The last day of February

I have missed posting on here the last few days because my phone/camera was stolen from my work on Friday (good times :). I use it as main camera as it's 8 megapixels, I do have my previous camera and thats what I used to take some pictures today. I haven't started anything new but I do have updates on what is growing.

These are the leeks. They are taking off!

Next up are the onions. The yellows have sprouted a lot more than the reds, i'm not sure why though. I planted all of the seeds that I got so I will just have to see what happens with those reds.

Here is the sage.

Check out the celery, its sprouted and i'm pretty happy with that so far. I have read a lot about celery and it seems so finicky that I almost thought it wouldn't even sprout for me. 

Heres a funny thing, I made up some chicken treats. I mix up some oatmeal and other stuff with some no sugar added applesauce and warm it up as a treat. Usually I leave it in the bowl but I forget it then the bowl gets totally gross so I put piles on the ground instead. Problem was that snow was covering the ground and they will not walk on it! I'm not sure if it's because they can't see it right or if it looks like water to them, or they just don't like it, I don't know, if you do let me know.

So here they are on the outskirts teetering on edge of the concrete pad and the runway, wanting to eat it so badly!

My funny girl was the brave one and she hopped down first, now the others still wanted to but weren't so sure.

Now everyone was in but one, look at her, she just couldn't make the leap!

All in now! The treats didn't last long.

Meanwhile inside the coup, someone was practicing their mothering skills.

When I was ready to leave they had all came back in to see if I was handing out anything in there. Only a fresh bowl of water, no more goodies.

And for fun I will show you a couple screen shots of the document I have made up to keep track of all the plants this year. I put in all the plants, made it so that I can direct link to the webpage that I bought it from for more info, date sowed all that fun stuff.

Then heres a shot of the calendar that I did up so I could just see what I have do do ahead of time easily instead of guessing each week or figuring it out each week. I like my structure.

Tomorrow I am going to make some more small newspaper pots so I can plant up those celery. Will update then!

Newspaper herb pots

Tonight I finally made some of the newspaper sprout pots that I have been reading about. Here are the supplies that I used.

I read in various places how to fold the paper and to me it seemed like the end result would be way to thick for the roots to grow through. So I cut the paper in fours and they are sturdy enough and not too thick at the same time, heres how I cut the paper.

So I took one piece and folded it in half, wrapped it around the container (I used a smaller one for now, I will use the soup can for the next size up). I left a bit hang over the end to fold over to create the bottom of the pot. You leave an open space on the bottom for drainage and so the roots can get out a bit too. The one in my picture is too closed!

I put the pots in a flat and pulled the paper towel sprouts out of the bag. This is my sage. I used a toothpick to make a small hole in the seed mix and carefully picked a sprout off the paper towel and stuck it in the hole. I put two in each pot. 

Here is the finished flat of sage seedlings.

As I was working on this project Molly was 'telling' me she didn't feel so well. I had scraped some plaque off her teeth a few hours ago so it may be that her mouth hurt. So I fed her some turkey vegetable and noodle soup to fill up her tum. Any time Mo's is feeling sick or I can hear her tum rumbling I fix her right up with some soup. Crisis averted, she sat next to me while I worked and eventually napped a bit.

I think I am going to sprout more of my seeds in this baggie method. It seems so much easier to just keep a little baggie nice and warm rather than a whole flat of dirt. It also seemed like they sprouted rather quickly. So as I start more of the other veggies and herbs it will be interesting to see if they all work as well. 

Good Monday

The sage has sprouted some tails over the last couple of days. I'm not sure how long you are supposed to leave them in the bag though, so I will have to do some research on that tomorrow.

The red onions and the leeks are taking off also.

My other project for this year is to make birdhouse's out of gourds. I planted about 20 or so plants last year and I harvested around 200 gourds. I have done a lot of reading on how to go about making them and I can't wait to start. If all goes well I will be selling them at a local flea market and saving the cash for a vacation.

 I am going to plant more this year also. I'm not sure if they will be in the same spot on the outside of the garden fence though. I got some other squashes that I may need to plant there. I am planting some of the saver squashes so that I have some fresh vegetables to feed the chickens over the winter when we are low on goodies. I don't like them just eating their feed, I feel like since they can't free range with all the snow that they are missing out on some extra nutrients. 

One step closer to spring

Today I was very productive for a change. First off I bought some sand so I could make a dust box for the girls. I mixed the sand with a little bit of peat moss and a bucket of ash from our wood burner. They have one outside in the run but its rather unusable now that its been covered with snow and the sand is like a rock.

