I had to cut the grass in the back yard on Saturday and Tracey filled up the yard debris can with cuttings from the flower and shrubbery beds. I worked through the compost heap and its ready to go on the garden, nice moist fresh humus with big fat worms in it.

The chickens are each laying an egg almost everyday and clearly enjoying the lengthening daylight and warmth.

I think I need to start prepping rows in the vegetable garden next weekend, whoa.

I walk past the empty rows every morning on my way out to the chicken coop and think about what we’re going to plant this year. I don’t have the entire plan figured out yet, but I’ve started making notes and at least have my February plans set.

I was very happy with the success of broccoli and onions the last 2 seasons. I definitely plan to start seeds inside this month to get a jump on those. They went in the ground in mid-March last year after 4 weeks inside and did great. Just need to remember to put them in a cool part of the basement. They did not like it in the furnace room where it was 72F. Once I moved them to another area that was more like 65F they were so much happier.

We ended up with so many viable broccoli starts that I gave 8 plants away to the neighbors. I need to scale things back a little this year, but am going to stick with the Upqua, Thomson, and Southern Comet varieties from Territorial.

As for onions, I just did the Mercuries last year and they were good.  Need to find one other variety to add in.  We had about 1oo seeds come up indoors and they all transplanted fine.

Gotta get rolling, March will be here before I know it!

Chupacabra

While we were at the coast last weekend, something got Flossie out of the coop and ripped her head off.

Yes it was gruesome.  Picture what that Thanksgiving turkey neck looks like when you pull it out of your bird from the store, and if it were still attached to that skin flap up around the shoulders.  Covered with bloodstained feathers….the severed head only a foot or so away, lifeless eyes sinking into the skull.

Here’s what we know.

The other chickens were unharmed, but definitely freaked out.  There was a small corner of wire that was pulled back, so I guess that’s where the attacker jerked her out of the pen.  The wire run was mis-shapen like something was climbing on top of it, but intact.

I had been getting slack about locking them in at night this summer as nothing seemed to be bothering them.  The new chickens were roosting on the food trough and the older ones were on the door sill to the coop.  I figured with all the cats in the neighborhood, there were plenty of food bowls full of Meow Mix on back porches that were easier to get than my chickens.

Needless to say that I have gone back to making the effort to go shut them in every night.  Also it looks like the creature came back again at least once this week.  The water jug and food trough were flipped over again and the hole in the wire had been re-opened.

I was thinking raccoon, don’t see how a dog would be able to get into the fenced yard, and a cat isn’t going to mess with 4 big chickens, then be able to drag one out through the wire.

I told the story to Andrew and he has come up with the mostl likely explanation:  CHUPACABRA!

The back yard hasn’t gotten much love though, and my list of things to do out there is getting longer everyday.

• Rake the leaves
• Mow the grass
• Put the lawn furniture away (making Tracey’s adirondack chairs will hve to wait for next year)
• Pick the last carrots, lettuce and peppers
• Thin out the collards and chard
• Pick and shell the pole beans for planting next year
• Start eating the parsnips
• Hoe out the remaining stumps and dead vines from the summer veggies
• Plant crimson clover to cover
• Get some spinach, lettuce, and endive greens in the ground under the cold frame

I plan to start a big compost heap in another week or so, once I get all my materials gathered.  Plenty of chicken manure and bedding to go in with the garden refuse.

I’ve got a plan to reduce the garden size by 50%, I hate to say it but it was too big this year.  I think we will be better served by going with a rotation system and being more focused with our vegetable efforts.

More on that soon.

Mabel and Daisy are just about grown up.  They are plump now and within about a half pound of where Flossie and Mambo are.  Their combs are starting to fill out and now “cluck” instead of “peep”.

We got them in mid February so that makes them ~4 months old.  They should start laying at about 5 months if they are on the same schedule as Mambo and Flossie were last year.  So maybe in another few weeks?  We’ll see.

