Cold Fall Dry Fall 2019

Well, fall hit hard and fast. First, there were a lot of cool rainy in October. Then the last week of October, it turned super cold, frosting at night and daytime highs were only in the mid 40s, but sunny and dry. So that has worked out well for the plants in the greenhouse.  The plants outside, not so well.  Today, I sacked the garden plots and covered them for the winter.  As you can see in the square garden photo below, nothing was thriving. The spinach, cilantro, carrots and peas essnetially gave up. They were surviving barely, but not really growing anything for the past week, despite the sun. It needed its own little greenhouse tunnel.

Inside the greenhouse addition, things are thriving and growing. We might get some broccoli (fingers crossed).  The red sails lettuce, marjoram and parsley are doing their thing, but we have been covering the lettuce and broccoli at night even in the greenhouse, just as an added precaution. Inside the greenhouse is getting into the 80s and 90s during the day with the all the sunshine while the outside highs, the past few days have been low 50s. 

Chickens have fully stopped laying eggs because it has just been too cold and windy. Winds out of the North and Northeast have been gusting up to about 35mph most days, but not all.  Today has been quite mild by comparison to the past two days. Mostly just a breeze with a few gusts hitting about 10mph. So I took time to get more winter prep done while it's not raining. 

One of my winter preps is to beat back the mice. Mice have been moving into the garage in droves so we have been setting out rat poison in "hidey holes" in hopes of combating that invasion early. 

Dead Square Garden Plot	Broccoli in Greenhouse
Marjoram/Parsley Greenhouse	Red Sails Greenhouse
Rhodes on a Crisp Fall Day

Definitely Fall 2019

Fall hit hard and fast this year.  We have already had temps drop into the 30s with frost.  The frost killed the basil plants. You can see them pulled and waiting to be disposed.  Of the six pea plants, two remain.  The slugs attacked the cilantro then headed over to the peas.  So, new copper wire has been added around the outside of the garden bed. Fingers Crossed this works.  Also, the carrots and spinach are growing. The only other outdoor crop now is the broccoli in the tub.

Four Pea Plants survived Slugs	Spinace in a cage
Broccoli in a Caged Tub

Corn was just taking up space and holding dirt in place (so to speak) so today was clean up day for that patch.

Dead Corn

Clean Patch

The Greenhouse is done with a few things that needed to keep it warmer this winter, but for now, it is protecting my lettuce and herbs from the cold nights.

Greenhouse from East	Greenhouse from West
Romaine, Parsley & Marjoram	Red Sails Lettuce

Picked the last of the bell peppers.  The plants are dying in the cool temps and peppers needed to be picked before they start to die with the plants.

Briming Bowl of Peppers

Bottom of the Bowl of Peppers

As for chickens and moulting, the Rhode Islands started to moult about a month ago, but have continued to lay eggs and we are getting eggs from them every day. The Welsummers started to moult a week or two later, and there is only one that is still laying an egg every few days, so we are stilling getting some eggs every day, regardless. We ate our first of the summer chicks this week.  Very tasty. 

Last September Week 2019

ARGH! Did I mention I hate slugs. So, they wiped out two well sized cilantro plants in the past two weeks. Totally annoyed with that.  Earlier this summer I picked up some hearty copper wire strands that won't pop apart if touched like the copper foil does. We wrapped it around the square garden bed, on the outside, twice, hoping that if they get past one, they won't get past the second one. Finger Crossed.  Also sprinkled more slug bait around the outside of the garden, but, unfortunately that vanishes quickly with rain, and we have been getting lots of rain late this summer.  Well, now it is fall, and waiting to see what October brings. 

Hoping the new cilantro seeds take root now, and it is obvious that the only thing saving the spinach plants was my cage of tulle!!!!  I see a new fifth sprout of spinach coming up, so we should have some nice plants this fall. Peas are coming up.  I think slugs did wipe out a couple of them, as well, but we still have enough if we can save them.  Blood Meal whole nitrogen around all of them.  Also, I saw a few sprigs of the carrots coming up that I planted a couple weeks ago. So I think we are on track for the fall. 

Bell Peppers are coloring now.  The one green bell pepper is actually some weird looking red peppers that look more like mini red pumpins than peppers. The yellow pepper is actually an orange pepper and the red, well that's actually red. The Marjaram and the Parsley is coming up nicely. 

We had enough thyme, after we dried it, to put half of it away into a plastic bag for next year's spices.  We have two bags of fresh dried oregano that, in time, we can break down and mash up too. The herbs did well this year.  For now, that's where we are at with the garden. 

