…that is the question?
Our beautiful chicken, Jewel seems to be attempting to crow. She’s also developing some rather manly …. shall we say …. roosterly features.
I really hope that Jewel Jim is a Jewel because Jim would be illegal in our city. I guess time will tell….which comes first; the cock-a-doodle-doo or the egg?
This weekend I went for it! It’s April and my garden is not planted yet. Why? Because Mother Nature has decided to play peek-a-boo with Spring. Spring peaks out at us and then goes back into hiding for a day or two.
Spring peaked out this past weekend and I took advantage. I planted the basil seedlings.
Tomato and pepper seedlings.
I also direct seeded beans and peas.
It was also a great chance to check in on some of my other plantings.
The artichoke looks great. I planted these last year and this is my first artichoke. Almost one-year to the date of my transplanting them outdoors. I thought they were dead this winter, but they have come back with vengeance. Now, I need to figure out when to harvest them.
The garlic looks great! I need to fertilize, but I think they are on track for a May/June harvest.
Some of my potatoes were harmed by one of the many late frosts, but most are doing just fine.
These turnip tops didn’t last long. As I was snapping this picture, I thought about a bowl of greens and promptly put the camera down and cut all these turnips down to their roots. Maybe I’ll get another flush of leaves before they all bolt. One of the positives of our slow-coming spring.
The onions are also doing well. They look even better than last year.
My first promising attempt at leeks. Looking good so far. Pay no attention to that cabbage in the corner. There is no chance it will form a head before bolting; even with this spring. It is a left over from the fall garden; I harvested a head this winter and hoped to get another one this spring. I doubt it will make it in time.
The broccoli is done and I have pulled most of them. The broccoli was good and bad this year. The good is that I harvested the most ever. All the plants yielded a nice sized head. The bad was the lack of side shoots. Last year I had one broccoli plant to yield a head followed by bowls of side shoots. This year I had about 5-7 broccoli plants yield a head and not even a bowl of side shoots. Next year, I am shooting for 7-9 broccoli plants with bowls and bowls of side shoots.
This weekend, we hope to get the coop finished and get some supports in the beds. I like to get those in early so that I don’t disturb the plants after they have gotten larger. Plus, this is a good time because the garden doesn’t require a lot of time right now…..only task now is to water.
I’m pretty excited that I’ve finally gotten things moving. We’ve had frosts the last two nights and I’ve had to run out and cover the seedlings. I had to get them planted though; otherwise, they have no chance of yielding a harvest before our summer heat brings them to a screeching halt. No tomatoes or peppers in July and August due to the heat. Now, if only Mother Nature will allow spring to stick around for awhile….things will really start moving!
I finally get my tomatoes and peppers planted this ‘spring’; only to turn on the evening news and hear a freeze warning. You’ve got to be kidding me! We are nearly a month passed our average last freeze date! I guess it’s average for a reason. Maybe the summer will be milder with fewer bugs……one can only hope.
Normally, I would have been posting a few times a week.
But this last month has been a whirlwind. I won’t bore you with the details, so here is the short version: getting ready for family vacation, family vacation, recovering from family vacation, kid with a broken leg.
Normally, I would have planted my tomatoes, beans, and other summer crop by now.
But Spring has been very stubborn this year. Last year, gardeners were discussing how spring had come so early. This year, Spring has been playing Hide and Seek with us all. Today’s high was 49.
These days, I don’t know what normal is anymore.
What have we done!?
We think that Goldilocks is a Cochin. Cochins aren’t very productive egg layers; laying about two eggs per week. The Rhode Island Red will lay about five eggs per week. We were hoping for closer to 10 eggs per week so we can share. So the only solution is to buy another chick. A third chick won’t cost much more…right?
We decided on a Barred Rock; which gives us another 5 eggs per week. We named her Diamond; see the diamond shape on her head.
She looks to be about a week younger than the other two, so I was concerned about putting her in the brooder with them. I left her in the box that she came in and placed that in the brooder. Within a minute, she had flown/jumped out of it. Sandie and Goldilocks pretty much ignored her for a while. They peaked at her a little.
She decided to take a nap because she was tired from all the excitement. They slept apart (as shown below) for the first two nights.
But after that second night, a nice family had been formed. Now they take care of Diamond and she holds her own against them quite well.
Yes, I did mention in the previous post that we expect to harvest eggs later this summer. Yes, we have been thrust into the world of backyard chickens. We’ve been thinking about chicken keeping for sometime now, but never took the plunge. A co-worker ordered a few too many chicks and asked if I wanted to take any off her hands. Sure, why not? Sure, why not?! Who says that to taking a couple of chicks!
Well ready or not, here they came. The kids were so excited. We went to the feed store and got them food, a feeder, a watering dish, and a heat lamp. We also got some wood chips. $20 later, the chicks brooder box was ready. All we needed were the chicks.
Finally the chicks arrived! Meet Sandie and Goldilocks.
I wasn’t sure what types of chicks we would end up with. She ordered Rhode Island Reds and White Rocks. Turns out the hatchery sent some extra chicks (just in case any died in transit). We ended up with a Rhode Island Red and one of the extras. We knew it wasn’t a White Rock because our chick has furry feet. White Rocks don’t have furry feet. We think this chick is a Cochin.
Isn’t she a cutie.
The chicks checking out their new digs.
Here is our setup. We have since covered the top with chicken wire and we have ‘unclosed’ the box. The box was semi-closed to get the correct temperature.
Gardeners are returning from hibernation, dusting off their blogs, pulling out their seed starting supplies, and rethinking their garden plans for 2013. Welcome back everyone. Welcome back.
We’ve started our summer crops as well: tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and flowers. We’ve even started some spring crops of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and kohlrabi. Outside, we’ve planted our onions, leeks, turnips, collards, more spinach and lettuce, and potatoes.
This year, we have mostly repeat crops, but we will be trying lots of new varieties. For tomatoes, we will do Cherokee Purple and Heinz again (our favorites from last year), but we will also try Amish Paste, San Marzano, Brandywine, Indigo Rose, Matt’s Cherry, Aunt Lou’s Underground Railroad, and Pineapple. Yea, we’ll have a few more tomato plants than we had last year. We were out of salsa two months after tomato season!
For peppers, we decided to go with jalapeno early, Anaheim and a repeat of Fish Pepper. For our sweet peppers, we decided against the slow ripening bell peppers and will try Corno di Toro, Poblano, and Alma Paprika instead.
So, we have a few new varieties, but much of the same crops. Although, there is one new harvest that we are expecting…..What is that you ask? Sometimes around June/July, we’ll be expecting our first EGGS! You read that right; EGGS.
Stay tuned 
