A Cooler August Week 2021

 Those hot days are miserable.  Thankfully, the tree tents helps the apples.  They are starting to ripen now, and only a few were scalded where we couldn't cover the tree branches. 

Worked on a revamp of the pull pen that we used for the meat birds last spring.  We needed a larger coop for the left over chicks that we have yet to sell.  So the pull pen is now a convert-a-coop. Ha. We have read about having chickens digging in the dirt around the apple trees to help fertilize and have the birds eat the larva that drop out of the apples in the fall. We will see if  this concept works. I doubt that it will hurt. So the young birds in their convert a coop will be digging and fertilizing around the two apple trees and eventually, they will be out in the field if we can't sell them all this fall. 

The fall portion of the garden is picking up now that it is cooler outside. Bell Peppers and Tomatoes in their respective grow areas seem a lot less stressed. 

Made up a couple batches of pickled Cukes and Eggs. Tried a different recipe using apple cider vinegar along with the white distilled vinegar. Not bad. Has a nice crisp flavor. 

Another Blast of Heat Alert 2021

 So this one may not get up to 115F like last time, but it will be three days over 100F each day.  Apples are ALMOST ready to be picked but need about two more weeks. This intense heat from the sun will bake them on the trees.  So we covered them as best we can, mostly from the south and west directions and, well, hopefully we don't get any strong winds that take our covers off to so distant locations. There are garden row covers and I think they will work for this situation. I guess we shall see if my "sun screen" works on apples. 

All trees and shrubs have been deeply watered this past week. I will continue to water the area in the field that the chickens have devoured.  I seeded with alfalfa and clover and they are still babies.  Hoping they survive this. 

Moving plants to shaded locations that are in pots and I may need to cover the beans and scallions in the garden with some type of shade. I think the carrots and corn will be okay.  I did restart my sweet onions but I put them in a tub of dirt so that I can move it where ever for best growing purposes. I have the cukes in a big tub of dirt too, with empty buckets all around to help keep the slugs away from the young cukes.  Two are almost ready to harvest/pickle.  More are on the vines and the bees are finding the flowers just perfect for pollination purposes. So it's a win-win this year. 

Also covered the tomato grow area with a shade cloth, and I now have my fingers crossed that we don't lose any more plants to the extreme heat, like we did the sweet onions and the garlic. :( 

Apologies for the fuzzy photos. It was getting dark and I need intense light for less fuzzy photos. 

The Foreigners Summer Start 2021

 We are trying to sell these little cuties.  We wanted to try some mail order chicks this summer. They all arrived in good shape and have all survived for the first three weeks.  Three more weeks and they will be ready to go outside. 

Week One - they all have the same stature but the Andalusians are super fast runners. We have one Black Andelusian that we can't tell from the Australorps yet.  The Blue and the Splash Andalusians are interesting to watch since they stand out from the crowd.

Week Two  - Andalusians are still super fast and are always nervous. We finally figured out which one was the Black Andalusian. All the chicks are starting to get wing and tail feathers. They are all starting to stand more upright and don't squat quite as much. 

Week Three - Even more upright, but the Australorp are the tallest and most upright of them all. The chicks are starting to fly up onto the roost and they like to dust bathe in the wood shavings. The Australorps and Andalusians have the longest tail feathers. The Sussex have the most colorful wings. 

It's Always Interesting - Summer 2021

Yesterday, I picked our first tomato.  It's a mystery tomato from a multipack and none listed varieties on the pack match up with what this looks like.  Kind of a small Cinderella, yellow/orange orb. 1.6 oz and almost 2" across.  The photos are taken on a tile that is 3.75" to give a good reference of it's small size BUT not cherry tomato size. 

We do have a lot of green tomatoes, some that look like oxheart, but mostly like beefsteak varieties. I know that we had at least four plants that were Cherokee Purple, and then the rest or mystery heirlooms from Ed Hume's "early heirloom" pack. 

I also harvested a purple and a red bell pepper.  No photos - they were instantly cut up and added to a salad last night along with a walla walla sweet onion. Very Sweet! 

The past couple of weeks, one of the Salmon Faverelles has refused to roost on her own.  I was expected to walk out there each night to pick her up and carry her over to the coop to place her inside.  The first few nights, she wanted to come right back out and I would stand there, blocking the door until she would hop up on a roost.  She generally does not roost nest to other birds, but will. She would then stay in there the rest of the night. Several weeks of this.  The past two nights are the first night that I have not needed to put her into the coop. So, hopefully, this is the end of that game. 

I checked the nesting boxes like I usually do one last time at the end of the day, and discovered a bit of a slime ball of an egg.  It was a little like a no shell egg, with just a smidge of a shell like layer on it.  The yolk is visible through the translucent layer, and I tried to show that in the photos, but the light reflects too much, and I don't have the best camera or the best lighting. Anyways, I am assuming it is just a newbie egg for now and hope she improves with age. They have free access to oyster shell at all times, and I don't see any pullets being chased away from the oyster shell bin when I am out there. The egg is actually a fairly good sized egg. Just not sure at this point. 

July is Here 2021

 Well, generally, June was a busy month, but it got too hot near the end. Breaking high temp records, day after day was too much. Even the over night temps were too hot to bear. Then, right after the extreme heat, we had a windstorm that blew over a third of my corn.  Thankfully, the corn was still young enough to prop back up and get back on track. 

To combat the intense heat, I put shade covers over the potatoes and the tomatoes. The onions mostly wilted and toppled one by one.  They did not get very large before that.  I only had one left that got to a good size.  Pulled up the red bunching onions and they are very good. More like scallions than anything. Surprised that the broccoli is still producing, even during the heat. Not large ones, but a lot of bite-sized heads. Everything in buckets ended up under the trees for shade and we did not lose any other plants (aside from the onions needing to be harvested) in the extreme heat. Thank Goodness! 

A week after the extreme heat, I had to harvest a lot of herbs, basil, rosemary, oregano, and thyme to keep them from flowering. Onions still have a great flavor and we are eating them as fast as we can. 

Not sure about the garlic.  But we are trying something different to see if we can back.  Even before the heat, the garlic was looking sad. Will see if we can get any to survive. Beans and carrots did fine in the heat. Beans are flowering now.  

Put the Cucumbers out late.  I didn't want to put them out just before the extreme heat, So plants were transplanted right after the extreme heat days just before July.  I noted a flower on one of them today. Yay! 

Peas are not thriving. Hanging in, but mostly just using them as a paper weight. They are holding down the edges of the sunshade for the house. 

I didn't take pix of the tomatoes or peppers, but they seem to be doing very well. 

Potatoes in the square garden are going strong. At least above the gound. Not sure about under ground. 

Corn was planted in sessions.  I planted 15 the middle of May, then another 15 the end of May and the last 15 the middle of June. The first batch is tasseling. The second batch looks good, the third batch suffered from the extreme heat and only some survived. So, we will see what comes of this experiment.

 

We had put the pullets in with the hens about mid June.  The transition was a bit rough, especially for the Faverelles.  But it was slowed down a lot by the extreme heat. None of them wanted to do much of anything, let alone chase one another.  We set up three food and three water stations.  This past week has been the first week where they all go to the coop and stay for the night.  For weeks, we were having to take them out of the nesting boxes and put them inside the coop. The first week, we left the bars on the boxes down so that the pullets would have a space to get away from the hens. Last week, we started closing the boxes late in the afternoon, and they quickly adapted to finding space in the coop to sleep. 

This weekend, we are trying to sell the hens. We have chicks arriving this next week. 

That's pretty much the update.