Garden Journal: 12 March 2020

So what’s going on in the garden today?

-My Daffodils are starting to bloom, and some more Crocus are joining in the fun!

 

-One of my late-planted Hyacinth bulbs is starting to poke its head out of the soil.

– Some Garlic and Walking-Onions have sprouted back up after the winter.

-I’m beginning to notice little patches of Cilantro starting to grow again in my flower beds.

– My Plum trees are blooming very nicely this year! (and I made a little video about them too:

  )

– And last but not least, quite a few of my seeds have sprouted!

So far, it looks like 2020 should be a good year (for my garden, that is!). Stay tuned, and lets see where this season takes us.

Happy Growing!

Garden Journal: 1 March 2020

Looked through seeds, and picked several varieties to plant in a flat.

Planted the following:

• Cabbage (saved seeds) – 12
• Spinach (saved seeds) – 12
• Asparagus (Mary Washington) – 12
• Broccoli (De Cicco)- 12
• Brussels Sprouts (old seeds) – 6
• Kale (old seeds) – 6
• Lettuce (iceberg) – 6
• Perpetual Spinach Chard – 6

Flat was placed in workshop on seed starter heating pad under LED clamp-lights.

Several Crocus are blooming!

Planted Hyacinth bulbs that I should have planted last November.

 

Moving Day

It’s been a long road, a lot of work, and a lot of learning, but the Chickens are finally in their big-girl home!

Since my last post, I’ve managed to build and hang the coop doors;

Hang the plywood for the walls;

Brace the plywood seams, frame the windows (and cut out the single side window), install window mesh, AND soffit mesh;

And I’ve also managed to paint the floor inside of the coop;

And although the acrylic roof coating I had used for the top-coat of the floor took longer than expected to dry, I still managed to get the Girls in their final home by Saturday morning. It’s certainly a relief to have them in a proper home. And they seem much happier with more space and an excess of food and water. Before these larger containers, I had to fill food at water at least once a day. I’m excited to see how long these new, bigger, tougher containers last before needing a fill. Of course, I brought down their grit, and used their old food container for crushed oyster shell – who knows how soon the first eggs will be?

With this milestone accomplished, I’ll have more time to work on their run area, and tend my gardens. My tomatoes will definitely need planting when I have time. I’ve already gotten some tomatoes off of my “Tree Cherries”.

The grapes seem like they’re coming along nicely as well, but I still may not get to taste them if the birds notice them getting ripe before I do.

Same goes for my Dew Berries.

But it looks like it might be a pretty heavy Pear year, so I should have some delicious fruit in my future at least somewhat guaranteed.

And there are a few blueberries ready-to-go.

Along with all this, I’ve had lots of flowers come and go since the last post, though the latest picture here are going strong:

I’ve chopped-and-dropped the tall weeds in the Big Garden, and mulched a few of the Front Gardens with grass clippings.

And of course, I can’t forget the Daiquiris that were made with fresh-picked Strawberries.

All in all, it’s been a lovely, productive lead-in to Summer. After all, at this point, Summer is only about a week old. I’m definitely very thankful for all of my perennial fruits, because even though I’ve been very busy building a chicken coop, I’ve still managed to have some enjoyable produce with very little hands-on work.

Thanks again for stopping by, and as always: Happy Growing!

A Busy Spring

It’s been a few weeks since the last update, but a lot has happened in that time. The chickens have officially outgrown their indoor home, so – for the time being anyway – they’ve been relocated to the Outdoor Rabbit Hutch on the porch.

It might not seem like a big improvement, but it’s about twice the space as the Indoor Hutch, and now the smell of these chickens stays outside, instead of in my basement. And boy do these birds start to get stinky when they grow up. I suppose this is where the phrase “dirty birds” comes from.

The Chickens aren’t the only ones enjoying their new (for now) home. The dogs have taken a bit of interest in the new additions on the porch:

They’ve since gotten used to them. Lakota here is really the only one that pays them much interest anymore.

Of course, this is not the permanent home for these girls. They’re already getting too big for the Porch Hutch. But I’ve had time to make some good progress on the Big Coop. The roof has had plywood added:

And Metal Roofing on top of that:

And, as of today, the walls are framed too!

