2012 planting finally!

Yesterday was gorgeous outside-I heard over 75 but I didn't check myself. Jen and I went out to get our starts and seeds in the ground.  We had a few beds to turn and lots of seeds to plant.  The soil amendments done this winter seem to have worked beautifully, while we turned the top layer of straw in the soil was soft, crumbly and full of worms.  yay!  One of our best skills is making good dirt.

The chickens got a lot of the extra straw and some weeds, fern cuttings and various other bits so they spent the day eating greens and turning their run.  In another few weeks of warm weather we're going to be able to pull out quite a bit of compost which I'm pretty excited about.

We planted seeds:

• shrub peas
• sugar snap peas
• green beans
• parsnips
• carrots
• onions
• cucumbers
• summer squash 
• scarlet runner beans
• sunflowers

We planted starts:

• cucumbers
• zucchini

We  still need to plant all of the tomato starts and some more summer & winter squashes which I will probably get to this afternoon since I'm not working. (after kayaking of course!)

I'm really excited about having a garden again this year and I'm still contemplating a yummy chicken dinner if the chickens don't start behaving better.  The past 2 days seem to have a bit of a truce with Sammy & the "4" (Henrietta, Henny Penny & Lunch & Dinner) so perhaps they are safe for now.  I'm hoping this truce means some of Sammy's feathers on her head will grow back -I wonder if bald chickens get sunburn? 

chicken butchering

Sadly, one of our chickens was injured (broke her leg) Wednesday and after examination we felt she would not get any better.  This was one of our original (and un-named) Brit-reds. We decided we had to kill her so she wouldn't suffer and that she would probably make a tasty chicken dinner. While I've never actually had to do this I've always felt that I shouldn't be eating meat if I was not willing to actually kill the animal, so we made plans and prepped some hot water for plucking and cleared the counter & sink for the butchering.  I still felt sad as I carried her from the coop to kill her and found myself apologizing to her in my head. 

We are on a city lot so we don't have any of the set-ups that I've seen other people have who butcher several chickens at once.  We simply dug a hole to hold the blood, feathers and guts (approx 2-2 1/2 shovels deep) held her on her back on a stump and slit her throat.  We then tied some cord around her feet and dunked her in some hot water. The plucking was super easy-much easier than I expected, but I was very glad for the heat proof/heavy duty glove recommendation I read from other bloggers.  I put on my waterproof gardening gloves and they worked great.

We followed this awesome butchering step by step guide which was super easy to follow: http://butcherachicken.blogspot.com/   I'm very glad we did follow this site as it had this warning: Please Note: When you cut into the bird’s body cavity, no liquid should come out. If liquid (i.e. yellow-colored water) does come pouring out of the opening, the bird is sick. Throw it away.

Unfortunately that was our bird-full of yellow-y liquid.  We took all of the feathers and the carcass and buried it in the hole that we dug.  How disappointing to have to kill one of our flock and not even be able to have a yummy chicken dinner-it felt very wasteful.  

In the end I'm glad we did it-I would have hated to have her suffer more and we did learn a lot. Have you ever had to butcher a chicken?  could you do it?  I'm not entirely sure I would want to just because I was hungry which has me thinking about my diet and food choices.

I've been considering and looking into eating a more vegetarian diet for a lot of reasons lately, the big ones are:

• Cost of ethically raised/slaughtered meat is beyond my income level for more than 1 to 2 meals per week
• Environmental cost of commercial meat farming is too high
• I do not want to support commercial meat farming practices-the conditions the animals are raised in are terrible
• I do not want to support the practices or conditions of commercial slaughterhouses

It seems when I look at this list that there's really no question I should be being much pickier about the meat that I'm willing to eat and purchase.  This doesn't mean there won't be a nice chicken dinner on my table in the future though

gardening!!! in december?!?

So...it's freezing cold outside and slightly miserable.  But also gorgeous and sunny.

and we're finally gardening!  Checking things off of the list-digging out gardening beds, mulching with lots of compost-y materials mixed into the dirt and added a think mulch of straw on top.  The dirt in these beds once we loosen it up and uncompact it is gorgeous.

