Final Spurt before August 2019

Some of these sections will be linked back to earlier posts. For example, I planted the broccoli on July 24 and they have sprouted.  I needed to move them around, because watering had moved the seeds to all the weirdest locations possible. But I had 13 come up and hopefully, now that I have moved them back to where I wanted them, they will grow.

Tiny Broccoli Sprout #1 of 13

Tiny Broccoli Sprout #2 of 13

Remember when I talked about the best way to pollinate a cucumber plant when there are not a lot of bees around? On July 20, I took pix of two female cucumber blossoms. These are the two from that post.

One of Two Cukes Pollinated on July 20	Other cuke pollinated that day
Cucumber Sprawl off deck and over grass

Square raised garden bed continues to thrive. The basil are doing well. The thyme is becoming more like bushes but not very tall. The dill continues to get taller. The carrots and radishes are getting ready to pull. I pulled four mature carrots today (no photos of them). The beans are quite long, and I tied them back against the wire fence to keep them up out of the dirt. July 20 I took photos of the beans when they were about 1 inch long

Row of 4 Basil	Row of Radishes
B-F Beans, Dill, Basil, (Thyme is hidden) and Carrots
Green Beans Growing	More Green Beans

Bell Peppers are now growing fast.  On July 11, I took photos of the scraggly looking peppers that had started to bloom. Now look at them!

Nice Sized Pepper in Orange bucket plant

Two Peppers on another plant.

No link backs on this one. The German plant has eight tomatoes as of today. Slow to grow and ripen. This plant was topped at about four feet because it will try to grow to eight feet tall.  To help encourage fruit growth a bit faster, we topped it and pruned it.  The Sungold is full of cherry tomatoes.  No way to truly count. The photos, while out of focus, allow you to see up through the plant at dozens of little tomatoes. The photos were actually taken in two different locations even though they look similar. The Chocolate Cherry tomatoes are more spread out and not as many on the vines. Then the Purple Cherokee also has a lot of full sized tomatoes. It was so heavy that we pruned it back as previously mentioned and tied up a lot of the lower heavy branches.

Heirloom German + 8
Sungold Thick	More Sungold
Chocolate Cherry
Find the Purple Cherokee Tomatoes Yellow Arrows	Purple Cherokee Tied Up

Moult, Eggs and Garden

The Welsummers have headed into their first moult. One hen has already lost a lot of her wing and breast feathers.  The others are looking pretty fluffy (a lot of down feathers are being exposed). Time to take the oyster shell away and we will need to switch over to starter/developer feed for higher protein content.  Rhodies will not moult this year as this is their first year. This means that the Welsummers probably won't be back to laying until December or January.

The Freedom Rangers are doing well outside.  They are foraging (like heritage chicks) and seem comfortable outside. They don't seem too flightly with the sounds. We do have to round them up after dark as they are not inclined to want to go inside at night. That's good though, as that means that they are foraging well into the evening.  

The first few weeks of September have been excellent fall temps, high 60s and low 70s.  Greenhouse lettuce is growing well, the outdoor plants, cilantro, carrots and spinach are loving these temps. 

Picked up garlic starts today. I'm soaking them overnight and will get them in the dirt tomorrow.  I picked up some different organic fertilizer, Bio-Live.  I can work this into the dirt tonight for tomorrow's planting. Should be great for a lot of our under the soil growth, i.e. carrots, garlic, onion and potatoes. Time will tell.  

No Photos today.

Lunar Eclipsing in My July Garden

Today, there was a lunar eclipse, but, since it happened at about noon our time, yah, we don't get to see it here.  Best visibility was the eastern hemisphere. Nonetheless, weather-wise, we have been sweltering in the Pac NW for several weeks now, with no rain. We are on a well system for our water, so we try really hard to conserve how we water. Grass, except where we are planning to place chickens, is rarely watered.  We only water garden soil by hand to get maximum water placement. Yes, that means every day, we go water something.  

Our little micro crops are doing fairly well. I harvested green beans (1 pound off of one plant) and a lot of basil leaves. Will pick more berries this evening after it cools down. Cucumbers are blooming. The July planting of lettuce is coming up. Some of the tomatoes are ripening. Corn is silking. Bell pepper plants are continuing to mature. Dill is starting to flower, although there are not a lot of branches on them, and I don't think I will get much that I can dry from the stalks. Carrots are fine. 

Planning to fall plant cilantro and more spinach in about two weeks. Will also fall plant more carrots and lettuce. 

