Last post!

Hi all!  This will be my last Blogger post.  I just wanted to remind you that I will not be updating here and if you want to continue to follow Homegrown NH you have to go to the site and re-subscribe on the blog over there!  I migrated the previous posts from here to there as well.

Thanks!

Backyard Chickens in the Garden

While I am very appreciative of the many benefits to letting our chickens free range, including but not limited to them being allowed to eat a wide variety of bugs, insects and what most people call “weeds,” I am very aware of the large hawk population that moved into our woods. When we moved in, our chipmunk population was very large so it's no wonder that the hawks would move in eventually. And move in they did! They aren't very afraid of me either. In fact, after we recently moved the chicken coop next to the garden I had one very curious hawk land in a low branch only feet behind me to check out the situation. Witnessing this told me that free ranging, at least unsupervised, was out of the question. Besides, letting them free range in a neighborhood where others do not also have chickens is, I feel, pretty rude! I don't think my neighbors would appreciate my hens running through their yards, ripping up their gardens, and potentially just freaking them out. I had to find another alternative.

Even though I currently only have four birds in the coop, I didn't feel that the outside pen would give them sufficient pecking space. The ladies are also already between two and three years old so their laying days are numbered and I will want to add more birds to the flock. I am no backyard hen purist, by any means, but I still put some thought and time into the keeping of chickens. I got them knowing full well I do not plan to cull them when they are done laying. I understand the whole process and economic necessity for farmers that do this.

I am not a farmer but a backyard keeper that has very different needs. They produce just enough eggs for our family of six, they produce quite a bit of “fertilizer” and the appreciation my kids have for them is priceless to me. While I do buy them organic feed, I also feed them a fair amount of kitchen scraps. I can do a quick blog on what they eat at a later time but there was a very, very clear and difference between the taste of their eggs when on the organic feed we switched them to compared to the feed they were on when we got them. And an even more glaring taste difference between their eggs and the organic ones from the store! But again, I will revisit this later. My first order of business was figuring out how to get them more space to run while being protected from out hawks.

I was at the feed store getting some supplies and I just happened to come across a April/May issue of Mother Earth News magazine. One of the descriptions of the contents on the cover was "Use Chickens in Your Garden."  To read the full article go to "Chickens in the Garden."  The timing of seeing this magazine couldn't have been more perfect!....

To read more go to my new permanent site Homegrown NH and subscribe!  I will no longer be updating Blogger but you can still follow my feed and have access to much more on my website!  Check out my book, recommended reading as well as stay informed by the methods I am using in my evolving landscape!  I plan on integrating recipes when I harvest my vegetable and herbs too so subscribe over at the site and don't miss a thing!

Immediate gratification with annuals

Well... almost immediate!  After doing so much work lately on a lot of different projects, I really felt the need to add some immediate beauty to my surroundings.  I ran out and picked up some annuals the other day and finally had the chance to plant them all today after our much needed rain finally stopped.

I also picked up a handful of perennials.  For the front of the house, I planted some poppies.

My family bought the angel for me! :-)  Being big Dr. Who fans you can guess how often it is moved around the garden!  Another addition I made was some stone pavers to make a nice path to the faucet.  These will also come in handy in guiding where we need to shovel in the winter for access to where we have to hook up our generator when we need it.

The chickens were lucky enough to get something out of my work today too!  One side of my walkway had a big infestation of grubs just under the mulch.

I am really looking forward to seeing how everything fills in next to the comfrey, daisies lemon balm, lavender, and other perennials that are growing well.

Spring prep work!

I have been spending the last couple of weeks making sure I can get in as much prep work as I can for the season.  The weather has been perfect for it!  The days have been sunny and mild, albeit very dry. 

My first goal has been to fortify my soil as well as mulch what I can, as organically as possible, so that I am not weeding on hot summer days instead of hanging out at the beach or by the pool with my family and friends.  Before I did so I had to decide how I was going to deal with the weeds I already had taking over. 

I am not a recreational tiller.  I think people believe tilling is something they need to do every year but in fact it is not.  It can be very damaging the your soil structure and the beneficial microorganisms in it.  With this in mind, I decided to pull the weeds, mostly clover, from two areas of the garden and cover the other few with landscape paper.  The clover being smothered into the soil will add nutrients and I can cut the paper where I want to plant during the next few weeks.