I'm getting excited to get things into the ground this spring.  Started gardening with Selenes this year-she's going to take at least 1 garden bed and has been digging hers out too.  There's 2 more beds to do right now-then possibly digging out and mulching the bed along the fences too.  It's going to be fantastic!

There was no cider-I got so excited seeing all of the apples on the tree and then found out the tree has some sort of disease-they all 'ripened' but all nasty and rotten.  it's gross.  so that's out unless we buy apples.

Next up once the garden looks gorgeous is loading all the pics up here and getting all the tools into the shed for the winter.

I'm trying to decide what to grow next year since seeds need to get ordered.  I have some fantastic squash recommendations from Tom over here http://www.tallcloverfarm.com/ and I may do an entire bed of different squashes.  YUM!  I also think I'm going to try onions and garlic again.  then greenbeans, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots and sweet potatoes (do those even grow here?)  Not sure what else yet.

Did you do any winter gardening?  Do you already have your spring garden planned out?

To do List

now that it's starting to be fall like I thought I'd write down an actual "to do list" perhaps it will all get done that way :)

• dig out beds, layer in mulch and compost, plant cover crop seeds
• buy cover crop seed
• rake out chicken run to get mulch for beds
• make hard apple cider
• buy cider supplies-buckets, yeast, large pot for cooking
• rent cider press from tool library
• pick apples
• add "debris board" to the bottom of the chicken run - hopefully using scrap wood
• go thru seeds - order any new 
• set up seed growing space in basement
• set up old dining room table
• locate grow light  & extension cords
• organize gardening supplies
• buy compost to start seeds in
• bring small pots and seed trays into basement
• Decide how many beds we want and offer others to friends 
• they will need to amend soil too
• Create winter tool storage space
• back porch or shed
• move all tools into storage space
• clean tools off first

I think that's all of the major things - I'm hoping to get all of this done by the end of October so that in November we can focus on starting seeds!

rambling plans and updates

Amazing.  I can't believe it's been so long since we've posted.  Since our last post the ducks have grown up and are now living outside int he chicken run.  They are noisy 'pack' animals that don't really seem to like us. They do not think we are their 'rooster' (what's the duck equivalent?) like the chickens do.

Jen has 3 new baby chicks right now - fancy ones - and I can never remember the varieties even though she tells me over and over.  they are super cute.  These one's don't have any purpose other than being cute - they won't lay regularly or anything.  I guess that means they'd better be super cute ;p

We joined Full Circle Farms CSA since we didn't get many things to grow this year.  I guess when you move when you're supposed to be starting seeds and don't have your awesome soil you spent 2 years building up that's what happens.  We did manage to grow onions, garlic and cabbages though so that's kind of cool.  Jen's tomatoes might ripen still too so there's that possiblility.

I'm trying to decide what to grow next year and I'm looking forward to getting the basement set up with the grow lights and starting all the seeds.  First comes the really exciting part of looking through seed catalogs and thinking of all the tasty things I want to eat.  I still want to build potato bins to grow those and I've found I love carrots so I'll have to grow those as well.

There's a lot of work to do before I start growing things though.  Part of our problem here is the horrible soil in the raised beds.  We didn't amend it when we first moved in and it's awful - such a disappointment after our amazing soil at the last place (yay compost!)  This soil has too much clay so plants rot in the spring and dry out and die in the summer :(  I'm going to remove all of the soil in the beds and add layers of chicken mulch, compost and soil back in and top it all off with some cover crop seed.  I found a cover crop that is formulated especially for chickens which I think will be awesome.  Especially since I will be letting the chickens loose on my raised beds before I plant.  After this mix sits all winter and the chickens scratch it up in the spring I think I'll have awesome planting space.  I do want to raise up one of the beds and will be trolling craigslist for some free 4x4's or cinder blocks.  I'm excited for this project.

ducks and chickens checking each other out

ducks!

