Getting the Garden Ready

Today... We garden.

Well, sort of.. Today.. we tilled... and weeded.. and just generally got pretty dirty. The chickens came out to help with grub duty about half way through today's operation. That's Honey absolutely loving the fresh new dirt and all the bugs that come with it!

 

This is how the garden looked before we got to it today... This is a view of last years potato garden. 

And a couple potatoes that made it through the winter that I had missed popped out the sides of the tiller unscathed. I think these are Yukon Gold potatoes. Super yummy and almost buttery. Waaaaaaayyy better than store bought!

And Voila! Sorry that there are not too many pictures of the progress. But did you really want 5x7s of me in garden pants and muck boots? RadioBirdDad had on his famous "dog pants" and those I can show you. They are epic.

Gorgeous aren't they? :)

So we didn't really get as far as I had hoped.. But that was mainly because the chickens were out and about and I had to keep herding them out of the neighbor's flower beds.  I don't think they minded too terribly much. Besides, the bug population in the freshly tilled dirt was far easier to get to.

Chicken tracks.. How cute!

So here's where we are now:

Tomorrow we get the rest of it. Allll the way back to that fence. I think the width of the whole mess is only 50 ft or so. And maybe double that in length. Should keep me busy year round!

Anyhow, I just wanted to get the garden update up. You can view last years garden progress on my

 youtube channel here

Now, I really must say something about that tiller.. OMG! Its amazing! I got this little sucker on amazon for about $99.00. Yeah. $99.00.

Troy-Bilt TB154E 9-Inch 6.5-Amp Electric Garden Cultivator/Tiller

It has gone up a bit in price since last year but still totally worth every penny. I poured over catalogs and websites looking for just the right tiller on a college kid's budget. And I finally found this little tiller.. that could. :) Its so small. Its lightweight. Its red. :) And it tills like the devil. Occasionally getting tripped up on thick weeds and old garden wire (oops!) wasn't even that huge of a problem. It didn't happen all that often and when it did, it was so easy to pull the grass (or wire..) out and just keep going. Rocks and other debris just come out the sides or the back. The tiller didn't even stop to blink when I ran over a cinder block..

The cinder blocks were there to hold down the bug netting from last year.. and by the looks of the "before" picture, you can tell why I didn't see it until I hit it.. :)

Anyhow, I hope you are happy and healthy. I got a good dosing of vitamin D today so I'm totally pumped and excited about tomorrow. Hopefully I can show you what I mean by purple potatoes!

Have a wonderful day! And Happy Green March!

Chicken Snacks and Treats

Cherries and Cherry Tomatoes

Chicken Snacks and Treats

  Today I felt so badly for my little flock of chickens.. It is soooo rainy and yucky that I have had to pen the girls into their covered outside run. This sounds alright enough.. except that the run is only about 6ft by 4ft... And with 2 territorial mother hen type hens, one jumbo sized food processing chicken hybrid, and 3 little feathered "everything else" disposal units... this can be stressful..

Solution!  Food.

 

I went and gathered a bit or parsley, kale, swiss chard, cantaloupe, lettuce and a handful of cherry tomatoes from the green house and chopped them into chicken friendly bits.  I also cooked up an eggplant that just wasn't as pretty as the others.. and scrambled an egg.  And topped the whole thing off with some cooked and moooshed sweet potatoes.

I know, I know, that's a lot of food! But.. these are chickens... :)

I often get asked the question.. "Isn't feeding an egg to a chicken like cannibalism?" 
Yes and no...

Yes if:
The egg has been fertilized and an embryo has started to form. This doesn't happen overnight. I can remember that it takes 21 days for a chick to hatch...  but I also know that it takes at least 6 days before the chick in that egg starts to look like anything other than a ball of DNA. I don't wait 6 days to refrigerate my eggs. and refrigerating a fertilized egg right away will kill anything inside it. So basically, its not likely that you'll cook up one of these babies.. (sorry bad pun) anytime soon.. :) 

No if:
This is an unfertilized egg. (No rooster) The goo that you find inside of an egg was meant for a baby chick to eat. It is essentially the same as if the hen that laid that egg packed a lunch for her chick but when no chick was created, I got to eat the lunch instead.  cool huh?

Treats!!

The treat ball

The treat ball was a great idea... I just don't think the girls think so.. They would rather peck and scratch at all the other goodies that have been scattered about their yard. Ah well. I get it. Why work for your food when its readily available and so close you can lay down and eat at the same time.. (seriously, Honey eats this way.. "The-Jumbo-Food-Processing-Chicken-Hybrid Honey")

Chicken Soccer Ball

Ah yes, The chicken soccer ball. Fill this baby up with peas and watch them go! Well,.. fill this baby up, show the chickens that its nothing to be afraid of, chase them around the yard trying to to show them where the treats come out, and finally plop down and let the pile of peas fall out while the girls run over to help clean the mess. :)  Smart chickens.. or Lazy.. 

Chicken egg shells.. Crush 'em up and throw some out there! I like to have a little bowl filled with shells. I am trying to finish off this 25lb bag of oyster shell that I bought. ugh. So I mix a little oyster with the egg shell and give it back to the girls. I think they like the chicken shells better. weird huh?

Oh! I got a bag of meal worms to give as snacks to the girls.. LOVED THEM! The bag was red so now every time I go out with something red on or in my hands, the girls are jumping.. literally jumping to get at whatever it is. So now, among other things, I am going to be a meal worm farmer. :/

From what I hear, its as easy as putting food scraps into a 3-tier shelf thing once a day... I will investigate more on this!

Most everything I have tried with the girls gets eaten.. However, the eggplant took forever for them to go through... For the most part, I think the rule is if you would eat it, so would they.. :) Of course there are exceptions..  

1. Raw potatoes and potato sprouts. Raw potatoes are hard for chickens to digetst while the green parts of potatoes and the sprouts are toxic.

2. Rotten food. duh.

3. Raw peanuts and dried beans. (Dried beans are safe if they're cooked first.) Raw meat too...

4. Chocolate.

5. Some garden plant leaves such as eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes

6. Nicotine is poisonous.

7. Avocados. These can be fatal for your chickens.

8. Some types of flower seeds such as sweet peas, morning glories and angel's trumpet.

Have a wonderful day, you beautiful person, you!