A lot of things in our yard are in bloom right now – we have many different wildflowers, and I planted some flowers in the garden that are currently in bloom. Here is a tour of the flowers in our yard this month:
Thanks for checking out some of my flowers.
For the last couple of months I’ve been planning on adding a second run to our chicken coop. Here’s the way it was:
For the last few weeks, my five “teenage” roosters have been terrorizing my hens. They actually gang up on them – one mounts a hen and another runs up and bites her head while the first one mounts her – once it’s over she runs away and is chased by another one who was waiting for his turn. It’s gotten so ridiculous the last few days that some of my hens have been hiding in their nest boxes. Just hiding in there, all day long.
Today, we fixed the problem. We added a new fenced run, but partitioned it so that the roosters are separated from the hens. We also are going to separate them inside the coop – The back part was the hens and teenagers (roosters and one hen), and the front was my chicks (3 months old now). Since we have to separate the roosters, they will have the back room of the coop, and the ladies and chicks will have the front part. We are integrating the babies in with the hens – I figure everything is new for everyone, so it may cut back on the drama as they get to know each other. I have at least a couple roosters in the chick batch, so if I see any mounting they will get moved in with the roosters.
We made a fence “door” that closes off either the rooster or hen side for when we are moving them in and out – this means that the roosters will be stuck outside during the day, so we made them a makeshift shelter in case it rains or they want some cover. The hens / chicks can get in the coop if they want.
The rooster’s shelter should protect them from rain for the most part, but it’s a little flimsy on top, which is good – I’m hoping that because it is, they won’t jump on top and try to fly over to the hens. We’ll have to see how this all works out.
My next step is to plant some chicken forage into the old run – I have some organic chicken forage mix seed ready to go.
Hopefully everyone likes their new run. The roosters probably aren’t so happy, but they get nice grass to wander through/peck at. My hens seem a lot happier already.
What a difference two weeks makes! I love watching my plants grow – it’s nice to look back at pictures of what it looked like a few weeks ago.
My plants are doing really well in the garden.
I really enjoy seeing my plants get bigger. Thanks for taking a look.
I LOVE garlic. I had never grown it before, and last year I decided to give it a try. In the early fall, I bought some organic garlic heads at the grocery store, pulled the bulbs out and put them into the garden. This spring I saw them growing, and they’ve grown really well. I read that you dig the garlic heads up when the leaves start yellowing. I noticed the last few days that they were yellowing, so I pulled them up today.
They were a decent size, I believe most of them were the same size as the heads I grew them from. I cleaned off the dirt with a paper towel:
I read that you should leave them to cure for a few weeks with the roots and stems still attached. I put them all together in a bunch and they are sitting outside in a shady spot on my porch, where they’ll get good airflow but not get any sun at all. I have them hung up; I wasn’t sure if my friendly neighborhood squirrels and chipmunks would try to eat them. I’ll have to keep an eye out and make sure nobody tries to steal them. Once the leaves dry out completely you can cut the leaves and roots off. Then you can store them for later use, and save more of the bulbs to grow new garlic for next year. That’s my plan, at least right now. We’ll have to wait a few weeks to see how they taste. If they are good, I’ll grow them again. The original heads I bought had a good flavor, so hopefully these will too.
One of my young roosters is very goofy – he’s kind of aggressive. More in-your-face every time we’re in the coop. He has been very friendly since he was small, but now he’s always underfoot. It’s like he always needs to follow me to see what I’m up to – as if he’s worried I’ll do something to hurt the hens or him. He likes to peck my pant legs. He bit me the other day, but that was because I was trying to pick him up, because he wouldn’t go in the coop at night. He seemed to be helping me round up everyone else to get them in, but then he wanted to stay outside. I went to grab him and he bit my hand. I got mad and just picked him up and put him inside. I’m not sure what we’ll do with him yet. I need to let him mature a bit and see how this personality of his develops. If he gets more aggressive, he’ll have to go.
For a while I was hoping he was just a very assertive hen, but he’s massive, and the other day he started mounting some of the hens, so it’s now confirmed. I believe he’s a Buckeye, and they are a rare breed from Ohio. We’ll see. I just have so many roosters! I have confirmed that three of my six “teenage” chickens are roosters. There are two more that I’m pretty sure are but they haven’t mounted anyone yet – they are just starting to get long tail feathers now though, so I’m 99% sure. I have one hen out of that batch, my little Speckled Sussex. Then in the smaller chicks I have at least one, possibly 3 or 4 roosters (out of 8 chicks). We are planning on keeping 2 or three roosters through the winter, and we’ll have to decide what to do with the rest. We haven’t picked the keepers yet; I want to see them in all their pretty rooster glory first, once all their feathers have come.