It's finally getting warm here in Seattle - we had a whole 4 days in a row with sunshine.  Lots of things started growing in those 4 days and my veggie beds are full of weeds and horsetails :/  I guess I know what I should be doing this afternoon.

Two weeks ago we got a baby duck - we were supposed to get 2 but one died in transit.  In order to get another we had to get 2 more so we've ended up with 3 baby ducks; they are Cayuga ducks and they are sooooo cute!  I can't even describe how cute they are. They have such big personalities and make little whistling peep peep noises.  Right now they are living in a large plastic bin in our kitchen. *sigh* this is not an ideal location for ducks-it's not horrible but it's not awesome either.  Fortunately we have a large kitchen.

When we had just the one duck she was super friendly and wanted to be on your lap or in your sweater or something all of the time.  If you weren't with her she sat in the kitchen and yelled until you came and got here - we even had to put her to sleep or she would just yell all night long...with the addition of two more they are no longer concerned with us - the smaller two follow the larger one around...so cute! And they wobble when they walk - adorable!  Jen named them Zoe, Chloe & Madeline; so far we can tell them all apart since they are different sizes.  When they grow up maybe not so much.

Here's some pics they are hard to photograph since they are so dark:

chickens!

The chickens loved the freshly mown grass last Saturday!  They were so happy and I'm excited about the yummy eggs we're going to get! :)

Oh NOES

Drove by a new nursery I hadn't seen before out in..Kent. Then I had to turn around and see what they had because it looked awesome. Most herbs were $1.25-$1.39 and a great prices on other edibles. Flowers were about equally priced. Finally got my first tomato plants of the season, some zuchini, cabbages, herbs and a few more pretty flowers. I may have to go back, bringing Lacy this time, and buy some bulbs. They had some hyacinths that weren't even blooming yet, and beautiful tulips. Hooray for SPRING!!!

Busy in the Garden...... Finally!

We finally got around to planting stuff. Its been lots of rain around here, and with the new jobs and still getting the house in order I haven't found the time to plant any seeds. But its warming up and we went to the Tilth Spring Plant sale and got some starts. Lacy got a bunch of flowers and some edibles and I got some herbs.
We threw some old peas and bean seeds into the ground but we don't have any confirmed sprouts, yet. The seeds were at least 2009 so it might be too late for them.
The herb bed is taking shape, chickens are happy and healthy and there are more newcomers to our garden this year. We have a new Gardening Partner!!!! We gave her a whole bed which she promptly filled with onion, spinach, and some other starts with all this room we have it seemed silly that she would pay for a pea patch, assuming she could even get one (I hear there are wait lists). Also baby chicks will be arriving in four weeks and ducks soon after. Our NGP (just this afternoon) has become employed so I don't think he will be wanting to lend much time to our gardening efforts, although he has become quite fond of all the fresh veggies and eggs, so he might be willing to help now and then.
Second composter is put together, straw bin is finished all but the lid, which is going to take me some design work and a few more parts. Home Despot how I love thee! And I want to build a potato bin this year. Bought some more worms at the plant sale, I like to think all the other little guys ran free but likely they just dried out, and decomposed. Sad. But Lacy fixed the worm bin by drilling holes in the lid so these guys should be much happier.
Our yard waste (imagine a brush pile the size of your living room) lives on. Plans to borrow Mom's truck are in the works, I just wanted to wait for some drier weather. Moving all that debris to the transfer station in the cold windy rain just sounded like a terrible way to spend my weekend.
All the bulbs planted in the front yard are blooming out and looking beautiful. Its such a nice thing to come home to the last rays of sunshine and your walk up to your door lined in crocuses and daffodils!

rambling, procrastination...or...am I way too late for seeds?!?

We like to garden by starting our own seeds...mainly it costs (a lot!) less but it is also so satisfying to see all those little seeds popping up and growing - they are so cute you can't help but want to garden.  This year with moving, new jobs and a combined 6weeks-ish of being sick I'm wondering if we've run out of time.  Almost every afternoon while in the office I look outside and thing "Tonight I'm going to start seeds!" or "This weekend I'll plant things!"  But there are so many other things that I need to do also - or I'm just too tired.  I've only been working since December and I don't think I've really re-adjusted yet - I know I should but most nights I just want to come home, eat food, take a shower and relax.

