The Gardening Season Begins

FINALLY!!  It is time to start seeds!  

Well, actually, I started them last week. 

I'm so excited about them.  The only ones that I have done so far are the slow to germinate herbs along with a few that will do good in the spring frosts.  

Here's what I've started:
    Cilantro (which I'm pretty sure the cat destroyed)
    Sweet Marjoram (no idea how to cook with/eat it, but chickens benefit from it)
    Basil
    Parsley
    Mint
    Spearmint
    Sage
    Chives
    Lavender
    Oregano
    Celery
    Onions (started now for large transplants later!)
    Kale
    Broccoli

I've never grown this many herbs before.  Last year, the chickens had a hay day with a lot of things that got planted.  As well as the massive amount of rain and hail last summer.  It was not so great.  So we will see how this year's garden comes along.  I'm hoping to keep the chickens distracted with other things I will grow specifically for them.

Want to start some seeds??

Grab your seed starting medium.  I'm hoping to make some next year once I have a little more experience under my belt.  This year, I just grabbed a couple bags at the local nursery.  This was what they said they use and love.  Not certified organic, but the ingredients don't scare me.  I know it's called Ferti-Lome, but there is no fertilizer in it.  It's just fertile starter!  

You don't want to plant your seeds straight in this right out of the bag.  It needs a little bit of prep work. You are going to want to get it moist, but NOT wet.  Does that make sense?  It should feel damp.  The easiest way I have found to do this is to dump a good amount into a large bowl with some water.  Then use a spoon or your hands to mix the water into it.  The water takes a little bit to soak in.  Give it a few minutes before you add more water to it.

Nice and fluffy and moist.  That's all the prep that is needed.  It's all set to put into your containers and plant your seeds!  I started these seeds in some flats. I filled the flat about 3/4 full with the seed starting medium and flattened it so it was all even.  Next, I put the seeds out in rows and labeled with little wood markers. Cover with more seed starting medium and press down lightly.  Take a spray bottle of water and give it a good spritz all over.  Then cover your flat with a lid or some kind of clear plastic. (maybe even ceran wrap!)

Put it in a spot that gets lots of sun!  This is giving it a little greenhouse effect.  Warm and humid.  You don't need to water it while it is like this.  Once you see sprouts, take the lid off and water as needed.  (With your spray bottle, no need to drown em)  This year for Christmas, the hubs bought me a heating mat!  I'm really happy with the results so far.  Last year, my plants got really leggy.  Reaching and stretching for the heat from the sun.  They weren't strong at all.  This heats them from the bottom so they don't need to reach and stretch.  

Here are my little seedlings after just a week!

Happy little seedlings.

Baby, it's COLD outside!

Last week was FREEZING.  

Nope, I take that back.  It was BELOW freezing.  

It was darn cold!!  

I think our warmest day was about 10 degrees.  Yes, you read that right, TEN.  BRRR!  

So of course, the chickens weren't laying eggs.  Can't say I blame them.  They were just trying to keep warm. Technically, I think we got three. All week.  But one was broken from freezing.  So two.  It was a sad, sad week for eggs, because of course, when you don't have them, all you want to do is bake and make scrambled eggs and do all the things that require more than two eggs.  *sigh* It was a loooooong week.  

Add to that, three to five kids running around the house, going a little stir crazy.  Phew, this mama is TIRED.  

This week it got into the 50's!  WHAT?!  It was like the harshest winter and then a week of Spring!  So naturally, in Colorado, when it's above 40, you let your kids run around in t shirts with snow on the ground because the sun warms you up and the kids get their crazies out!

The pups got her crazies out too.  Man, she was so excited the kids were allowed to play outside.  She was running circles a million miles an hour around the yard.  Hysterical!!

Since it was so cold last week, I didn't have Little Bit help me with the chicken chores.  She LOVES it and it's so fun watching her take care of the chickens and hear her imitate the sounds I make at them.  :) So this morning it was back to work for her!