I discovered Lamb’s Quarters were edible last year. I have seen them as weeds in my gardens throughout the years. They are delicious, with a spinach-like flavor. I liked them so much last year that I bought seeds for this year so I’d have more. I didn’t end up needing to plant them. I have a ton growing all over my back garden plot this year.
They typically grow in open spots in cultivated gardens. They were brought over to the U.S. by European settlers many years ago and have naturalized – they are supposed to be found throughout the country now. They are related to spinach. They were very popular throughout Europe, and then in the 1600s Spinach was introduced from Asia; People started growing spinach instead. My guess is that they found the spinach a lot less labor intensive. I like them but they do take awhile to get ready – I pull the leaves off the stems, rinse very well, and then steam them so they wilt, like you’d do with spinach.
While picking the leaves I tend to be selective, because bugs also like to eat them. I don’t want to eat bugs. That adds to the time-intensiveness of cleaning. They cook down a lot, so if you harvest, pick double what you think you’ll need.
* As a caution, please always be 100% sure of what you are picking when eating wild plants. I first confirmed with several websites and pictures before eating these, just to make sure I was picking actual Lamb’s Quarters – better to be extra safe. I don’t believe there are any dangerous look-a-likes for these, but I may be wrong, depending on what part of the country or world you are in.
I hope you enjoyed my photo tour. I like my yard, and watching the changes it goes through during the warm months.
My new, main garden bed is doing better now, since the temperatures have been getting a little warmer. We’ve been in the 60s and 70s and most of my plants, and seeds, seem to be actually growing and sprouting now. Here are some pictures of my garden:
My back garden, which I increased in size from last year, is doing ok. I have a lot of things growing in it, most of which was not what I planted. I have a lot of weeds, but luckily they are mostly lamb’s quarters, which are edible and actually really delicious (they taste kind of like spinach). I liked the few we found last year so much that I bought seeds for this year, and then didn’t have to plant any – they grew on their own. Here are some photos of my back garden plot.
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 six “teenage” chickens are just over 3 months old now. I’m still working on figuring out the sex of each of them. I read that at 3 months you can start to tell by the saddle feathers whether they are male or female – males should have pointed / longer saddle feathers, and hens should have rounded ones. (Saddle feathers come down the sides in front of their tail feathers). It would probably be easier to tell if my chickens were all the same breed, but they are not. That complicates things quite a bit. For awhile I thought I had 5 roosters and a hen. But there are two that seem to have rounded saddle feathers, and they aren’t that long. But one of those crowed at me awhile back (which I’ve heard is actually not a very reliable indicator – hens can crow too). And like I said, they are all different kinds of chickens. Here are some updated pictures of my teenagers. (Sorry for the quality of some of these).
On another note, we haven’t been getting that many eggs lately – we went from about 6-8 a day to 3-4 a day on most days. I figured it’s been stress from the combining of chicken groups. Last week I found one of my white adult hens was getting broody – every time we go in the coop, she’s laying in the same nest box. At first I thought “oh, cool!” and figured she could raise some chicks if she gets them to hatch. Then I realized that we haven’t had an adult rooster in a few weeks, so those eggs are not fertile. A day or two after I realized that, she got up and I found a few eggs under her, so I took them out, and tossed them since they may have not been very fresh. (When in doubt I toss them rather than risk it).
I hadn’t looked under her all this week, since each time I go to try to move her she pecks at me. I keep forgetting to bring gloves into the coop. I figured she probably had a couple eggs under there, so I would just wait for her to get up and toss them – well, today, I was in there taking pictures for this post and saw that she had gotten up. I went to check the nest box and she had TWELVE eggs under her! That is at least part of the reason we have not been getting so many eggs. She’s been in one of the ladies’ favorite nest boxes, so I bet that when she gets up to eat, they go in and lay an egg, and then she sits on them. I’m going to toss a pair of gloves into the coop, in my supply bin that the chickens can’t get into, and then I can check daily for eggs if she stays broody.
My tiny u.p. farm 