So...this weekend I'm resolved - I want seeds in the ground - at least the ones we can plant outside right now. Then I'll evaluate the others and see if I have time/energy/etc...

I'm debating buying starts this year and I keep hearing about the Seattle Tilth Edible Spring plant sale...it's coming up soon and they do have a lot of things I wanted. Doing starts feels a little bit like a failure - especially after carefully saving seeds last year from so many tomatoes, tomatillos, climbing beans and squash.

I'm going to have to do some research this week and see what can be planted still via seed, I'll get out our Maritime NW Garden guide to see what should have been planted the last 2 months and look at our seed varieties and see how long they are going to take...The tomatoes and squash might be OK from seed now if nothing else.

When do you start planting seeds?  Last year Jen started in December if I remember right and we grew just about everything from seed.  This year with all of the herbs and veggies I want I think starts are going to be in the plan. 

I'm also looking at growing a bunch of edible flowers this year - mainly I think it will be pretty but I'm also thinking ground cover.

Pictures, finally!

Sedums to go on the rock wall

garden shed in the backyard

Apple tree, chickens and yard.  The vegetable garden space is against the bamboo fence

chicken run next to the vegetable garden

cardboard put down around the blueberries to sheet mulch - dirt will be put on top...

leftover plants - what are they?

It's SooOOOO fluffy!

more shore pine and ivy to remove...somewhere under all of this is a rock wall and some honeysuckle

the chickens love love love the garden

roses!

blueberry - obviously it needs more dirt over that cardboard....in time, in time...lol

what are they?  Wood hyacinths perhaps?  There are clumps all over the yard like this :)

black bamboo...pretty pretty!

work, work, work

Well....some pruning, no gravel path or dirt by the blueberries.  I dug up some sedums to put in the rock wall and found out that it was basically falling down in one spot...we proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon rebuilding that section.  Now it looks better than it did when we moved in and it won't fall on anyone walking by - hooray!  It looks nice with all the sedums in it too...I wish I'd gotten a before picture of the hole but I only got one afterwards, we rebuilt the middle section on the 2nd picture

sunshine!

Heading outside to work in the garden, I'm going to let the chickens out to roam and do some prunning, I'm going to also dig out a path to the chicken coop and fill it with gravel, perhaps haul more dirt up to finish covering the sheet mulch around the blueberries.


I'm going to take some more pictures and then upload them!

I won a book that I'm excited to read  from the lovely Meg at  http://growandresist.com/ you should check out her blog, she's a much better writer than I am and her garden and chickens are gorgeous!

I've already learned something new I'm excited to try - broccoli likes to be planted with aromatic herbs, rosemary in particular!  I'm excited to try this since we have tons and tons of rosemary and I have not had any luck whatsoever with my 3 attempts at broccoli.

In other news I found out the weirdly pruned shrub outside is indeed a forsythia since the golden yellow flowers have started to bloom.  Also the NGP's mother was down last week (she lived in this house for 30+ years) and said the old pear tree is delicious yellow gold pears and the apple tree is good for cooking though it has problems with scab.  I will plant chives around it asap to help with the scab and hopefully after some pruning both of them will produce lots of fruit this year!  I'm excited to try canning fruit and with apples, pears, plums, peaches, raspberries, blueberries and grapes there should be plenty to experiment with.

I'm thinking if there is a large yeild to have a canning/harvest party.  I'm thinking bbq on the patio and come can, take some home, eat some fruit...something.  I don't know entirely - just the beginning of an idea and fall is a ways away right now anyways.

COLD

so...what do you do when it is only 18 degrees out and the sun is shining beautifully and you want to garden???  I'm thinking up things to cook and reading other gardening blogs!  I think I'm going to make sweet potato baked donuts with cinnamon sugar for breakfast tomorrow and I've been following all fo the craziness that has been going on with the copywrite of  urban homesteading.  I'm also considering pruning a fruit tree or two but I don't think I'll survive the cold whether or not they will...