Sure, there’s still quite a bit of work to do: The doors need to be made and hung, the stairs on the front and back need to be built, the plywood needs to be attached to the walls, and the fence needs to be put around the run area. But it feels good to have gotten it this far. Also, I got proof that the roof is fully waterproof on the day I finished installing it (which was yesterday, by the way). Not 2 hours after finishing the metal roofing, we had a nice strong summer storm move through. Not only did it pour down, but it blew like crazy. And guess what? None of the metal blew off, and the inside stayed perfectly dry (save two of the edges of the floor where the rain blew in sideways). Again, I’m very excited to be nearing the end of this project, and so are the Girls:

They looks like full-on chickens now, don’t they? Well they’ll be in their permanent home soon enough.

Enough about the chickens for now, though, how about those tomatoes? Well, not only have they survived hardening off, they are absolutely thriving:

Thriving so much in fact, that I already have a few tomatoes growing:

Pretty cool huh? Even so, they need to be in the ground soon. The Chicken Coop has definitely taken most of my focus this year, but I do hope to start getting these beautiful plants in the ground soon. Even if it’s just a couple plants at a time.

The tomatoes aren’t the only plants of mine doing well. Have a look at this grapevine!

Last year was the first year I had any grapes on this vine: one tiny, sparse bundle that the birds got to before I could. But this year, there are bunches like these all over:

I may have missed watching them bloom (it much be a very short bloom because I’d been watching the buds grow for some time) but hopefully I’ll get to watch these grapes grow this year. And maybe (MAYBE) I’ll get to taste some of my very own grapes this year!

With June right around the corner, my Strawberries are starting to kick into high gear:

Unfortunately, I’m not the only one who knows this. I’ve been dealing with a Strawberry Thief since they started fruiting:

I wouldn’t be quite so upset if they at least ate the whole strawberry, but alas – they only ever take a few bites and leave the rest to mock me. It’s no matter though. I’m prepared for this game anymore. And I’ve already managed to catch one of the culprits:

I’ll be taking this little fella about 30 miles north, across a river, and releasing him (or her) at work. I’d say that should be far enough away that he (or she) shouldn’t find their way back to my strawberry patch. Even while tracking down these furry bandits (there are still more on the loose, by the way, since I’ve noticed more half-eaten fruits even with this bugger in captivity), I’ve managed to gather a handful of fresh, delicious juicy Strawberries:

It’s definitely an eventful, exciting time of year, and I’ll do my best to keep you posted on the progress of things here on the Homestead. I hope you enjoyed this lightening-round catch-up session, because I’ve had a blast writing about it.

Well anyway, Happy Memorial Day (though perhaps “happy” isn’t exactly the right word), and until next time, Happy Growing!

P.S. Keep an eye on the YouTube channel soon because there is a TON of footage to be made into new videos!

Plenty of Progress

It’s been a while since my last post, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been lazing around. Last weekend was actually a long weekend for me. You’d think that would mean I got a lot done on the chicken coop. And with the girls getting as big as they are (well were in this photo), that would have been great:

However, my truck had other ideas:

Yep, that’s a wheel bearing replacement. And while the concept is simple enough, salty winters here in Kentucky make removing bad parts about 10 times harder than they should be. No joke: about 95% of my time on this repair was spent trying to get the old bearing off. The silver lining here is that I got an extra day added to my already long weekend (thanks to Good Friday) since I had to call off work to fix this. The rest of the weekend – save Easter Sunday – was rainy. But I managed to get enough wood for the next couple of stages on the chicken coop.

I even found some Cherry trees while I was at Home Depot getting lumber! I had been looking everywhere for these trees, but nobody had any in stock. Needless to say, I grabbed a few.

I still haven’t managed to get these in the ground yet, but I did make some pretty substantial progress this weekend. Firstly, I finally got my tomatoes outside to start hardening off. It’s been either too cold, or too stormy to move them out yet, but this Saturday gave me a calm, not totally cold chance to move them out onto my porch where they can get used to some wind and filtered sunlight.

They’re a little leggy right now, but once I can plant them and cage them, they should start to thicken up a bit. In the meantime, I’m just going to do my best to make sure they make it to that stage. Hardening off my tomatoes always makes me nervous.

Now for the update I’m sure you’re all curious about: The Chicken Coop.

Saturday was nice enough in the morning for me to finish the plywood floor of the coop.

I was hoping to start on framing the roof as well, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Rain and power tools usually don’t mix well, so I decided to pack it up and wait for Sunday. Today, however, was wonderful all day long. So I used what time I had to finish what I could. And believe it or not, I managed to get the whole roof framed.

I’ll need to get more wood to do anything more on it, but hey – it’s starting to look like a chicken coop!

