I haven’t posted in a bit, I’ve been really busy… and we’ve had a ton of rain. The garden is doing ok, things are growing slowly, and my seeds (and second sets of seeds I had to plant) are sprouting, mostly. I planted two types of corn, on either side of the garden. The yellow corn I planted has sprouted, the plants are about 2 inches tall. I got maybe a 70% sprout rate though. My white corn has done nothing that I can see. The seeds were packed for 2014 so that may be the problem. I plan on adding more yellow corn seeds soon.
I had to replant seeds for cucumber, and some for zucchini. I don’t know if they damped off when the seedlings were put in, but the original cucumber seedlings had all died and I have one original zucchini; I had put in 4 seedlings. So I added new seeds; They are now sprouting.
I planted some rows of onions, carrots, beets, and turnips. In that garden, I have a TON of lamb’s quarters (weeds), which are actually really tasty so that is ok. I have a bunch of turnips. I think I have one or 2 onions coming up, and 5 or 6 carrots, and 3 or 4 beets. I will add more seeds for those this week. I’m not sure what happened to those. I did notice a beet growing in my pathway, so the seeds must have gotten washed away somewhat.
We have had a lot of rain. It rains almost daily, and our temps have been in the 60s or so, sometimes into the 70s, but still not as warm as it could be. The rains aren’t very warm rains either. The garden is trudging along. It will do better as we get a lot more sun. My sunflowers are doing ok too, so that makes me really happy. I haven’t had a sunflower grow for me at this house. Last year I lost every one I planted to deer. This year they are planted inside my fence.
Last week, I got home and the chickens were mixed together. From my driveway I can see the babies’ little run. I parked and saw adult chickens in there. I went to see what was going on, and somehow the door that divides their coop space (inside the coop) was left open, so the adults and teens (which are pretty much adults now) were all over in the chicks’ area, and my chicks were scattered. There were 3 huddled in a corner, one hiding behind a food bag, and the rest were outside hiding behind the coop. The adults scratched up the chicks’ run, so it’s a lot more muddy now than it had been. I got them all sorted out, and we’re making absolutely sure that we lock the inside coop door, so that it doesn’t happen again.
As soon as the chicks are 3 months old, around July 20th, I am going to integrate them together. I cannot wait! The reason for this, is that our current adult chicken run is a disgusting muddy mess. We are going to add a second fenced-in run area, an area which currently has grass, and then integrate everyone into that run. We’ll then cut off their access to the current run, so that we can fix the mud problem. I would also like to plant it with some chicken edibles, so they have stuff to munch on over there. The muddiest spot is right at the door from the coop to the run, so we need to figure out what to do there – maybe put some kind of patio (brick/concrete) there so that it doesn’t turn to mud as soon as it rains. Once everything on that side is fixed and plants are growing, I will start cycling the chickens between runs – so they can eat down one side while the other side is growing, and then we’ll switch them to the new grown stuff, and so on. With all our rain, the run doesn’t dry very well, or for very long, and then the teens don’t like to go to bed at night when I put them in, so it takes awhile to get them all in, and we end up trudging through mud, and they all have muddy feet, and it’s disgusting. I do lure them in to the coop with treats, but I have to wait until they are all in and the door is shut, or they take their treats and run outside; then I have to chase them in. Ahh… chickens.
My tiny u.p. farm 