I've started reading a permaculture design book...all very sensible and good info but it just makes me think "really?!? does it have to be this complicated?!"  Don't get me wrong, everything it says makes sense and the so far it is essentially how I already garden but it wants you to design and plan every single thing that ever goes into your garden!  Where's the room for spontenaity and trying new things? What about the random plant that you just plop in to an available spot to see what happens?  It seems to me that all of that planning takes a bit of the fun out.  I suppose from a large scale commercial point of view it is fairly radical thinking though...hmm...  More thought will be given on the subject at a later date, I have only read 15 pages after all...

pictures!...or not

I finally took pictures!  There was sunshine and warmth and wonderful all day Sunday...then we discovered the camera cord has gone missing, none of can remember where it got packed and we thought the office had gotten unpacked....*sigh* it's just not working to get pictures of the new garden!

Anyways...back to sunshine and gardening fun...the chickens had a fabulous time sunbathing and wandering through the garden while I cut back dead flower stocks and pulled the dead annuals from last years garden...Jen built one of the two compost bins and we set that up by the vegetable garden.  I scooped up chicken manure-y straw from the chicken run and spread it out over the blueberry garden, then sheet mulched over top of that.  I'm so excited to finally get that project done, I hope the blueberries like all of the extra nitrogen fertilizer :)

We also "dug up" a Sambucus nigra (love these plants!) that had outgrown its pot.. and moved it over behind the chicken run..it should be so beautiful this summer!  It had outgrown the pot so much that the bottom of the pot was completely gone and I had to (um...got to!) break the pot apart with a sledge hammer..that was actually pretty fun. 

Jarett (the NGP!) removed another 4' of ivy from the rock wall and Jen cut down a bit of the shore pine we wanted to get rid of. 

All in all it was a fantastic work day and someday I will post pictures!  Don't worry, there are lots of pictures...they are just stuck on the camera....

I've been reading a new gardening book that focuses on planning for production from a kitcheny-cooking point of view (which does only make sense when you think about it).  It's inpired me to start thinking about this years garden and I want to get started on spring gardening!  I also really want to do some winter gardening this year. 

The book is Homegrown by Marta Teegen - I think my favorite part is the garden layouts designed per person eating and the recipes in the back.  I love learning new things to do with all of that produce!  I probably won't plant by her designs entirely but it was good to get an idea of how much to plant which is something we didn't quite work out last year.  Another thing that I liked is how she rally focuses on soil health as the best way to guarantee a  good crop and one thing Jen & I are good at is making good dirt! 

right now I'm thinking of growing:

garlic
sweet onions
leeks
bell peppers
broccoli rabe
kale
brussel sprouts
purple cabbage
zucchini
cucumbers-pickling & regular
spaghetti squash
green beans
purple potatoes
fingerling potatoes
yams
cherry tomatoes
large sauce tomato
sugar snap peas
shelling peas
thyme
oregano
basil
thai basil
dill
nastursiums
calendula
violas
lavender
rosemary

All of this in addition to the fruit - blueberries, raspberries, concord grapes, green table grapes, peaches, yellow plums, pears and apples!

I'm sure there will be more added later, and that Jen will add stuff but this is the begining of a list in progress.  I may grow some salad greens but I've never had good luck with those in the past so I don't know if I'll bother.  If I do it may be in pots on the back porch (which is just off the kitchen).

 I want to get started on cleaning up the raised beds and getting them ready for some planting!  I will hopefully have time this weekend, I'd like to pull out last years plants that are left over, remove the weed cover (left by the old owner) and inspect the soaker hoses (left by the old owner) and add some of our awesome compost we brought from the old house.  I'm hoping that the hoses have overwintered in good condition and can be used - if so the entire garden will be irrigated!  That will be really nice.

Another thing I need to do is get the pear and apple tree pruned to see if that will help with fruit production this coming year - they are just so awfully pruned right now that I'm not sure what to do with them.