All the Rhode Islands are laying one egg per day.  One of them will occasionally lay an extra large egg, but for the most part, they are cute little eggs that would be classified as small in the supermarket. The Welsummers are currently laying one ever other day.  On average we are getting five eggs per day.  We are looking at some fresh mayo recipes to use up some of these eggs. 

2nd Harvest of Basil	Blooming Cucumbers
July Lettuce in Buckets Keeps the Slugs away	"July 4th" are getting ripe
Mortgage Lifters	Sweet 100s
Tall Corn 6ft	First Silk is Circled with Red
More Silks on the Corn

July Garden Journal

The corn is growing quickly as you can tell in this latest photo.

July 3 - Corn Patch

We dug out the potatoes. We planted more Red Chieftan this year. The other potatoes are Cascade White and were developed for growing in the Pacific NW. They are smaller than we had hoped for. We  have not grown them before so we are not certain about flavor and texture.  They are supposed to be great for frying purposes. In the past, we have tried Fingerlings and Yukon Golds. The little fingerlings were great, but difficult to work with. The Yukon Golds were a great size, but the texture was funky. The Red, we like to quarter up and roast in a buttered pan. They are always great.  We only ended up with enough to last for a couple months. We don't have a fruit cellar, so we can't really store much over the winter. Since it does not get exceptionally cold here, cellars don't work all that great, to begin with.

Red Chieftans and White Cascades

Tomatoes are picking up, finally.  We have at least one tomato on each plant. The early yield plant, the July 4th, has had fruit on it for a couple of weeks now. The Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes are in memory of my mom. That was her favorite. There are a half dozen fruit on that one. The Mortgage Lifter (a later yield) has one tiny tomato on it. I tried to be creative and take photos from the bottom up. HA!

July 4 - Nice size for Early Yield	Different Angle of July 4
One of the Sweet OneHundred	Sweet 100s should be getting red soon
The first of the Mortgage Lifters	Better Photo of the tiny Mortgage Lifter

Some of the basil is growing well while others seem a little on the slow side. Not certain why. The first green bean (bush) that came up is blooming. The oregano is ready to harvest, and the poor little cucumber is slowly growing even though I have added blood meal to perk it up.

Radish & Basil	Green Bean Bush is Flowering
Time to Harvest Oregano	Slow Growing Cucumber

First week of June Gardening Blues

It's the first week of June and, like last year, it has turned off colder than usual. Lots of rain and humidity. Hoping for the best, for the corn. It's hard to keep the soil at "growing temps" when it cools off like this.  It will do what it can do and we will live with it. 

My replant of corn from last week is coming up along with the plants that were already sprouting up last week, so, if it warms up this summer, we should have a nice "micro" crop. I planted 28.  In some spots, there are two that came up. (I always plant at least two to try to ensure that one comes up.)  Usually one pops up, occasionally 2 pop up and some times none pops up.... I soak the seeds over night to try to spur growth, but some seeds just don't grow. Corn is difficult to grow in our region, so when it happens, it is BLISS! 😋  Hey, the basil actually sprouted this year.  Didn't happen last year.  Keeping my fingers crossed that they keep growing. Time to fertilize too.  Corn and Onions need a lot of fertilizer to grow quickly. 

I need to start weeding both gardens.  I need to replant some bush beans too. Potatoes are still flowering which is a good sign!  Typically, the more flowering we see, the more potatoes we get. We don't pull them until the flowering is all done and the leaves start dying. I think we will be getting potatoes early this year!!!

Picking and pickling my mini radish crop this weekend. YUM - love pickled radishes on my burgers! 

We sold our three older Welsummers this morning.  I never ask for "going rate" and I never have a problem selling them to a good home.  I'm disappointed, however, when people try to talk me down to a lower amount, considering I am already asking 50% less than the local rate. But, rather than get upset and throw verbal darts, I just don't reply at all.  They are sold to a nice family that I know will love them as much as we have. I handed over plenty of fresh eggs to seal the deal. 

Next projects are to finish the east wall of the greenhouse to help control humidity and temps, put a new floor in the smaller coop so that we can get the pullets moved, and then work on the hoop coop to shore it back up and put in a larger door.  The plastic zip ties are giving out so it is time to replace those before our fall meat chickens arrive. 

Just a typical first week of June with rain, albeit colder then we would like. Hopefully, this will clear quickly and we can head into summer with a great mini crop this year. I don't want a repeat of last year!

