Crazy Chickens
Our broiler flock is CRAZY. This coming week we’ll be butchering all the roosters (we’ve already butchered a few). There are five lucky ladies that will be integrated into our laying flock, a few of them are already laying eggs.
These chickens decided long ago that roosting in the old apple tree was much more fun than roosting in the portable coop we built them, go figure. I don’t worry much because they’re surrounded by an electric fence to keep them safe from predators. They love roosting in the tree so much, that the other day I found an egg perched perfectly on one of the branches.
Chickens are crazy animals, but entertaining as well. Hopefully when the ladies are moved to our new flock they’ll decide roosting in the coop is much nicer, we shall see. At least our main laying flock coops up nicely every night.
Do your pets every do anything crazy?
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Friday Favorite: Sunny Days
This time of the year, if the sun is out, I’m out (at least if I can be). I know that soon enough the days will be short and the sun won’t be as high in the sky. I’m trying to soak up as much sun as I can to get me through winter. I’m almost ready to trade my tank tops for sweaters, just not quite. Luckily the weather is cooperating and I’ve had some really wonderfully sunny days to dig potatoes this week!
I enjoy the sun in winter too, it’s just not as strong as it is in the summer.
The laundry will also miss the heat of the sun, even the clothes I’ve been hanging out recently haven’t been drying as quickly as they did even a few weeks ago.
Do you live in an area where you notice a big difference in the strength of the sun throughout the seasons?
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Finally, Almost Finished
It was very early this spring that I settled on a layout for the potager behind the house. There was one small problem, I had planted my garlic in one corner last fall. That meant that I couldn’t finish one of the walkways in the garden.
All summer it’s been bugging me because it looked incomplete. This past week, I finally finished the last walkway!
My plan is to keep expanding this garden, surround it with either rock walls or a boxwood hedge and put a greenhouse at the end of the walkway that starts right off the back door (which is the path below). I’m also going to add a composting area behind a perennial border on the upper side of the greenhouse. The walkways may also paved in bricks.
There’s something nice about finally finished something you started in the spring. There are so many more things to do, but it’s nice to officially check something off the to-do list!
Have you recently finished up any garden tasks you started back in the spring?
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Windbreaks
“Unless your garden is stocked only plants on the prairie or steppes, every garden should have hedges and windbreaks that will baffle the wind and break it up, protecting plants growing in their shelter.”
Monty Don from Gardening at Longmeadow
Windbreaks are a very important consideration in your garden. Even if you live in a typical suburban allotment you need to consider how the wind comes across your garden. Back in Ohio, my gardens were surrounded by trees, lots of very tall trees. We were very protected from the wind, too protected, for these trees limited the breeze and also provided too much shade.
Here in Maine, we have the opposite problem in the garden. There are large trees, but most of them are too far away from the garden to provide the kind of wind break we need to protect plants, both from the winter winds to the winds of the summer.
My onion harvest suffered from the lack of a windbreak. I harvested the majority of my onions a month ago, but a few remained standing because they were protected by the celery. It’s amazing how much larger they are than the ones harvested a few weeks ago. If I had a proper windbreak my onion harvest would have been almost twice the size it was (Note Dexter setting by the onions for scale). Below, you can see the onions I harvested earlier on the right and the ones harvested later on the left.
I am planning on adding a hedge around this garden in the future, but next year I will have to remember to plant something tall on the side the wind generally comes from. Perhaps a few sunflowers to feed the chickens in fall would be a great option.
Do you have a windbreak in your garden? Have you ever suffered loss from too much wind?
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So Long Summer
Well, summer is over in the 5×5 Challenge Garden. Yesterday I cleared out the zucchini and the beans. The tomatoes are still going strong, so I left them to ripen.
The expanse of soil is nice to see after spending time cleaning up the garden. I considered adding mulch or compost for overwintering. Then I decided to plant the garden with various chicories and endives. They should do nicely in our cold fall and provide us with food for November & December.
No doubt you’re also cleaning up you little garden, think about adding a few fall/winter plants. If not, add a good layer of compost on top and you’ll be ready to go next spring.
Have you started cleaning out the garden for winter?