All the sunshine today has me antsy to get started but I remember that it's winter when I walk outside--brr!  A good time to get started on planning.

I can hardly wait to get some photos of the garden, pretty soon it will be light out when I come home from work and I won't have to wait for the weekend. 

I planted my 6 blueberry bushes I brought from our old house...so exciting to get that done, I'm going to spread some of the used chicken straw over that area for some quick nitrogen fertilizer and sheet mulch over top - the blueberries should really love that.

Jen's fancy chickens are ordered and my ducks will be ordered toward the middle of this month...I'm super excited!

new spaces

Its staying lighter out longer - its warmish out...well - at least over 40 usually...I'm dying to get out in our new garden and take pictures and prune trees and get started gardening in the new place!

We rebuilt the new chicken run yesterday - we put a temporary tarp roof on it and a windstorm pulled it all apart.  It is now reinforced and roofless.  The chickens are happier, they really seemed to hate the roof and the humans....well we've decided we'll have to deal with muck. 

On a more fun note though there was a small harvest yesterday as well!  tiny baby carrots and 2 bins of potatoes were discovered in the garden!  They are now harvested and sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be cleaned and devoured.  Yum! 

Next weekends project is building a bin to hold the extra straw for the chicken run - we've made a plan and are going to build a hinged box made out of cedar fencing boards...it should be awesome and the result will be the straw can be removed from the front porch and we can clean off the porch - somewhere under all the mess there are porch chairs just waiting to be sat in.  There's so much to do it's hard to know where to start...I am hoping we have unpacked the camera so that I can take pictures this weekend - to get a nice "before"

Question: what is your favorite part of gardening? the process? the result? watching it change and evolve?

I honestly can't decide what mine is...I think watching it change and evolve - but that is a direct result of the process so perhaps the process...hmmm.  Or perhaps it is this moment, right now before we've even begun when it's all just possibilities and dreams...where anything can happen. 

winter and animalses

yes - that's animals-es as in lots of them - and not necessarily ours. It's COLD outside!  We had temps below 20 degrees at the beginning of last week, then a snow and ice storm...now it's clear and slightly rainy but still really cold.  This brings out the animals from the green belt...

The chickens seem to be OK with the cold - we put a wool blanket on their coop and shut them in at night so they would stay warm and they seem to be ok.

Then there's the other animals-es..........yea. 
There are 2 juvenile raccoons living under the back porch but of course not just under the porch...the owner has some sheets of plastic down there to move the rain water away from the house so they of course are living on top of the plastic under the wood...noisy!  They are not to much of a pest though.  What's a  real pest is the possum (yes, I know it's really Opossum) twice now it's climbed INTO THE CHICKEN COOP!!!  when we left the door open after dark.  So that's a small detail, thank god it's a small baby possum.  I was so scared it was going to be super agressive and attack us or something.  We had to get a rake and shove it out of the coop and out of the run, fortunately it just went out, scared of us.  It doesn't seem to get that the chickens are possum food which is really really good :)

The one that really annoys me though is whatever has taken up residence in my wall - right under the head of my bed!  rrr!  I can hear it at night eating and moving about - I guess I should be happy there's only one of it but I can't help but wonder if it's going to eat through the drywall and into my room some night. *shiver* EW.  Have I mentioned I'm happy we're moving out of this house?!?

In other news we are about 3/4 of the way done with the major repairs that have to happen to the new house before we can move in.  We'll finish the upstairs this week which means we can start moving boxes while we finish the basement.  The only other things to happen is getting someone to pick up all of the stuff that was left in the house and to clean it.  I'm sooo excited to start our new garden over there!  Yesterday our friend Ben dug the holes for the new chicken/duck run, it is about 5' longer than our current one which will be awesome.  There are lots of pictures coming - I will have to try to make a point to upload some tonight or tomorrow.  For now, I need to go feed chickens and get a move on - another trip to Home Depot this morning for more primer and joint compound then off to the new house to lay my new bathroom floor and finish primer-ing the upstairs.  WHEW.