Baby Corn Stalks	The Replants are Sprouting (see circle)
Harpo is Missing the Sun

2018 Memorial Weekend Garden Update

The potted garden plants, as in the potatoes in barrels, and the tomatoes and peppers in buckets are thriving this year.  I am also starting two cucumber plants in buckets that I will put side by side to help with pollination. I know that humidity was a killer last year, and so far, we are not having the high humidity factor.

I have planted the corn this weekend. Still waiting for the other garden area to show more signs of life than radishes, carrots and onions.  I do have one bean plant that came up, though. I had to replant a few things and I may need to replant again if I'm not seeing signs of life by next weekend.  Oregano is thick this year.  Have already cut our first batch and dried it. Should be able to get two or three more cuttings before July, when it will start bolting. Spinach already bolted, and that crop is dead for the summer.

Oh, and the potted garlic are still doing quite nicely. If I can get the basil and the dill to come up, I'll be a happy camper with my gardening starts this year.

Getting ready to sell three hens. We're drowning in eggs at the moment. The Rhode Island Reds are being kind of quirky.  One is sleeping outside the coop at night.  I think there is a flock/pecking order thing going on.  I'll start picking up the hen, putting her into the coop and closing the door in the evenings for the next week or two, to see if we can get that resolved. In the summer months, we rarely close up the coops at night, but in this case, I think we will need to. I know that they had a difficult time adapting when the Cornish Cross were taken away from the flock. 

Red Potato Plants	White Potato Plants
Sweet Bell Peppers	One of Three Tomato Plants

Rhode Islands are Lonely

We processed the Cornish Cross two days ago at 10 weeks of age. Average weight this time was seven pounds.  Nice sizes for our dinners with some left overs, around here. 

The RIR's are adapting to being alone.  The Cornish Cross are such mellow, laid back, chickens, that the RIRs felt safe in the larger flock.  Plus, since the CCs were much larger, the RIRs were not the dominant pushy ones in the flock, even though they were a little older.  When I check in on them, they talk and talk.

The Welsummers are doing better. The seven are laying an average of five eggs per day.  It is nice to have them back on track. They seem happier with the warmer temps.  However, when we had three days that were over 80F, the laying slowed down a bit. The first day back to normal temps, they all laid an egg!  😃

We put in an order for Freedom Rangers next fall. We are going to give them a try since they, supposedly, are comfortable with pasture grazing. But, in truth, the CCs would also eat grass, but not a lot of it.  Pastured chickens, in our experience, will take in about 15% to 20% of their nutrition with grass, worms and insects, when they have access to fresh grass/pasture.

Garlic, potatoes, oregano, bell peppers and spinach are looking great.  The hot weather may end up finishing up the spinach, now that they finally started to show growth. Will see if they end up bolting, or if we were able to trick them into thinking that it's not really that hot outside. Will know by next week. 

Four/Five Weeks Featherings

I tried another quick movie.  The Cornish Cross (CX) are growing faster than their feathers can come in. Hence they look fairly bald. The Rhode Island Reds (RIR) are a week older than the CX. This is a great way to see how different the hybrid cross chickens are than the heritage. The heritage are feathering uniformly, but growing slower. The RIR are a dual purpose, meaning that they can either be for meat or layers. While the CX are specifically for meat. 

Most of the chicks are super friendly, wanting to be petted and touched whenever someone walks by. They will lean their heads out of the cage in hopes of a quick pat on the head. 

My Garden is going.  I planted garlic late last fall and assumed that it didn't start because there was no growth showing before winter set in.  But late January, the leaves popped up and have been growing ever since.  I was able to protect them through the late frost and snow.  

Mid February, before the snow, I had planted a few spinach plants because the temps were staying above 40F.  Then, we had the snow and I thought I had lost them, but lo' and behold, some of the seeds popped up and here we have some baby spinach plants! 

I planted 18 potato starts last weekend. Garden Time has begun :) 🌱🌱

Feeling the Sweet Soft Sunshine!

Such a cold and wet winter that slowly slid into spring. Cooler temps are slowing the crops.  Record breaking rain fall, in for the Pac NW! The sun brought a much needed day of Vitamin D.  

The Orloff flock will be sold to make way for the new Welsummers. They are ready to move outside.  I'll post photos when they move. 

In the mean time, it was nice to walk around to check my little crops, and pet the gals as they sun bathed for the first time in quite some time. 

The crops above are 3 different types of potatoes in barrels, spinach around red onions, and walla walla sweet onions.

These Orloffs are ready for sale.

The Clucky Flock	There's Sun!
Any Treats for us?

The Welsummers will stay for one more year.

Looky, we have sunshine :)	Buggs! Yeeha!
The Flock of Four