Late Summer Garden Refresh, Part Two

This is Brown Seeded Simpson lettuce. I have AMAZING luck with it. It grows more like a stalk, which can be a bit odd, but if you let the last of it go to seed, the seeds gather easily and any you miss will automatically reseed and sprout when the temperatures are favorable. This variety has kept us in lettuce far more than any other, and that makes it a winner in my book!

Part of the end of Summer refresh meant weeding the tree sprouts volunteers out, as well as adding in a couple other varieties and a little broccoli.

This was a volunteer melon plant in the other planter, but I am a little worried it might be too late int he seaosn to get anything out of it. Still, I am going to let it go and see what comes of it since we stay warm so long here.

Shadow like to supervise me. I cannot miss her when she sits on the dirt pile.  She knows it, and she wants to make sure to be in the middle of the action.

Unfortunately, what you see here is me finishing off the last of the rainwater. The storm didn't come, again, and we are careful to use the water wisely, but this was draining hte last of this barrel into a watering can. Bummer.

These are purple heirloom tomatoes. Just about ready to pick... YUM! Ever tried them?

A pepper plant and some peas, winding up the trellis.

Another bell pepper plant. We love those...

And the strawberries are coming back into production since the heat dropped a bit, too...

Bailey was chatting with me while I worked, and jumped in to take on cleaning out the water barrels.The screens just aren't enough, they are good, but dirt still accumulates!

After another round of chores, sprouts, and more, a beautiful evening settles in and we head in to the next task.

We are making little forward steps with out projects around here, but always have more to do, of course. What are you doing in your gardens and livestock pens this time of year?

End of Summer Garden Jump Start

With all of the crazy weather and in and out internet service, I went to work to get caught up on Saturday. It was a good thing, because despite the hour and a half on a Saturday afternoon spent away from the many things at home calling my name, I am caught up for the first time since the semester began. THer ewill be plenty more for me on Tuesday when I am in, but I will definitely feel better without the leftover list awaiting me!

On my way ther, I stopped by the local aquaponics store for some items I needed to add more capacity to the water harvesting project. I found a different solution to bulkheads, which will be a second prototype to compare, which I think will be interesting, and I will show that when I get more done with that tomorrow. 

On the way in the door, however, I saw some new organic heirloom plant starts, and couldn't help myself. Many of you will recall the project we have had to get the feeders up off the ground to reduce waste and keep pesky rodents out of the feed and away fro the livestock. The project has been successful and positive, but the mice were then hungry, and with my garden in containers and my plant starts ion the table on the back porch, they went straight for my plant starts and the main garden, devouring everything they could get to. It will be a bit before I can get the greenhouse rebuilt, even though I have been collecting the materials and creating plans. 

Out lavender was diminished some by age and other factors, so I was so excited to see lavender, peppers, lettuce starts and more!  I did my best to exercise restraint, but gave in to two lavender plants, and a few heirloom peppers, lettuce and broccoli. I think this photo shows as much restraint as it does bounty!

Sunday night during evening chores, I started on the additional water capacity, and then when it was too dark to do more, I took the lavender out front for a little foodscaping...

I had planned to get to these planters once the monsoon had brought consistent rain, but it never really did, being mostly family with a few days of overload until the last week or so. So I just never really got to it. This planter was rather overgrown with dead stuff! 

Hard to see in this photo, but there was a little green with a lot of dead stuff here. The green were fun little flowers that actually looked rather good in that planter, and might still get some little blue Marguerite daisies for the cute little goat pot. We will see.

This planter has housed more solar lights than anything else in recent years.

I cleaned out the dead stuff in this one, and added a little soil conditioning/ amendment so that I could decide about those daisies...

This one got fully cleaned out and some lavender. While for years, I enjoyed blue and white everything out front, I really needed a good spot for the lavender and better use of the planters for hte food and medicinal plants!

This one brought the second lavender plant and more soil amendment. 

Well, here is to hoping they flourish and bear seeds for lavender! Now back to finishing off an order, rigging a jack to finish the kids bathroom and having the additional rainwater capacity finished today and the other starts in fortified surroundings before the storm is due in! 

