Update garden and new little chicks

So yesterday we got the new hens... well iddy biddy hens they are....

not even sure you can see them too well but the bigger white birds where the iddy biddy ones from the last post.  The Rhode Island Red hens are about the same size here as the meat birds were when we got them.  It is easy to see how fast they grow. 

We have had soo much rain the past week that the garden hasn't done a lot of growing.  We need more sun.  Today is nice and the next couple.  The next update will probably show more progress.

from front to back - pak choy, radishes, jacob cattle bean, kale, peas, rhubarb,and behind that are some winter squash



front to back - winter squash, to left jacob cattle to right cherry tomato (had a little space to stick in a few more items)
behind that more pak choy and the strawberry patch behind that is the slope where cucumbers, summer squash, beets and more radishes live, then along the fence at the bottom of the hill are some sunflowers. 



in the foreground is the herb garden - camomile, basil, oregano, caraway, wormwood, rue, more basil, lavendar and various sorts of wildflowers - not blooming yet
behind the herb garden to the left are carrots, chard, parsnips, our blueberry bushes, then corn
and behind them the pole beans.

My grandson will be here next week, so maybe we'll work on a little weeding expecially in the perennial bed and then I'll post some pictures of flowers.  The peonies are blooming and iris and columbine too.  I'm just too ashamed on the condition of the beds to post pictures just yet.  I went down on Tuesday and did a little work, but they're in bad shape because of neglect.  The flowers bloom reqardless of my lack of attention, but they look a lot prettier if I spend some time there weeding and fussing over them.

I'll write more later.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Lil chicks

This was last week... they've tripled in size since then.  Time for a new picture.  These are the meat birds.  It's have to believe that in September they will dress out at 11-12 lbs.  They just grow incredibly fast.

The Garden continued

We has a little excitement in the chicken coop today.  Mr. D went into the coop to collect eggs.  I was in the garden not far away and soon I heard him yelling for me to come.  I came as quick as I could and he had a board across a metal trash barrel.  He told me to go get a lid big enough to cover the can.  We have lots of barrels, so I ran and grabbed one quickly.  Inside the can was a fox.  Apparently Mr. D had caught him in the act of terrorizing our hens.  He had killed 3 and was looking for more.  Well in my opinion once they get the taste for chicken there's no coop safe from that fox so we did the only thing we could and that was his demise.  It's a sad thing for the fox, but happy for the hens who will not worry about him again.  I don't think he was very healthy anyway.  It looked to me like he was suffering from mange and had quite a few ticks.  I took pictures of him, but didn't want to post any here.  There are many out there who are not happy that you have to kill any animal, but farmers know there are some limits.

The garden is doing much better after the recent rain.  Strawberries got a little too much water just when the berries were developing, but we picked all the red ones we could find and hope the rain will ease up now and the rest will be good too.  They sure are yummy.  We don't grow enough to save them up, but we enjoy them right away.  I had mine with some yogurt.  Yum, Yum. When Brandon come next week maybe we'll have enough to make some shortcake or have some over ice cream.

Here what the garden looked like this morning:

Amazing what a little rain will do.  Notice the cover over the strawberries.  If we didn't do this the Cedar Waxwings would be all over them.  Sorry the pics are so blurry.

This is only about 1/4 of the garden.  The corn is also up and the squash, cucumbers, tomatoes etc are all doing well.  I'll take some better pictures next time. 

Hope your gardens are all doing well this year.

The garden is in and started - From last week....

I wrote this last week, but of course did not get it edited and posted.  So here we go...

Progress on the garden...

On May 28 we tilled the garden.  For two days before that we hauled in a couple loads of manure and put in all the compost and chicken manure from last year.  This makes the soil rich and dark and great for growing veggies.  We also get plenty of weeds, but the soil is soft, so pulling weeds isn't a huge issue. 

We planned out all the spots for the veggie seeds we had... here's our list from earlier...


Miragreen - peas
Gotta Have - It corn
Ozark Beauty - strawberries
Gentry Hybrid - summer squash
French Breakfast - radishes
Macintosh apple tree
Herbs ...
Sage
Dill
Basil
Thyme
Marjoram
Jacob Cattle - beans
Romano - pole beans
Straight Eight - cucumbers
Burgess Buttercup - winter squash
lots of winter squash seeds, lettuce, carrot, pak choy seeds left
Ruth Bible beans

Some were ordered, some were saved from last year....

We planted some other things too...
Lavender
Several different types of Basil to see which we like the best.
Pak Choy (free seed)
Kale  (green -eating and also flowering)
Beets
Carrots (from some free seed that were given to us)
Lettace (free seed)
Since we pull the last of the Parsnips we planted some of those, but we won't be harvesting them for a couple years.
We planted three variety of winter squash that we especially liked from last year all from saved seeds.  The planted we started early are doing well.

I also planted some flowers in pots for sunny areas.  I can't see paying such high prices for flowers.  Some of these that I planted are prennial, so they will be back next year too, some are annuals which will only be around this year because we have not space to keep them indoors.

Nothing purking yet... was very dry for a couple weeks....

to be continued.