And of course, the ladies had a warm little egg waiting for her.  I adore her little bibs!  They are super cozy warm because they are lined on the inside.  And we can't live without BOGS boots.  All our kids love them.  Cozy and toasty!  I need to get myself a pair because my cozy toasty boots are lace up and that does not work for this night owl super early in the morning……

Since the ladies are not laying as often, (winter = less daylight + cold = rest time for chicken bodies) I decided to make an "Egg Production Record"  to keep track of how many eggs we get a month.  I really love it!  It has a spot for how many chickens we have, how many good eggs we get, how many broken, and totals.  The hubs helped me make it REAL fancy by having it total all of it at the very bottom.  :) He's so helpful.  I'm working on one for the vegetable garden too.  It will have a place to enter in what was planted and when.  How many seeds were planted.  Were they started indoors or outdoors, etc.  And probably one for when I harvest too.  

Man, winter sure is busy for being the "off season".  :)  

Garden Planning

According to my fancy gardening book, it's time to start planning for next year's garden.  Don't have to ask me twice!  

First things first.  I was hoping to use as much space as I could for a garden.  Since we are renters, I can't just turn our lawn in the backyard into a giant garden.  Although, that's what I REALLY want to do.  The next best thing will be raised beds around the edges of the yard.  I pulled out hubby's measuring tape and started measuring.  He figured with my measurements (I ALWAYS leave the math to him) that we could have 7 raised beds in our yard.  That's more than I was expecting!  Three will be 3'x6', two will be 3'x8' and two will be 3'x5'.  This leaves room to walk around and in-between them.  GREAT! 

Next step was to pick what I am wanting to grow!  Oh, the decisions!  SOOO many options.  I stuck with things I KNOW we (chickens included) will eat and preserve.  Once I had my list, I went online and found what KINDS of the vegetable I wanted to grow and how much space they need.  For example:  Carrots - Rainbow - 2-4".  

So with my list ready, I pulled out some graphing paper.  Now to plan what goes where.  On our graph, each square would represent 4".  So I went ahead and put in everything I wanted to plant according to the space they need.  HOLY COW!  I didn't realize how much I am going to be able to plant!  That was SUPER exciting!  I mean, carrots alone, I should be able to plant just over 200 in less than half a bed!  And these are just the raised beds!  I still have the area next to the coop to plan and all the planters for the deck!  I am thinking I will plant a pumpkin in the bed next to the coop and do my herbs in the planters.  It gets so hot next to the coop against the house, I think the pumpkins will do well.  

So that's the plan this far!  It MIGHT change between now and when it's time to start but I think it's a great start. 

Now to start finding cheap ways to make seven raised beds!

Photo Update

All of our chickens started laying.  We get an absurd amount of eggs every week. Around three dozen. I LOVE it!

Working out in the yard, I found this lovely thing.  We had one last year and discovered it's an Orb Weaver spider.  Apparently helpful in gardens, so I let it live.  But man oh man, I did not want to!  It's eating a yellow jacket, if that helps you understand the size of that thing!

Rose came home!  We adore her and her endless amounts of energy!  She has already started helping me round up the chickens.  Smart girl!

I've been having SO MUCH fun learning to make different things from scratch!  This is ricotta (in the bowl) and plain yogurt (in the jar).  SO much better than store bought and way easier than I thought it would be!  Never again will I be buying those!  I'm hoping to find a cow share so I can get raw milk but for now, it's just from store bought organic.  I can only imagine how much better it will taste when it's made from raw milk!

Fall seems to be here to stay and I could not be more excited about it!  My garden is all set to plant garlic.  I added LOTS of aged manure and am hoping to get the cloves in the ground by Monday.  It's my first time growing garlic and I've been trying really hard to amend the soil where they will be.  Hoping for a good crop next season!

Now you are all up to date!  :)

Weeds for Chickens

We've been outside A LOT recently.  Just playing, gardening, hanging out with the chickens.  :)  As I've been working on our garden, I've been thinking of ideas for the side yard that is currently dirt, rocks, and a wood scrap pile.  So I walked over there to find HUGE weeds.  Seriously, it was like a forest back there!  So I started pulling them while Roo and Doodle caught all the rollie pullie bugs.  :)  They made homes for them and put grass in.  Doodle decided her bugs wanted a river to swim in.  Yeah, those ones died.......eh well!  

