Raised Bed Garden Update

I thought I better make my garden blog look like I have a garden instead of only a chicken house or two. Here are a few current pics of the raised bed garden.

My broccoli is so puny. The plants are beautiful and big but the florets are tiny. Does anyone know why this is? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I amended all of the beds with mass amounts of compost this year so fertility should not be an issue.

The peas are not nearly as tall this year as last year. It got hot here early and stunted their growth. There are lots of peas on though, and all they need to do now is plump up. In the right hand corner of this picture you can see a sad and weedy looking bed. There are beets growing in there, I promise. I think I weeded out some of the actual plants early on. That will teach me to wait until I am sure what they look like before I weed anything. The other bed of them is growing a little better. They aren't big yet and I don't know why but this is my first year growing beets and I will just have to wait and see.

Here is a closer picture of the lettuce bed. I thought I would get decorative with the planting this year and that may have been a bad idea. It looks kind of silly to me and now some growth is disproportionate to the others. We did have our fist salad out of the garden last night and it was very good. This is the lettuce that my daughter assured everyone that came by was the best ever grown. I am glad she likes homegrown lettuce.

And finally I have a shot of the potatoes growing in bags. These were slow to get going but they are growing great guns now. I have 3 different kinds; Red LaSoda, Yukons and Red Norlands. The Yukons were the slowest to start and I was sure they must have rotted. I added a lot more compost to each bag today and will continue to do so until the end of summer.

Last year the summer was cool and everything in the "cool weather crop" category was a major grower. I was so excited as most of it was new to me. This year the heat hit early and hard and I can see the reverse is true for my early season crops. If you don't like the weather in Idaho, I guess you just wait for the next year. They are never the same twice in a row.

Yikes! More Garden Visitors

Ewww, look at this! Doyle said "Don't freak out when you see a snake in the new garden. It's just a big water snake, it won't hurt you." So I diligently looked for it and this morning Doyle saw it again. 

 

Now that I know he is there, I won't pass out when I see him (or her). But I definitely walk with a little more caution when I go down to the new garden. The new garden is just a few feet away from the edge of a parking area outside Doyle's shop. It is based with shale and then coved and compressed in road base gravel. I knew there was potential for snakes, I just hadn't seen any yet.

 

My husband swears it is just a water snake and that they are good to have in the garden. I hope he is right. I am not a fan of venomous snake bites. In fact the thought makes me downright sick to my stomach. But wait it gets better..........

 

He or she has friends. This one was laying a few feet away, tied in a knot and catching some sprinkles from the sprinkler. It must have been napping because it didn't leave as fast as the other one did. A brave snake is way worse to me than a scaredy cat snake. These snakes are not tiny either. Both were at least 2.5 feet long and as big around as a garden hose. Maybe that means they can eat voles whole. One can dream. We watched which holes they went into in the rocks and now I know what to avoid. Maybe they will eat whatever is eating my beans. Do snakes eat grass hoppers? Boy, I hope so!

They Are Finally Here!

The laying hen chicks that I can finally become attached to and they won't become dinner, soon or ever, are finally here and I am so excited I can hardly stand it!!! Can you tell? My dad would have a stroke if he knew I used that kind of a run on sentence. He doesn't read this blog so I am safe. Don't tell him:-D

 

It really is still amazing to me that chicks can ship the day they are hatched and arrive in good shape. Ours came from a hatchery in Texas and all arrived alive and are still that way. The USPS called at 8:45 this morning and told us to come get them. We were ready for them. I had to work so Doyle picked them up and unloaded them into the stock tank that will be home for the next couple weeks. The big brooder is in the chicken house so all our overtime to finish it is for a  good cause.

 

I will say that I ordered 30 girl chicks and only 27 showed up. Someone working in the hatchery can't count. Kind of ticked me off but it is what it is. At least the ones I got are all safe and sound. The other gripe I have is that I am pretty sure they also shorted me some Gold Laced Wyandottes and added more Black Australorps but didn't mark any of that on the incorrect packing slip. Of course I called to express my feelings. But I was nice and they promised to refund the price of 3 chicks. I am anxious to see what I actually got over the next couple weeks. I may be calling again. It wouldn't irritate me if they took ownership of the problem but I had to wait 3 months to get them as it was and now the order is wrong. I also paid extra, almost double to get pullets, which are girl chickens, and the packing slip says that straight run was shipped on at least one breed. That means I will likely have roosters and I don't want roosters. But maybe the roosters will be the life of the party!

 

Aren't they cute? They seem so small after you look at the 4 week old meat chicks. They are not housed in the same place but I still feed and water the others and they look like Baby Hueys, as my friend Brenda calls them.  So I thought I would share what has completely consumed all of our time of late. Seems kind of anti-climactic after all the preparations that took place but their new home is a palace and I am so excited for them to get big enough to check it all out.