Amidst all this progress, I also managed to get that Youtube channel set up that I had been talking about a few posts ago. If you’d like to see a more in-depth progression of the chicken coop build, hop on over to the Youtube Channel, and start off here, on Part 1:

I know there’s a lot to digest in this post, but sometimes life is like that. So here’s this week’s picture of the girls to help you out:

Until next time, Happy Growing!

Deal Shopping for Trees

When the trees start leafing out, it’s my cue to start looking for new trees I’d like to plant. Since we moved in almost 7 years ago, my wife and I have dreamed about a few different flowering trees we’d like to have. Two of them – the Weeping Cherry and the Magnolia – we found for half their usual price last year. This year, we finally got our Dogwood, and our Japanese Maple. Can you guess how much we paid?

That’s right: Half Price. Now when I say “half price” I mean half as much as I used to see them sell for. These trees were not on sale, they were just much cheaper than I’ve ever seen them. So I jumped on the chance to get these two trees we’ve yearned for for years. I know they don’t seem like much now, but in time they’ll be lovely additions to our landscape.

In other news, more Tulips have opened, the Redbuds are flowering, and my Grapes are starting to sprout some leaves.

More progress has been made on the chicken coop as well. The joists are in now, so things should really start to take shape. I’ll need to get some plywood and more lumber during the week, but that should be a quick stop some evening.

There’s plenty more to do on the Homestead, but I honestly wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s such a rewarding feeling to watch your plants grow, and see the things you imagined and built slowely materialize. Of course, nothing ever turns our how you expected it to, but that’s part of the fun! Thanks for stopping by again, and before I go, enjoy the latest picture of the Girls:

Until next time, Happy Planting!

Tulips and Treeflowers

It never really feels like Spring until the trees start blooming. Today is the day that seems to have started at the Growing Through Gardening Homestead. My Magnolia is about halfway open, and those two flowers are as beautiful as can be. I can’t wait to see how this tree changes and grows over the years.

My Pear tree is also starting to bloom, and this year seems to be the heaviest bloom I’ve seen yet from it. Hopefully that means lots of pears to eat by the end of Summer! I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

While walking through the Front Gardens this evening, I also spotted the first Tulip bloom of the year. I hope the rest of my Tulips aren’t too far behind this little scout:

The ground phlox is also starting to bloom, and quite appropriately so, as this is where the name of the “Pink Moon” originates:

It’s not just the flowers of mine that are starting to take off. My Egyptian Walking Onions have really grown in the past week or so. I have lots of grass to pull out of these beds, but the Onions don’t seem to mind it too much at the moment.

But of course with all these plants I’m excited to see growing, there’s one I’m a little less thrilled about:

It’s that time of the year – Time to mow the uneven mounds of fast-sprouting grass to even things out with the still-dormant varieties. It can certainly be a bit of a challenge to mow a yard evenly when not all of the grass has begun to grown, but hey: if I miss a spot now, I’ll just get it the next time I mow. After all, it certainly looks much nicer once it’s had a trim:

Thanks for stopping by again, and stay tuned, because there is much, much more to come.

Happy Blooming, Sprouting, and Mowing!

A Solid Foundation for the Future

As you can see, the chickens are growing ever larger. And that means my time to finish their permanent home is growing ever shorter. Lucky for me, I had a nice weekend to do some building. I managed to get all four posts plumb, square, and cemented in the ground. Three of the four framing boards for the floor are now also attached to the posts. I wanted to wait to fasten the last board until the posts had a day or two longer to set-up better.

Even so, it feels wonderful to have this much done. The foundation is always the most tedious and time-consuming part of a build. But a proper foundation – built with care – is the only way to build anything that really has a chance of standing the tests of time. The rest of the building will still take time to build, but there should be fewer moving parts at any given time now that the posts, and floor frame are in place.

It might look strange with the floor being so high off the ground, but this is indeed done on purpose. With the post to the far left in the upper picture as reference, the bottom of the board is 2 feet up off of the ground. I did this for two reasons: 1.) I didn’t want to lose 80 square feet of ground space by placing the coop directly at ground level. This will give my birds 80 square feet inside the coop, and 80 square feet of dry, shady ground space beneath the coop. Twice the space, without twice the work. Of course, there will be a run/pen area behind the coop as well, but any extra space is much appreciated. 2.) 2 feet is high enough that I can comfortably get underneath the coop on my hands and knees. It will need to be cleaned under here, and of course I’ll need to get in there to fix fencing from time to time. So I wanted to make sure I had enough space to work comfortably when I inevitably need to make my way under here.

