baby chicken pictures!!

Hand Feeding Time

I took some pictures while I was hand feeding the girls the other day.  Some of the pics are kind of blurry, but the chickens wouldn't hold still!  Damn birds!  LOL I really enjoy how friendly they are!

More Spring Planting

Well, we got more plants in the ground/containers last weekend.  We had to expand the garden because we have so many plants this year.  Let me give you a run through.

This is the eggplant we planted next door at Jay's.  There are three of them.

Here we have our poblano and 4 different types of tomato plants.  Three of them are red tomatos whose size should be from 5oz to 1 lb, and yellow super sweet cherry tomatos.

This is our butternut squash.  We shall have to see how it does.  It is supposed to be vining, hence the trellises. Jay has corn planted between the tomatos above and the butternut squash.  He planted three rows, I hope it does better this year.

In this expanded area we now have the following: tomatos, brussel sprouts, bok choi, cucumbers, serrano peppers, jalepenos, habeneros, anaheim peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, purple bell pepper and garlic.

The onions, spinach, lettuce and carrots are still growing well in the raised box.  Kandle is regularly harvesting the spinach and lettuce.  Our yellow, zucchinni and flying saucer squash are growing and expanding nicely.  I also built a new 8 ft tall trellis for our grapevine to use this year!

We also planted oregano, parsely, chives, majoram, sage, catnip, peppermint, lavender, and strawberries in hanging baskets on the porch.

Overall, I think our garden is going well.  Had to cover everything up with towels and blankets because of the freeze this morning, but I'm hoping everything make it just fine!

Early Spring Planting 2013

Well, in the past several weeks we have been getting out new garden built and our old one tilled and ready to plant.  I created a raised bed that is 3.5 feet off the ground at the base and 4.5 feet at the top where the plants are.  I did this so we could raise spinach, lettuce and such without having to worry about the chickens getting into it and be able to move it around the yard to get the best sun.  Here is a picture.

While you can't tell how tall it is, it is 3ft x 8 ft x 1 ft on the inside for planting.  You can see our spinach and lettuce with onions down on the far end.  We also have carrots and mesclun planted from seed, so they aren't up yet.  All of these are cooler weather plants, so hopefully they will do well before the heat sets in.

Over in the larger garden, we have planted some brussell sprouts and bok choi with the left over onions in the smaller bed where we will plant tomatos in about a month.

We added the black fencing this year to keep the chickens out while everything is still growing.  It won't be such a big deal once the plants get established.  The garden beds are 2ft x 8ft and 5ft x 8ft so we have decent planting room.  We added about 8-10 bags of cotton burrs for compost and tilled the crap out of it.  I prefer to use cotton burrs rather than manure, Dad usually buys manure and I tell him it is because he is just shitty.  :D 

Kandle also cut back the grapevine and I'm planning on building a trellis for it in the next few weeks.It should look nice.  Plus over in that area we also added 10 bags of topsoil and 8 bags of cotton burrs and Jay tilled it and tilled it until the dirt really worked a lot of the clay loose and mixed well.  This is where we typically plant the okra and where Jay likes to plant his corn.

Overall we have really gotten a jump on our gardening this year.  Normally it is April before we get started and then we are late and so this year I'm really trying to plant according to the Farmer's Almanac.  So we shall just have to see how it goes!

Pecking Order

Well before Christmas we tried to mingle the chickens but Rose was pecky about it and we lost Gossip, Ren and Stubby before we separated them for a while.  We allowed Rose to wander around in the yard and left the babies in the coop.  It was the strangest thing to open the back door and find Rose sleeping on our doormat next to our dog Riplee.  Or we would find Rose sleeping on the dog cot out the back door.

Also, when I would take bread out to hand feed Rose with, the dogs wanted some too.  I would break off a piece to feed to Rose, then Rhody, then Riplee and back to Rose.  Now if I wasn't fast enough for Rose, she would start jumping and trying to take a piece out of my hand before it was her turn.  It was quite cute but a little annoying at the same time.  She still follows me around the yard hoping I have food to give her.