No takers today really. I bet by tomorrow the whole place will be covered in dust. They are always leery of new stuff. I mean look at this face, does she look like a bird you are going to get something past?!

This is pearl. After The Black Pearl. I favor her for no reason other than that. I haven't named any of the others for the simple fact that I couldn't remember that many names. 

I guess that may be a lie cause I call this one Funny Girl a lot. She's got a strange look to her.

You can see the cool color on this girl here. She's being shy.

After that I spruced up their place a bit, fluffed up the shavings, cleaned up the poo, cleaned out their milk crates and added clean bedding to them. Check out this picture of one of my ee's. Today was the first day I have ever seen an egg actually come out and she wasn't shy about it at all. And now I know who lays my pretty blue eggs, even if it was a bit pointy on one end!

Then I headed to the green house to do some clean up and get the lights up for the  seedlings that will be soon to come.

I dusted all the cobwebs, washed the windows, washed down the benches and made a new spot that wasn't on the top of the bench for Franke. I can't have no dang cat knocking over precious seedlings. 

You can sort of see Franke under the bench in this one. He was a barn cat of sorts from the neighbor I think. He was tiny and not being fed so I carried him over to our house and started feeding him last fall. He has gained a bit of weight since then. And stopped biting me. 

Then I headed back to the coup to throw out some scratch before bed time. Fuzzy butts everywhere.

One last picture of the green house on the way back to the house, I love it at night in the summer with the string lights on.

Tomorrow I will post some pics of the baggie seedlings, the sage started to pop out

today and the onions and leeks are peeking out too.

Hasty alliums!

Good grief, I started these onions and leeks just thursday and they are already sprouting. All 3 kinds. 

Now I do realize that there are just a few and they are barely coming up but you do see those white bits right?! I mean, these were supposed to take at the least a week. I was very surprised.

No movement yet on anything in the bags, maybe I should have put them in the starter mix too and they could wonder sprout also. 

Heres a pic of todays eggs, a couple of the araucanas are giving us eggs again for the last week or so. I get about one a day from them. They were the first to slow down and stop when it got really cold and dark. I don't blame them, this winter feels never ending. You can't see the blue one too well but its there. I'm pretty sad about the rhode island red that died, she gave us a nice large brown egg every day. All winter long. 

Here is a picture of the eggs from late summer, this shows you the awesome range of color we get.

Blue had to get in on the action, she was mad I wasn't petting her.

We lost one of the ladies today.

I dont know what happened but one of my rhode island reds died. She fell off the roost is all I can tell. I am very sad, I hope she didn't suffer. I feel like they are part of the family and I wish there was something I could have done.

Baggies and cake pans

Gardening season 2010 is underway! Holler! Ok then.

This year I bought some of those starter mix blocks that expand in water. I wanted to stay away from the little disks that expand because of the netting that they have on them. Every time I peel off that stuff a ton of root goes with it and planting it with it on isn't so good either. So here are the goods that were used today-

Instead of starting everything in the seed starting mix I wanted to try another method that I have seen people doing on the internets. Its basically just putting the seeds on a damp paper towel and putting in a ziplock. It's very easy and seems like it may make it easier to keep them warm until the germinate, instead of needing to keep a big ol' flat warmed. So I chose the celery and the sage for this. The sage so I can keep it warm easier and the celery because the seeds are so dang small I figure I can plant the little sprouts and manage them better. 

I was a little confused on which month it was when I was writing on the sage bag...

Next up I did the onions and the leeks. Im doing a red and yellow storage onion, last year I did red only and it dawned on me after buying so many yellows to make soup recently that I should grow these also.

I used cake pans from wal-mart to start them in. Two for 3 dollars, they previously held cupcakes for a benefit bake sale. I was going to use one pan and do half and half but decided against it and just used separate pans. I am almost positive I would have mixed them both all up and I don't really do well with having things unorganized. 

The leeks went into an old tupperware thing Don probably found in the trash somewhere. I put a piece of cling wrap over top so I can see exactly whats going on in there. I noted on each container what the dates are I should start to see germination so I don't have to guess. 

This concludes todays seed sowing experience. While trying so hard to get things to grow just so, this is going on in my veggie basket all on its own.

Guess that means I should pick up some garlic at the store next week. I may just plant this and see what happens.

And for some chicken talk, look at this specimen that got laid yesterday-

Someone was laying these tiny things for a week or so a couple months ago. I thought they were done. I kept a bunch and used them to make scrambled eggs. None of the had a yolk. Maybe they knew I was watching my calories??