It’s certainly a big structure for a chicken coop, but I’d rather it be too big than too small. If I ever change my mind and decide I don’t want chickens, I’ll have a decent structure to use as a shed. But I’m anticipating many years of happy chickens!

 

In other news, my tomatoes are very happy in their larger pots and with more lights pointed on them.

Not much longer now and I’ll be moving them outside to harden off. At this point it should only be a week or two. I’ll have to keep my eye on the forecasts to know for sure, though.

Other than all that, Spring is progressing nicely. So in good form: enjoy some more pictures of the blooms:

I’m also very excited for my pear tree this year. It looks like we should be be getting lots of flowers here very soon:

And last but not least: it’s almost time for my very first Magnolia Blooms!

Stay tuned, and Happy Growing!

Signs of Spring

It was a good weekend for Spring. More and more of my Daffodils are blooming, the trees are starting to sprout new leaves, and my chickens are now 3 weeks old.

And at 3 weeks old, they’re already starting to get a little cramped. I do have a somewhat larger hutch outside that I could move them into if I have to, but I’d rather just move them into their full-size coop. Which brings me to the topic of what I spent my Saturday doing.

It doesn’t look like much, does it? But this is the most important part of the coop: the foundation. Right now, the only proper part of the foundation in place is that solitary post in the back corner that is cemented 36″ deep and plumb with the mystical plane of the “level ground”. However, the other 3 post holes are finished with a full depth of 36″ each. I chose to let this single post set an extra day because of the cold weather that came through the night before. While the post feels solid, the top of the concrete is still a little soft, so I figured an extra day wouldn’t hurt. I like to have a good solid place to start the construction of any of my outbuildings. Hopefully I’ll have some time in the evenings to do some more work on this coop. After all, my girls are growing awfully fast!

Here are a few more shots of the progress so far (well, actually, some of these were before I set the first post):

Here are some more pictures of the sprouting leaves:

And of course, some more flower pictures:

That last one is from one of the relocated bulbs I had moved last weekend… or was that the weekend before that? Either way, these were moved this Spring, so I’m happy to see they still decided to bloom.

It may only be 40°F today, but Spring is in the air, and it’s time to get back to work outside! I’m currently working on setting up a Youtube channel as well so that you all can come along with me while I work on my different Garden projects. I’m planning to start with some videos on the chicken coop build. Hopefully you all are as excited as I am about it!

Until next time:

Happy Building, Sprouting, and Growing!

A Tight Squeeze

Spring is here, and with it come the chores of shaking off the mess and hibernation of Winter. The first act of welcoming Spring? Trimming back last year’s Mums so that this year’s Crocus have a place to bloom.

I know most people trim back their gardens in the Fall, but I prefer to wait until Spring. I like to think that my Mums get a better start the following year when I leave the old growth on – perhaps they’ve stored some starch or sugars in there to give them a boost come Spring, and who am I to deny them of that? I also like to know that I have good fire-starting materials ready to go when I need them in the Winter, and I don’t like to let those get buried under wet snow all Winter long. Not to mention I prefer the act of trimming during the Spring-time. If feels renewing and rejuvenating, and, plus, I’m usually tired and ready for a rest by the time my Mums have finished blooming in late Fall anyway.

Aside from cleaning up the gardens a bit and splitting some daffodil clumps into individual bulbs, the big task of this weekend was finally transplanting my tomatoes.

As you can see, I’m just about out of space to put them now that they have their own containers! No wonder I put this off for so long. Not only is it crowded once they’ve been transplanted into individual pots, but in years past I have had them get too tall and delicate when I’ve transplanted them to early. I figured putting this off until later, and maybe forcing them to struggle a little bit would be beneficial when the time comes to move them outside into the shade to harden off. That day is still about a moth away, so we’ll see how they do until then.

They already seem a bit happier being split out like this. Plus, I found some little surprises in some previously un-sprouted cells:

Yep: four more Mortgage Lifters. I’ll be leaving them in their starter cells until they can grow up a little more. This is yet another reason why I’m slow to empty un-sprouted pots or cells – sometimes they just need a little while longer.

Aside from all this, I’ve also been tending to the new chickens. They’re happy and healthy, and starting to get a bit bigger!

They may not look much different in the pictures, but they sure do seem bigger in person. They’re also starting to feather-out a bit more too. I guess that’s all the more reason to get started on building the coop. I guess it’s a good thing I stopped off and got some materials for the foundation on Friday.

As always there’s plenty to do. So I guess I better roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty!

Until next time, Happy Spring!