I started letting them all spend time together in the big run about a month ago, and it was a tough adjustment for the new ones.  Mambo is definitely at the top of the pecking order and she would jump up on the new ones’ back and go at them if they got too close.  Flossie was a little more laid back, but would help Mambo chase them off if they got too close to the food trough.  Lots of flying feathers and squawking going on, but I only saw blood drawn once.  Things seem to have settled down now though, with Flossie and Mabel being the centrists, Mambo on the aggressive side, and Daisy the meekest.  Its been interesting to watch how the merger has played out.

I extended the run off of the main coop with some vinyl coated green fencing, so they have ~10′ x 2′ x 2′ “tunnel” to run in.  We haven’t been at the house to put them to bed each night and lock them in like we used to, so I am not sure if they are all sleeping in the house or not.  I doubt that the old ones are letting the new ones in there though, its more likely that they are just roosting on the feed trough.  I would prefer that they go inside to lay once they start producing eggs, but not sure how to facilitate that.

I am not in the mood right now to take on a coop re-design, so I will need to think about it some.  Anyone have suggestions?

We have had some great vacations over the last 4 weeks in Florida and Montana.  Unfortunately during one of our absences, we had a bathroom sink leak upstairs, which lead to a cataclysmic series of events that affected all 3 floors of our house.  So we’re now in the middle of a major 3 month, unplanned, insurance-funded remodel.  As anyone can imagine, there are lots of huge hassles associated with this, one of which is that we have not been able to enjoy our garden as much as we had planned.

Luckily, its pretty self-sustaining at this time of year.  About 75% of what we had planned is in the ground, and we’ve had some help from neighbors to keep an eye out while we are gone for hot days to run the sprinkler.

The huge bummer is that we have been back and forth to the Residence Inn every night, not sure where dinner is going to be, and therefore have missed out on the best spinach, broccoli and salads so far.  Sure we have eaten some, but its not the same as telling Bayard and Amelia to run out and go pick veggies for dinner in the 10 mins before we sit down at the table.

So, now we are back in PDX for the foreseeable future, no big trips planned and we are trying to get back into the swing of things at the house.  Amelia is taking naps in a tent in the back yard, the contractor has the kitchen and basement fixed up the point that we can move in there this week, and we did some major yard and garden tending this weekend in between the rain showers.

The spinach was done a few weeks ago, I got it in 3-4 weeks earlier than last year, but it bolts so fast that you have to be quick and focused on it with your dining plans to really enjoy it…sadly we weren’t.  The two varieties I planted fared about the same, couldn’t really see any differences.

With the spinach all gone, one of those rows is now planted with pepper starts that I bought at Garden Fever this weekend.  I had planned to do seeds inside like I did for the tomatoes, broccoli, and onions, but missed my window due to the house issues.

The broccoli is pretty much done, there are a few edible side shoots that have not quite gone to flower and gotten too woody, but they lack the sweet sugary flavor they had 2 weeks ago.  Fear not, the direct sown rows are growing vigorously and we will be back in broccoli in another few weeks.  Last thing on this…no aphids whatsoever on this first round.  Not sure if that is because it went in so early, or something else, but I’m going to be keeping an eye out for them.

Lettuce and radishes were business as usual.  I have thrown little rows in whenever I have a vacant spot between plantings. keeping a good succession going so we are staying in salad all summer.

Chard is great, ready to start eating.  It has been a no-brainer the last two years.  Just put it in, do a little thinning, then enjoy the leaves all summer and fall.

Carrots are still a few weeks away, they always fool me by taking longer than I think they should.  Definitely a longer time to maturity than other things planted at the same time.

Onions are about done, the tops are starting to fall over.