When I finished pulling the weeds, I tossed them into the coop for the chickens.  They were SO excited since they aren't allowed out in the garden anymore.  Sorry ladies, you eat my plants and you can't come out. 

I told you it was a lot of weeds!  :)  They had fun picking through them and getting little bugs first, then they ate all the greens.

If you are wanting a good idea of what weeds are good for chickens, here is a great post!

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Strawberry Planter

Our chickens have had quite the hay day(s) in our little garden area.  Nearly all of my plants are eaten.  :(  I am actually pretty bummed about it.  The plants that I planted for them, they won't touch.  Just the ones I don't want them to touch.  I even researched plants they love.  Oh well!

So in an attempt to save what plants I have left, I put my strawberries in a make shift planter and really love the look of it.  Our friends gave us these old wire hay troughs.  At least that's what we guess they were, and they are working great.  I lined it with burlap to hold in the dirt and it's also great at holding in moisture too.  So we will see how they do.  The strawberries that have already popped out are ripening, so that's a good sign!

Here's the wire planter

 I didn't do anything fancy with the burlap.  I could have sewed the liner for a cleaner look but I just layered it in so it covered everything and then added rocks to the bottom for drainage.

Then I put in the dirt, and three strawberry plants.  I buried some of the stems so the would spread into more plants.  Maybe will have 5 or 6 by the end of summer.   Our friends gave us three of these planters so I took another one, turned it upside down and put it right on top.  

 So far it has kept the chickens out.  This weekend I will be clipping their wings so they can't fly over their fence into the garden.  :)  

It's also been a week since I have made this and the burlap has relaxed around the planter and the dirt isn't spilling out.  So it's much prettier to look at.   Well, as pretty as rustic can be.  Which I think is REALLY pretty.  So there ya have it!  :)

How Does Your Garden Grow

With the nicer weather finally rolling in, we've been working the garden!  I'd like for the whole area next to the chickens to be a little cottage garden full of beautiful flowers.  But for now, half of it is flowers and the other half is a small vegetable garden.  The rest of our vegetables are started and ready to be transferred to their pots on the deck.  

It was raining ALL day, (which is great!  Glad it's no longer snow and still moisture!)  so my pictures aren't great but you can get the general idea.

The chicken coop and their closed in area.  We let them roam the yard too, which is why, for now, where I just planted is blocked off with chicken wire.  They would go crazy in there!  They already give me the stink eye for not letting them in.  But up against the side of the deck we have two Delphiniums.  A white one and a blue one.  Although the blue was already a victim to the chickens.  :(  But it's growing back already so I'm glad I didn't waste money on it!  We will put two more Delphiniums along that side as well so they go the length of the deck.  I'm hoping to get a purple and pink one.  In the back, under the window is a purple Lilac.  Which can get huge!  Pretty excited for that.  In front of the window is yellow Sweet broom, which I'm pretty sure died the day after we got it.  :(  So I need to go get a new one.  It smells so good!  (At least it did before it died) That one will be great to have right outside the window.  It gets really big too.  In front of the Sweet Broom is our little vegetable garden.  In it is spinach, kale and marigolds in between.  The spinach I started myself (direct sow) and they are just starting to sprout out of the mulch.  The kale I bought at the nursery so they are started well.  Which is what the chickens give me the stink eye about.  Their run area goes under the window, but has chicken wire so they can't get in that area.  But oh! how they stretch their necks trying to reach that kale.  There's also lavender that I started from seed, so they are ITTY BITTY and hard to see unless you are like a foot away.  In the front along the border I planted lemon balm (good mosquito repeller) and catnip.  Can't leave Waylon out of the mix.  :) 

Against the chicken fence is a Salvia and I got this rose bush to plant next to the Salvia.   Rose petals are good for chickens so I will only block this one off until it's big enough to survive chicken torture.  Really, just so it's tall enough that they can't really reach the blooms and have to wait for them to fall.  So far, I love how it's coming together and can't wait to get the rest of our veggies and fruits into containers!  

Spring has FINALLY arrived!