While I was pulling the weeds I noticed I had some wireworms in my beds.  If you don't know what they are, you are very lucky!  When I planned my garden a few years ago, there was only lawn.  We tilled it and removed a lot of rocks and grass but alas we still were working with what used to be lawn. Wireworms love lawns!  And since I was still providing them with something to eat, last year it was my potatoes, they decided to stay.  Just to see how bad my problem still is, I put out several traps of cut potato.  The issue doesn't seem quite as bad a last year but I still need to figure out an alternative for my potatoes until they are gone.  Once they are there, there's not much you can do besides wait for them to leave and stop giving them something to eat.  I am hoping next year they will be out!

I also decided that the wood mulch I used on my paths wasn't sufficient.  I had strawberries plants coming out my ears this year (about 200!) and most of them had started in my mulch walkways.  After giving away over 50 baby plants to friends, I cleaned up some cardboard from our recycle bins and secured it with landscape staples then covered it with straw.

Finally, I started all of my plants; except for my corn.  I am using a different approach this year.  Instead of keeping them indoors, I am starting them in planters and pots on my very sunny back porch and then covering them at night with a clear storage container if it's going to be cool.  This way I am hoping to avoid any hardening off issues but also I will conserve my efforts to the seeds and seedlings until they are ready to be transplanted.  I usually plant my seeds directly in the garden but I find it'll be more efficient to take care of them this way instead of being so spread out. 

For perennials, I started mint and lemongrass.  And for my annuals, I planted Kohlrabi, Delicata squash (fantastic raw, by the way!), basil, cilantro, two varieties of pumpkin, zucchini, shallots, peas, fennel, tomato, broccoli, purple onions (from my own saved seeds) cucumber, melon, Calendula, sunflowers and viola. 

As for what I put in the garden already, as you saw already I transplanted MANY strawberry plants, I planted some rhubarb plants and was so happy to see that my sage survived the winter and is growing beautifully already.  I have more edible perennials coming in a few weeks from Food Forest Farm and am really excited to get those planted!

Organic Eggs

As part of my gardening and feeding my family as healthy as I can, I have always wanted to get some hens.  I was hoping to do it this year but wasn't sure how I would go about it.  A few weeks ago, it just so happened that a friend of mine was going to be moving and couldn't take her hens with her.  We didn't know how we would take them since we didn't have a coop and I had no clue how to take care of chickens, we but decided we would take them.

After some research about what it takes to build a coop, we decided that since we were under a time constraint, we needed to purchase one instead.  It's a nice new coop, wired with a light and outlet and is off the ground.  It's built for six hens so the four we have are more than comfortable.

My husband picked up some chicken wire and made a run for them which we now have attached to the coop.

We also decided that the best place for the coop is next to the garden.  There's a little work to be done in making it more secure from predators but after that is done it is going to be attached to the fence we are going to be putting around the garden.

The ladies are very happy in their new home!  And we are happy to already have a consistent three organic eggs per day.  I know very soon we will have many more than we can eat!

Spring 2013 - Strawberry Planting and Garden Planning

Welcome Spring!  After a long, cold winter I have been really looking forward to the total thaw!  Just as the last of the snow was melting in my backyard, I decided it was time to plan for the year.  I had already placed my orders through Johnny's, Seeds of Change, NOFA-NH and Food Forest Farm.  I also received a few things during the winter as gifts that I was excited about trying out.  One of those things was a broadfork!

Last year I didn't finish off the season very well.  I had a marginal yield and made a note of all of the issues I came up against that I hadn't experienced in the two seasons prior.  I had a major issue with mosquitoes.  I addressed that this year by putting dunks out where I needed to before the snow was even finished melting.  Black flies were unbearable.  This year I am already paying very close attention to the weather and favoring windy days for gardening in my efforts to avoid them.  So far so good in that department!  But my biggest issue was drainage.  That is being addressed with my new broadforks!

Compacted soil

I couldn't wait to try it.  As you can see in the photo, the soil was thawed a couple of weeks ago even before all of the snow was melted.  It also shows how much water was pooling on our compacted soil.  I took a minute to broadfork the area and, as you can see in the next photo, most of the puddle was drained immediately!  I am looking forward to using in on my row where my corn is being planted very soon!

Drainage after broadforking!

In the meantime, I looked over may garden to see that I had countless Everbearing strawberry plants that the wild turkeys were kind enough to deposit in my garden for me which makes last year more productive than I am giving it credit for. 

I have decided to put them in my rather long bed that I had my potatoes fail in last year.  The clover had taken over so I needed to use another new tool, a hand cultivator, and it made quick work of pulling it all out.  I'm not a tiller for reasons I may cover another time and did not want the rather healthy root systems of the clover competing with the strawberries.

It's not much to look at since I haven't mulched yet and I'll have to give you a final count when I am done. 