Hope you all have a truly blessed week!

And a Beautiful Week Brought a Wild Wet Weekend!

The young Light Brahma on the left hatched on Monday morning, the little Silkie tucked between the stuffed puppy and the brick holding the water was hatched on Friday. So cute and sweet, and the first poster babies for the baby animal photo contest launching this week on the farm Facebook page.

These copper thunderbird and swarovski crystal earrings are one of the prizes for the contest!

The tomatoes are getting closer to being ready to go out each day. Perhaps by the time the storms pass, everything will be ready!

Kale and spinach growing in one of the lettuce beds. One of Wyatt's hens keeps sneaking out to play in the other lettuce bed and eat the seedlings and dust bathe in the lettuce bed, so I am going to replant that one after the weekend storm moves through.

The Pichu plants are coming back pretty well, thanks to those of you who gave me advice in how to prune them! I will be looking to see how they grow in compare to the seeds I saved from last year.

The chickens were loving the beautiful weather during the week, and particularly enjoyed dust baths...

Some were willing to share the craters they had dug in the ground...

others don't share very well and send the others off to find their own spots!

We have been continuing with the special coop project.  The kids got the panel of doors attached to the fence panels, but with the weather we were unable to get anything else done on the project yesterday or today. Hopefully the coming week!

I haven't gotten to tilling the main garden, though hopefully soon. Funny thing, Shadow is absolutely convinced that the owl on top of the clothesline is going to mess with her farm, so she keeps a close eye on it and tells it who is in charge...

For some reason, I am entertained with this tree that died in the buck pen. This branch makes nice firewood, though I miss the tree!

We believe silly Silver here is pregnant, though we haven't had her tested. Going to have to get her some more exercise, though,  I think she is a little big right now, and don't want that to cause problems.

I have been acquiring windows and glass panel doors for a greenhouse project to come. I am really looking forward to that project, but lately other projects keep presenting themselves, so hopefully soon!

We haven't had rain since back in November, as far as I remember. A big storm blew in yesterday evening, with mostly wind, but things were holding their own this morning. Then this afternoon, another big round of wind came. This is the doe barn, pretty much a total loss.  All of the animals are safe, though, so we are glad and will begin creating plans to rebuild.

This double rainbow appeared in the front. Funny thing about the wrath of a storm, so beautiful, yet leaving such destruction.

The geese are pretty much the only ones who are loving the weather, but I am thankful for the rain!

This single rainbow was to the North East of us.

  When life gets crazy, it is good to bring out the treats to brighten the day of the chickens!  Okay, so everyone got treats and the animals all enjoyed them, and we enjoyed breakfast for dinner. Now time for one last check of the night before bed. Hope you are all safe and sound and have a wonderful weekend!

Watch for that contest to come up this week., and set aside your photos you want to enter. Love to all!

Monday Adventures

I woke up this morning to noises in the incubator, This little Light Brahma decided not to wait the full 21 days, and came along today!  I have to admit, I wasn't expecting to need to move chickens around until Tuesday or Wednesday, but it just got me rolling a little early.

The little ones in the brooder are feathered out, and were needing to move outside, but I had been hesitating. When I went to teach Step, I told the kids there was a little one drying and that we could move everyone when I got home. While I was gone the ones int he brooder picked today to make their escape! The kids put them back twice, and when I got home, the largest Light Brahma and the Buckeye escaped for Shadow and I.  I suppose if I needed any confirmation that they were ready to move to the next grow out step, they gave it to me!

In order for the little ones to move to their next spot, the two new roosters bringing new blood to the Silkie program got to move in with the remaining Silkies!

The new boys are young, and Buff and Partridge. It was definitely time, generation-wise to bring in some new boys, so the older hen, Trooper decided to give these boys the lay of the land. She used the top of her head and nudged the more dominant one backwards to the pen fence, then gave him a piece of her mind.

After that, the young roosters kept to themselves, enjoyed the snacks and treats, and did what the girls wanted.  I love it!  THey will settle in in another day or so.

