Harvest Monday

October 12, 2015

First, some pics from last week. Here is the damage to the coop. I will not show you the damage to our flock (you’re welcome). Raccoons ripped the door clean off!

On a lighter note, we had a more varied harvest this week. We had our normal tomatoes, raspberries, and green beans. We also harvested some carrots, celery, our first peas, and cucumbers this week! This week, we boarded up the coop to keep the raccoons out. Since the chickens did not have a chicken door to go in and out of the run, we opened the big door and let them free range a couple of days. They ate into a watermelon a bit so we went ahead and harvested it. Thankfully, it was very sweet 🙂 It’s nice to get a late watermelon (we aren’t as excited in September when we are eating them every day)!My husband put up a new wall on the side of the coop and an overhang. For some reason, that side of the coop alone has been rotting over the past three years. Raccoons had already ripped a hole into another part of it previously but were (thankfully) unsuccessful at gaining access.

I put the shingles on the overhang this past week (quite the feat for this 24week pregnant old lady!) and painted the first coat of paint. I am going to paint the second coat on the wall this upcoming week.

I also need to re-cover my brassicas (uncovered because of high winds of Joaquin), plant some more greens and root veggies, harvest, and spread compost this week. I am having the hardest time getting everything done now that we’re doing school again. The kids concentrate better in the morning so that is when we do school but most of my energy is gone by 1pm, when we’re done with school, so gardening as gone by the wayside. 😦

Check out what other gardeners are harvesting at Our Happy Acres 🙂

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Harvest Monday

April 27, 2015

We are harvesting spinach every other day from seed planted the first of March. I have been planting more every two weeks. We are just starting to harvest a little from the mid-March planting. I plant about 8 square feet each time. I am going to double that for next year. I would like to be able to harvest some every day.Our lettuce and kale are growing nicely but it will be awhile before we are able to have a different type of salad green. That is okay. Spinach is our favorite salad! I grate some apple to put on the spinach leaves and that is how we eat it every time. YUM!

Other harvests that will be coming soon are peas and strawberries. I planted our strawberries last March. They looked great last year and spread like crazy. This winter, I covered them with chicken manure and woodchips. I was so nervous they would not come through but they have and I have never seen such healthy-looking plants OR a strawberry plant with so many blooms! Pictures just don’t do them justice. One of our last bulbs has bloomed. Now we’re just waiting on our tulips. The bulbs are just starting to some up.We have spotted some green on our fig trees we ordered this winter! The tops are dead…But we saw green at the bottom! I have never had fig trees before. Should I cut some of the tops off or just let it be and see what happens? Our other fig is not showing any green.

Are you harvesting yet? Or are you planting like crazy, like me, dreaming of future harvests? Check out what others are harvesting at Daphne’s Dandelions.

Btw, here’s the latest modification on the chick’s coop:We no longer have to transfer chicks (little or big) into a coop at night. The mama hen takes the baby chicks into the coop straight into the dog crate while the bigger chicks have a separate door to go into the same coop. All that is left to do is to add roosts and to paint it. Who wants to do that for me? I would rather work in the garden then paint a coop

Making Gravy…

April 22, 2015

Now that we have 16 hens, 2 roosters, 10 pullets, and 5 new chicks, we have had to do a bit of shuffling this week. The mama hen and chicks were itching to get out of the dog crate so we let them have the pullets’ tunnel. The hens and roosters previously had 3 runs we rotated them between to let the grass replenish. We made one of those runs into the pullet run.

When we hatch out chicks, we let them in with the hens pretty soon, because they have a mama to protect them. However, with pullets we buy, we have to keep them separate much longer. We are going to keep them separate for about 3-4mo. So, next on the TO DO list was to make a coop for the pullets. Once they are 3-4mo, we are planning on putting them in the main coop, with the rest of the flock, so a large coop was not needed.(his support system 😉 ) Almost done (sundown Tuesday) ! Hoping to finish today.

I was planning on planting all of my warm-weather seeds this week. We’ve been working on this instead 😉 If the weather cooperates, maybe I’ll still get everything planted by the end of the week…maybe.

As we sat on the couch tonight, exhausted, the word ‘pigs’ came out of my husband’s mouth. REALLY!?! Don’t worry, mom. We’re not getting them…yet 😉 This is just how the farm life is, I guess 🙂 We got chicks two years ago, fed our family from the garden last year, got more chicks this year, are planning on feeding 4 families from the garden this year, are getting honey bees next year…Like Making Gravy!

Chicken Coop Update

March 21, 2013

Coop building seems to be never-ending but here, at least, is an update.

Day 1: Get Materials (ReStore for Habitat for Humanity)

Build Floor and One Wall

Day 2: Build The rest of the walls, level, and put up plywood

Day 3: Roof (the coop plans we got off the internet came sans roof so this was completely flying by the seat of our pants!)

Crazy windy! and we ran out of tar paper…on to…

Day 4: Finish the roof (with shingles left over from our house and my MIL’s house) & put wire on vents (between roof and walls) to keep critters out.

Day 5: Door (aka: Bane of my Existence)

Day 6: Locks (pictured above), Chicken doors, and a Roost

We still need to put handles and locks on the chicken doors. The chicks were getting WAY too big for their box though so we nailed the doors shut for now and the chicks are in the coop!

More pics to come later, i promise! They are growing by leaps and bounds!

I was really nervous the first night and day but they are doing really well and I am enjoying my clean kitchen without all of the fluff in our food 😛

In the next update, I’ll show pics of the area that was cleared that will be their run, more chick pics, the tractor that we are in the middle of building, and any other updates. Like I said, NEVER ENDING.

For anyone new to the chicken gig (as I am), the reason for the vinyl and table under the roost is for easy clean up. It is easier to wipe vinyl clean and it does not rot, as wood would.

Our chickens (once no longer under a heat lamp) will be outside all day. When they are little, they will be in the tractor, prepping the garden for planting, and when they are larger and laying, they will be either in the tractor or in the spacious run. The only time they will be in the coop will be at night, when they will likely be roosting most of the time.

Therefore, most of the poop will be concentrated on the table under the roost. Whenever necessary, I will take a hoe & scrape the table clean (to use as compost tea in the garden) but the rest of the coop floor (covered in hay) will not get very much poop on it so it will not need to be cleaned but once or twice a year. Talk about a time saver!

I am linking to Simple Lives Thursday, as moving the chicks to the coop makes my life easier 😉 And even though having chickens, especially building a coop when we have never build anything EVER, does not make life simple for the moment, it will make our lives more sustainable in the future!

March 11, 2013

Just wanted to let you know I’m still alive 🙂

We are in the middle of building our chicken coop.

Day1: get all of the materials, build floor & 1 wall.

Day 2: build the rest of the walls.

Day 3: finish coop…well, mostly…well, that’s the plan anyway. Day 3 is tomorrow. Pics will be up as soon as we’re done.

Right now, the chicks, though only a week old, are HUGE. Their wings are in and they are hop/flying enough to make me nervous, as they are still in a box in my kitchen/living room. They are eating and pooping like crazy. They are cute to look at but I am ready for them to be out of my house!

I planted some peas and carrots yesterday and am planning on planting some more seeds in my greenhouses…again, pics to come. Thx for being patient!