The cardboard on the left is on my walking path so I can staple it down to prevent weeds.  That will most likely be covered with straw.

I also decided I am going to move all of my full size strawberry plants from next to our deck to a permanent spot in the garden.  I am hoping they will fit in that same bed down the end but if they don't I may just turn into a strawberry farmer!

I know the photos aren't as pretty as my last ones but I'm here to show you the real progress with the before and after.

Organic Mulching

I have been trying to fit in as much gardening as I can between all of the much needed rain we have been getting.  My primary focus right now is getting my vegetable garden going.  I did plant some seeds and seedlings but my primary concern this week was getting some mulch down on my garden paths.  I did a lot of work weeding and the last thing I want is to have that be a routine!

I decided that since I had so much mulch leftover from my flower beds that I'd use it in the garden too.  The past couple of years I had stuck with using mostly the wood shavings that they use as pet bedding since my local garden center told me that organic gardeners use it.  It came in huge containers and while I loved it, I did have an issue with it breaking down too fast on my paths and letting weeds through.  It did work really well over the actual soil next to my plants though.  I think part of the issue was that we had tilled a grassy area the fall before the first planting and not all of the grass died or was removed properly.

This beautiful mulch I used is hemlock ... and no, it's not poisonous.  That is a different plant altogether.  I am eager to see if it has any impact on repelling insects.  I did notice it doesn't seem to bother my resident population of spiders.  These little guys move so fast I haven't been able to get a photo but I am thankful for their presence before my vegetables are even growing.  They will help a lot with pests that want to eat my plants.

Mounding isn't complicated and doesn't cost anything!  No raised bed kits and no fussiness.  It's great for drainage, which I have an issue with, as well as helping the soil temperature. I used soil that was enriched with well composted turkey poo!

One other type of mulching I have used was something I learned from a very successful local organic farmer.  He uses no till methods, doesn't even own a tractor and his yields are amazing!!  As you can see from the photos I use mounding as I learned from him.  He mulches between the mounds primarily with leaves.  Yes, leaves do take a few years to break down completely, longer if you have oak, but by the time it breaks down it's ready to be raked up onto the mounds and be utilized by the pants.  I tried doing this myself a few times but my backyard is really flat and the wind cuts across it enough so that all of the leaves were blown out eventually.  When they do stay, they do a great job preventing weeds.

If the mounds do wash down a bit, it's easy enough to re-cut the path by lifting the soil back on the mound as I did here.  This is first time in two years I have had to do this!

I also had great success mulching with pine needles!!  I know what you're thinking... Doesn't that add too much acidity to our already acidic soil?  This same farmer used it around his corn with great success.  When I grew corn a couple of years ago I literally walked down into my woods where a group of pine trees was growing and raked some up.  I put it around all of my corn and the plants didn't mind it at all.  And you know how well it is with controlling weeds!

As for mulch I don't really recommend?  Hay!!  All it takes is a few days of plentiful rain and you will have it growing, and fast! I know people also use grass clippings but if you are an organic grass grower too, there is too high of a chance of getting weed seeds.  And if you're not, you're putting herbicide and chemical fertilized clippings in your garden and it kind of defeats the purpose of organic gardening if you ask me.  You can also use straw but make sure that it is from somewhere reputable.  I used it before and it had seeds in it which completely defeated the purpose!

I have also heard of a method where people put down cardboard as a weed and grass killer as well as a mulch.  Personally, I am not a fan of this method.  Just the thought of all of that glue and ink being broken down into soil that my family's food will grow from doesn't appeal to me.  I'd rather recycle it.  I don't know anything else about it but I would do some research before going that route.

As far as mulching around the growing plants, I definitely recommend doing this if you don't like constant weeding!  As I mentioned, you can use the pet bedding, untreated of course, but expect to have to refresh it during the season.  Ask your supplier for the correct type before you buy it!  The before-mentioned farmer, whose name I will be sure to dig up for you because I am so grateful to him for how much I learned from him, uses literally tons of what you would expect to find in the compost bin.  Lettuce leaves, coffee grounds and even eggs shells.  He has his staff make runs to local restaurants and grocery stores to pick up their non-animal waste "garbage."  I didn't get to ask him if he had an issue with insects but decided to try it myself.  I have to say that it breaks down so quickly in the sun that I didn't have any issues.

Before you try any kind of mulch, make sure you do your research and ask people who have used it.  One of these years I would really like to try growing a cover crop and planting through the dead stalks that are laying on the ground at the end of the season.  I'll bet this would be a great method for growing pumpkins!!