The Final Touches

 

Are you all tired of reading a garden blog solely dedicated to the preparations for chickens? I promise plants are coming but this is currently what takes up all of our time. Our son-in-law layed the linoleum for the coop floor this past weekend. Ryan actually does this for a living so expert help is always appreciated! I must admit he lays tile and hardwood more but that wasn't in this chicken house's budget. Maybe the next coop:-D

After the flooring was in we started the 'droppings table'. This is a handy dandy little bench below the roosts that will catch all the night time droppings. That way they won't foul the wood shavings on the floor so fast. It will also make it easier to use a large putty knife to scrape the droppings into a bucket to add to the compost pile. I had planned to paint the OSB on the inside but we used the smooth side out and I am now out of time. I don't really think the chicks will know the difference. 

 

And finally a picture of the roosts in place above the droppings board which Doyle added linoleum to for ease of cleaning. He is really a thoughtful guy. I still need to rub the roosts with used motor oil to combat possible leg mites but that can wait until I have some used motor oil. The chicks won't be needing the roosts for at least 3 weeks so I think I have a little time. The big old feeder is ready and the light will be plugged in first thing in the morning. The chicks should be here via USPS by 8:45 a.m. tomorrow. I have to work but Doyle promises to take lots of pictures. I hate to miss out on all the fun stuff. We have 30 pullets on their way and I will update you all as to how well they survived their trip. I hope as well as the meat chicks did. My fingers are crossed.

The final question I still have to find the answer to is what to landscape around the coop with. Is there any such thing as chicken proof flowers and shrubs? They will free-range on the days I am home and I want them to keep the bug population down but I don't want to spend time planting things they will likely eat. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. The chicken house is located on the edge of the little orchard we have been planting for a few years so I thought foundation plantings might be nice.

Chicken House Update

Progress on the chicken house has been great! I feel like we are almost done now and that is a huge relief. We began trimming it and have two sides done, two to go. We still have to build the pop doors but the holes are framed and ready. We also have to put gravel in the run on top of the hardware cloth bottom. And then we need to lay the linoleum and build the roosts and droppings table. The coop is wired for electricity and so close to done. I will still need to paint but the siding came pre-primed and the fresh milled trim and battons can wait a while too.

 

My husband has admitted daily that he hates to build things of this magnitude. I suppose we won't be building a new home anytime soon. But I must say that for folks with no building experience at all, we have done a decent job and it should stand for a long time.

 

This is the enclosed run. The winters here can be pretty snowy so we wanted a place they could stay outside without slogging through the snow. We will add gravel over the hardware cloth bottom. Nothing should ever be able to dig into this coop or run. I am still thinking some kind of playground would be fun for them too!

 

And finally- an update photo on the meat chicks. They were 3 weeks old this past Tuesday and they are at least 6x bigger than when we got them. They eat a ton but we take their food at night so that they don't eat themselves to death. Very gluttonous birds. I am still hoping they become less cute so that eating them isn't so awful. All 50 are still alive and kicking and so far no spontaneous deaths have occurred. Thank goodness. I don't want to be the one to find one in the morning.  The laying hen chicks will be here on Wednesday and I am happy to say we will be totally ready for them. It was a race but Doyle has been a building fool for the last few weeks and so much progress has been made.

Progress In The New Garden

So far so good in the new garden. The wide rows have been shaped and the hills for cucumbers have been mounded. Corn rows are planted and everything is going well. We added 3 inches of wood shavings to the permanent walkways and will add more to finish is the next few days. Already that has made a tremendous difference in how muddy my feet get when I am out there. The corn, tomatoes, peppers, onions and cucumbers have all been planted and I will finish planting squash, zuccini, beans and melons tomorrow. This garden is primarily for the warm weather plantings and the raised bed garden has been fully planted with all the cool season crops this year.

These are the planting areas to the east of the main north/south walkway. The picture above this is to the west of that same path. I still need to add wood shavings to my paths on this side, but you get the general idea. I can already tell this garden is going to be labor intensive as it has been constructed in our north field. I am just worried about grass growing off of bits of root still in the dirt. But the highlight is that the soil seems happy and healthy. The worms are amazing in this ground and I hope they continue to be happy here. I need their help.

We're Getting There!

We are finally getting there! Whoohoo! Some things on this building project seem to not make much difference, but getting the framework up for the enclosed covered run helped. There will be a door to access the run here too, but I took pictures before we framed it in. On the main roof we were short one 12'6" piece of tin and will need to reorder all the tin for the run. Somehow what we got was only 6'3" and we need 8'3". Not knowing who's mistake it was, we will just order more and have some extra for the next old roof that needs repair. I was already trying to figure out what we could build next. I think Doyle is on builder's vacation after this project is complete. He is not a fan of the construction gambit.

I think this will look remarkably better when it is all trimmed out. Right now the windows look funny and it just looks incomplete. I suppose that makes sense since it is not done. The wiring will be completed this weekend which will include a BBQ to pay the boys for the work. I think I got the better end of the deal on that one. We also only had one roll of 1/2" hardware cloth so we will need more (lots more) to finish enclosing the run.The whole floor of the run will have the wire bottom and we will pile gravel and then dirt on top of that. This way nothing can burrow in from any angle. I hear weasels are heck on chickens. This thing really ought to be Fort Knox as far as critter control goes. So, I just thought I would share our progress to date. The chicks for this house should be here on June 3rd. It would be so nice to have them in the coop instead of the house.