While the kids were working on science fair, and I was watering before starting dinner, I got bust with the pruning on my list.  This is the Pichu plant that I posted for advice the other day. Folks told me to hurry up and prune it just above the new growth before the plant wakes up much more, 

so I did! I hope I did it correctly! We shall see, since only time will tell. This is the first time we have grown or overwintered Pichu fruit.  I did save some fruit though, so plan to harvest some seeds later this week to start for the next ones.

What do you think? This is the other, smaller Pichu plant. It struggle last year, as the puppy liked to sit in the pot with it.

These are the little tiny new leaves of it.

So I cut just above the leaves. Not sure what I think, though, since the stalk is rather leaned over. This is the finish trim, any thoughts or advice?

I also got a couple minutes to add dirt and expand the new little asparagus patch. I think I need to water better with both of them in the record heat.I will add some more dirt and move that low pot to the other end, too, I think.

Charlie helped Wyatt with his science fair pedal powered generator. The wheel doesn't always want to set up, so they did a few trial runs so he will be ready to set it all up and explain it tomorrow at the fair.

And he did a few trials proving that he was generating and storing power.

I also added the two new jars of soaking barley to the fodder system as well.  The fodder is growing slowly right now. I am not sure whether the issue is the heat int he window, or something else, but the aren't moving much beyond the sprout stage. I will have to keep watching and working with it.

Well, another busy day in the books.  Tomorrow looks to be another busy day, lots to do with the kids, and fun times ahead.  But for today, I made a little dent, got to talk to my sister online on her birthday, and even got to face the fact that my eleven year-old is now taller than me. Just another day in this crazy life, but more blessings along the way.

You all have a great one, we'll check in again soon. Love to all!

Planting Away...

I am a little behind again, will try to catch up in the next day =). Last week, I FINALLY got busy with pulling out the dead plants that were lost in the freeze (so much for the fancy freeze cloth.)  Then I got going, planting lettuce- spinach and the brown seeded simpson that worked so well last year, and the darker greens, the kale and something else I cannot recall right now.

The random head of lettuce in that planter above is from a leftover seed group that I must have missed when I let the brown seeded simpson go to seed last year so I could harvest seeds for this year. It volunteered and grew of its own, and really, with not much water!

Above is a more shallow planter, below is a planter that I put some seedlings into. While I have often been told that rhubarb cannot grow here, it needs to much shade, I stuck a rhubarb plant int he end, in the hopes that the pesky shade that caused trouble with the cucumbers last summer would help the rhubarb thrive. We shall see. Also, there are some cauliflower seedlings. With the love my crew seems to have for potatoes, I look forward to trying some substitute recipes!

I am starting to see little seedlings pop up as well, so we will see how it goes.  Hopefully, well!

We are getting better at the sprouting, though I am having trouble with the proper measurement guesses.  For those of you who also sprout, how deep of a layer do you use in your trays?

So, yesterday, I stopped to visit with the vampires. Okay, not really. Just the American Red Cross blood donation folks. The pint was done in under 7 minutes, and I was feeling pretty full of my abilities, so we ran a couple errands, and got home to try a couple new recipes.

I tried a new soup recipe- a tomato herb cream.  I thought it was rather good. Apparently I am the only one, but I suppose that means a few meals in these two jars, right?

Well, about the time I got dinner almost made, I got woozy. Guess I shouldn't have popped right up and tried to take on the world.  So I ended up in bed, got up for a couple minutes, and then ended back up in bed for the night.  This morning, I taught class, and did some cardio, and when we got home, the kids worked on schoolwork, and I packed up all the Christmas decorations. 

It is always sad, packing away the decorations, but it is nice to get things cleaned up and ready to go for another year.

Also going on today? I prepped the incubator for lock down, disposed of the eggs that weren't going anywhere, and got rid of the turner sections where I could. As I was doing it, I realized that one of them was pipping! It is a day early, but that one threw off a couple chunks of egg and now seems to be resting, so maybe it won't be early after all. I cannot wait to see what we will get!