Tomatoes are worth talking about.  We have way more than I thought we would.  Getting them going under the lights in the basement, re-potted as they out grew two sets of containers, and shuttled between cold frame and tunnel cloche took some serious experimentation and effort.  But we seem to be seeing results as measured by the crazy growth we have going on 16 different plants in 3 rows.  I had orignially planned about half this many plants and figured we would see some die off once they went into the ground.  I even went so far as to dig some up and move them after a few weeks becuase of overcrowding, but they all not only survived but seem to be thriving.  I had to run around the neighborhood to borrow stakes and cages from neighbors because I ran out.  The determinates are bushy with flowers and some fruit showing.  The indetermiantes are climbing stakes like crazy.  A couple are over 5 feet tall.

Strawberries are wrapping up, I bought a few starts of cucmbers and squash at Fred Meyer to fill out some empty space and we are pretty much on auto pilot  for a while.

Its good to be back in the yard.

I have an excel spreadsheet that I call the “Plant Gant” to guide my gardening activities.  You can see a snapshot of it below.  A PDF version is here plant-gant-rev5, or if you want the actual excel file, email me and I will send it to you.

Plant Gant

I compiled this from planting recommendations in Steve Solomon’s book , the Territorial Seed catalog, my notes from last year, and data from the NOAA weather web site.

Each variety is listed on the left, and then the corresponding soil temperatures for planting, and days to maturity (which is the day I can expect to start harvesting).  Each respective colored bar then extends out through the growing season, with the cross hashed areas being the harvest time.  Some varieties have a “Cold Fr” date for when they move outside to the cold frame, and “Tran” means when they are actually transplanted into the ground.

As you can see, some types have multiple plantings, so there are lines for each that extend over different time periods.

Obviously I tweak this a little based on the weather, but so far I have been pretty much sticking to it.  I find it to be a great reference and planning tool for figuring out what I need to do each weekend, and more importantly when we can start expecting to get food from the garden.

Last weekend we started by pulling out the last of the clover, and I want to share the best way I found to remove it.  I tried Tracey’s Garden Claw that she bought a few years ago.  (I now publicly apologize for teasing her about buying a “Billy Mays type” infomercial product.) You just twist it in the clover and it loosens it up just enough to pull right out, roots and all.  The crimson clover really was a great cover crop for the winter.  The soil is immediately workable, and the dirt comes right out of the roots with only a few shakes.  We fed handfuls of it to the chickens, they get really excited when they see me pulling stuff in the garden, they love eatin’ some greens.  Then the rest went on the compost pile.

Speaking of compost, I must say I am pretty pleased with how my heap came out this winter.  I chopped up the stuff we pulled out of the garden at the end of season, added leaves we raked in the fall, the grass clippings from the mowing, and chicken manure.  I turned it regularly for the first 5-6 weeks, and kept a piece of plastic over it to keep most of the rain off.  When I started digging through it early this spring we had about 7 wheel barrow loads, with a great texture and smell, and lots of worms crawling throughout.  We added some to each row as we prepped the garden this year.

It feels cool to have completed a healthy cycle of renewal from one season to the next with our little backyard  farm.

In terms of a plant update, things are going well.

The broccoli that began as seeds in mid-February is starting to take off with the longer daysl and we are excited about having some to eat in a few more weeks.  The 4 rows of spinach are happy and big enough for me to eat the leaves as I thin them out.  The two different lettuce mixes are all up and requiring thinning every other day or so.  The Mesclun Blend is really yummy, lots of spicy varieties in there.  The peas are all up and getting more bushy.  I have read that they like being crowded so no thinning for them.  I planted an entire packet of seeds in two side by side rows, about a foot apart.

The tomoatoes in the cold frame are ready to go in the ground, they are pushing up on the glass and starting to get bushy.  They ones that are still in the furnace room are really getting big, and need to move outside as well.  I think I will put all of them under a tunnel cloche this weekend, and then we get a warmer string of days, I will get them in the ground.

New seeds that went in this weekend were two kinds of radishes, a row of chard, two more rows of broccoli, and two rows of carrots.

Funny thing about the chard really quickly.  We had two of the plants from last year survive the Snowmageddon we had hear around the holidays.  Temps in the teens and 1-2 feet of snow and absolutely no protection.  Pretty amazing as far as I am concerned.  Now these two plants are leafed out to the point that we can start picking some to eat.