Orange Bell Peppers	Red Bell Peppers
Weird Green but really red peppers	Five Little Spinach Plants in a Cage
Green Peas in the Fall

One Month into Fall 2018

Here we are, one month into the fall season, and the weather is polar opposite of this time last year. We have sunshine, albeit breezy, and temps in the 70s during the day. This year, my fall garden is so much better than last year.  Some things I learned is to have most of the fall veggies in pots/buckets in order to be able to move them quickly into the green house, in the event the over night temps drop into the low 30s.  Otherwise, I leave them outside over night, for any rain or dew.  One thing to watch for closely are bugs that want to lay eggs in the soil.  One way to cut down on this is to sprinkle DE (diatomacious earth) that is "food safe" around the plants onto the soil.  This will kill and/or detract most bugs. Also, watch for leaf miners that lay little white eggs on the under side of the leaves. The culprit looks like a house fly. But, the eggs, as they hatch will take all the nourishment from the leaf, causing it to look like a slug crawled over it.

So far, the bell peppers (in the green house 24-7) are still producing cute little peppers. The strawberry starts all took and are looking great, as the older berry leaves are turning red and brown. The oregano has slowed its growth, but we can still harvest any that we want.

Fall plants, carrots, spinach, garlic and cilantro are knocking it out of the park this year. Could not ask for a better bunch of plants. I have planted a second fall start (fingers crossed) of spinach and lettuce.

30 carrots in a container	Topdown carrots
Fall Cilantro	Fall Leaf Lettuce
Fall Strawberry Starts	Fall Spinach
Leftover Bell Peppers	More Bell Peppers

Three of the four Welsummers are in full moult, while one continues to persist laying an egg every other day. She seems quite proud of herself.  The Rhode Island Reds are continuing to lay three eggs per day for us, so we are plenty in the eggs this fall. Considering that there are only about 11 hours of daylight per day, and we have yet to put any wattage into their coop yet, I am in no hurry to take the electricity out there, just yet, while they continue to lay an egg per day. 

The Freedom Rangers are 10 weeks of age, and we will process them next weekend. They are good sized.  I speculate that they will each weigh about 5 - 6 pounds processed. There are three cockerels and three pullets.  The cockerels are crowing every morning and every evening... they seem most intrigued by the hens in the other coop, since the pullets are not mature enough for mating purposes. 

All six Freedom Rangers	Two Pulls and Two Rels
Pullets Leaning into the Breeze	Good Size!
Back to the feed trough

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.

Ten weeks without Rain

The last rain we had in our area was June 17 and it was about one-half inch. Yesterday and last night, we had rain.  Not a lot. Not enough to get through the leaves on the trees, but enough to cause humidity to increase.  The past five days, the temps at night have been dropping into the 50s and it has been more cloudy.  The temps dropped quickly from the 90s mid-day to the 70s and 60s at mid-day. So obviously the weather has changed, at least for now, to a fall-like late summer.

This year, a record was broken for the number of 90+ days in the year.  So far, we have had 30 days, albeit, not in a row.  

My fall plantings are all up with pix below.  My cuks are doing well enough and it looks like we will get a total of five cucumbers from the two plants.  My bell peppers are being harvested. We pulled 16 additional cobs from the corn with another 10, or so, left to grow, if they do.  With the sudden cool down, it is unlikely that they will get much larger. The chickens will get those.

With the sudden cooldown, I have pulled the tomatoes, peppers and lettuce into the green house so that the cool nights don't stop them in their tracks. The fall plantings will appreciate this cooler weather and should do just fine.

Cucumbers with rain drops	Fall Carrot Starts
Fall Cilantro Starts	Fall Lettuce Starts
Fall Spinach Starts	Red and Yellow Bell Peppers

Prepping for Early Fall

We have our fall babies a month early because it takes them a little longer to grow to full size than the Cornish Cross.  This fall we are experimenting with raising Freedom Rangers.  My understanding is that they are a hybrid of a European meat chicken with an American meat chicken, but I have no clue which chicken breeds are used. I have read positive things and negative things.  Since we only have a few we will be able to see for ourselves whether they are more expensive, more time consuming, and how the meat tastes. 

Freedom Ranger Chicks - 4 days old

We're into the fall planting for the carrots, spinach and cilantro.  I picked up some more lettuce seeds too, for the next planting but I'll wait a few more weeks on that. The current lettuce is great and since we have them in buckets, we can move it into the shade in the afternoon to cut down on the heat induced bolt factor. Bell Peppers are finally getting ripe as are the tomatoes.  It is all coming together, finally. 

Day-time temps are still higher than usual, plus this week, we have had very bad air with high smoke particulate count. It is hard to breathe. Not sure yet how that will impact the plants or the birds. 

Leaf Lettuce Mix in Buckets
Red Bell Pepper	Yellow Bell Pepper slightly deformed
Baby Cucumbers	Just a few more inches until ready to eat.

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