Back to the carrots.  I want to share the planting method that I got from Steve Solomon.  It works great for small seeds and keeps you from wasting a bunch on excessive thinning once they come up.  You take about a cup of sifted compost (I just rub it between my hands to break it up and pick out the bigger chunks), and then mix in a 1/4 tsp of seed.  You then pour this down the row and you’re done.  You end up with good spacing and it speeds things up tremendously.

I will add some pics to this post in the next day or so when I get them out of the camera.

Some veggies are in the ground.  We’ve been working over a few rows at a time with cutting the clover, working in the roots, adding an inch or so of compost, some organic fertilizer, and raking and hoeing it into mounds for planting.

The weekend of April 4th, we transplanted the broccoli starts.  They needed to get in the ground, the pots I had them in were getting too small.  The next day they looked much happier with some more room for their roots to spread out.  Hope they survive the tough spring.

The same weekend, we planted 2 areas with spinach, 4 rows total of two different varieties.  They came up within a few days, despite the cool soil (~48F).  We put two differnt lettuce mixes in as well and they popped right up also, so the greens are moving along.

Last thing we did was transpant the onions I had started.  These were really easy, you just shake them apart and plant them individually.  I had done about 10 per littel plastic tray cell (per Steve Solomon) so we eneded up with about 100 or so plants.

Getting tomatoes started has taken some trial and error.  I started a batch of early oregon varieties and also some big slicers, in the same room where I had grown the broccoli and onions.  It was apparently too cool for them in there (~62F).  They grew, but laid over and never got husky stems, seemed pretty week.  So I moved them back into the furnace room (72F) and they perked up.  However I still have my doubts about their long-term viability so I started a whole other round of them in the furnace room.  They are MUCH happier in there.  Nice strong stems, fast growing, lots of leaves, etc.  I water them every 1-2 days with warm water with a little bit of Miracle Gro mixed in, about 1/8 tps per gallon.  I know the chemical fertilizer isn’t ideal, but I want to increase my chances of having strong starts, and when they go into the ground, they can be 100% organic from there on out.  The first batch I mentioned is now out in the cold frame and seems to be doing well despite a few nights in the upper 30s.

The peeps are getting bigger everyday.  They seem to like the coop I built for them and have been sleeping out there since they were about 5 weeks old.  They had feathered out pretty well, so I was only a little worried about them getting too cold, but they’ve been fine.  Another reminder about how easy chickens are to raise.

The fruit trees are still dormant, haven’t seen any buds yet, so keeping an eye on those.

This weekend is forecast to be warm and sunny in the low 70s so its going to be time to get some more stuff planted.  Will let you know how it goes.

Bayard, Amelia and I went to Mr Plywood over by Mt Tabor and got some 2x2s to make an additional run for the chickens.  Our idea is to put this one next to the current coop and let Flossie and Mambo start to get a look at Mabel and Daisy.  Then once they get to be a similar size we will join this new run up to the coop and they will all have a larger area in which to roam.

Using 2x2s and “non-pilot hole” wood screws made building this run much faster.   I used 1x2s before and it was a pain to keep the joints square and the wood from splitting.  This time I got a 28″ x 31″ x 54″ box built in under an hour.

Bayard got the hoe and I used the shovel to turn in some of the crimson clover that we had covering the garden this winter.  We only got about half of it done, as the roots are pretty substantial. But the soil is in great shape and we should be able to start planting in a few weeks once we get some compost and complete organic fertilizer worked in.

We were also distracted by Amelia learning how to catch chickens.  She followed them around the garden saying “Its OK Daisy, its OK Mabel”.  (This was their first time roaming so we we kept them inside the fence).

"Come here Mabel..I won't hurt you"

Very funny becuase although Amelia was fairly gentle with them, she was not afraid to pounce and get a good grip.  You can see from the photos that she learned the trick of flipping them over on their backs to get them to relax.

Daisy perching