Winter is around the corner

This is the time of year that I like think about our feathered friends. With so many birds that stay around during the winter months it is important to feed these little guys. I make sure to provide plenty of water and suet. The bushtits and flickers really love it. At any given time I can see at least ten of these cute little round guys hanging on my suet feeder. I have left out a fuschia basket that they like to hop around as well.

I am not usually thrilled about fall. I think it is the anticipation of the dark cold months. This fall however has been particularly beautiful. The berries on the bushes have been extra red. The leaves on the trees have been brilliant. Can you believe I just harvested the very last of our raspberries? Just enough to put on top of some granola. The seasons seem to be changing in ways that I can't explain. But is makes every year a little bit of an adventure.

Cute in an awkward way

I thought I had better post some pictures of the chickies. It has been too long and they have grown too much. I am so behind that I neglected to post a picture of Buttons the youngest chick. She was born the day after Dottie. I have posted some pictures of her as a baby baby and some of all of them today. Enjoy

Drum roll please...Introducing Dottie!!

Today when I came home I went to check on Henny Penny and set up better digs for her stay with us. I was so excited to find another broken egg. Yes another chick. I could here the two peeping away but I could not find her at first. Was she all curled up in mama's feathers? Nope. She was way back in the corner of the kennel. It was hard to find this little gem because she was so yellow she blended into the shavings. She has two little black dots on her head. I immediately called the mother in law. I described the little bundle to her and she chose the name Dottie. I had thought that would be a good name as well. So the flock grows. I can't wait to see what little miracle will happen or pop out tomorrow.

Henny Penny comes home to nest!

While mama's away that cats will play, well in this case the chicks will play. Today we got an excited call from my mother in law Birdie. Henny Penny hatched an egg. She had a visiting rooster for awhile. Sparky. Henny Penny is her little silkie. She has been sitting on several eggs for a few weeks and one cute little feather footed chick decided to emerge today. We are even more excited here at Front Yard Farms because Birdie has to leave for six days. No we never get excited when our beloved Birdie leaves town but in this case it means that we get to take care of Henny Penny and baby Sparket and her six other sibs that are waiting to hatch. I feel like I am in kindergarten again taking home the class pet. Talk about cute. I will add some pictures of all the cuteness when I can get a good shot of these little gals.

Getting Dirty

It has been awhile since I have written. I went to a psychic today. You may ask what that has to do with writing about gardening. Well she told me that I need to let all these ideas out and move forward with them. So I am starting with being more dedicated to my blog. My little blog here derserves that attention. I'd like to write about something I am quite passionate about and my son has become quite passionate about...WORMS. Yes worms. You may at first think eewww. Although if you are a gardener you may say "Yaaaah!" The little man and I have been quite busy with our worm bins and making new little bins of compost. I have been showing him how we can add things to the compost bins and watch them compost down into a wonderful black gold. Today we dumped out one of our bins and addes some leaves from the neighbors yard and a little straw. We also added some worm castings and some chicken poop. We mixed it together and them put it back into its bin. We will continue to turn it every other day or so and see how long it takes to compost. I have been teaching him how the worms eat our "garbage". He enjoys watching the little guys wiggle around and feed on the rotting food. He understands that bacteria breaks down the food then the worms are able to eat it. Their castings or poop is high in nitrogen. He knows if we add some worms and their castings to our compost bins that it will speed up the process. Composting and worm bins are a great activity for children. Sometimes I will catch him out at the bins looking for worms or even turning the compost. He's three. I have added some pictures of our day. I will write more about bins. I have also added some pictures of our swiss chard starts planted with some of the compost we screened last week.

HEat

Well with all this heat it has been hard to garden. We harvested a lot of vegetables and fruit this morning before it got too hot. The chickens have been panting these past few days. We have fans going along with ice packs in their nesting boxes. We have been giving them frozen fruit to keep them cool. I will post a picture of our bounty soon. I thought I had just better write something since it has been so long. Coming soon a post and pictures from the big sale.

Growing

Oh my goodness it has been too long since I have written.  Everything is growing, the garden and the chickens.  Those weee little chicks are not so weee little any more.  They are growing fast and just look like miniature versions of our big girls now.  The Front Yard Farm is filling in fast.  We have been eating lettuce, turnips and strawberries.   The blueberries are coming along as well as everything else.  The Fuschias are blooming and our hummingbirds are back.  It feels good.  It is time for me to get out and weed again.  I haven't cared as much this year and I am just enjoying seeing everything grow.  I have planted some eggplants this year.  That is a first for me.  I will let you know how that goes.  I lost the asparagus.  Oh well I guess next year I will try again and wait 3 years.  I will post some pix soon.  Hope everyone is enjoying gardening.  Come and see me at the Urban Farm Store.  

My love affair with chickens

It can start out slowly, this love. It is a love like no other. An obsession perhaps. Yes, its my chickens. I heard someone say once that having chickens is like collecting Hummel figurines. Once you have a few you want to add one more here and one more there. Oh I need the little one sitting on the toad stool or I need the one holding the flower basket. I don't really know what all the figurines look like. I was never collected them. Oh but how I can imagine. I started out with a Buff Orpington, a Gold Laced Wyandotte, and a Production Red, so I think. Once we lost the Orpington and rehomed the Red I couldn't have my Wyandotte, Merdle all alone. This is where it has begun. So I went to the Urban Farm Store, where I work, and I collected myself a Speckled Sussex, an Orpington and a Brahma. Well you know the tail of the Sussex, remember Opal or shall we call him Opus. He now has a good home. Well we still have the little Orpington and the Brahma. We also now have an Americauna named Xanadoo. She was adopted by the woman that compared chickens to Hummel figurines. She was given to her because she has a cross beak. Well thankfully we now have this delightful chicken. She is quiet and tame and so good natured. She lays blue eggs. We have gotten one from her everyday she has been here. So here is where the collecting comes in. The woman we got Xanadoo from started with three chickens. She now has some odd hundred and seventy five from what I could tell. She had big chickens, small chickens, baby chickens, pullets and everything in between. Well we couldn't contain ourselves we wanted one of each. A Jersey Giant, a Cochin, a Sebright, a Dorking. Oh I could go on. Some people collect figurines. Not this girl. It is chickens all the way for me. Oh yes and my fuschias.

Out with the Rooster in with the New

Well our lovely Opal turned out to be an Opus. Yup, she was a he, a rooster. We found him a good home where we were promised he'd be spoiled rotten. Sounds like they wanted to make him a daddy. I explained to them that he watched TV with us every night and loved to have his belly rubbed. So today we picked up a lovely Americauna. Her name is Xanadoo. She has a little crossed beak but nothing too bad. She is about a year and lays green eggs. I will post pics soon. She is very snuggly and just what we needed for our Merdle girl (we hope) The will be together tonight in the coop. Lets cross our fingers.

Chick Days

Well on a very sad note we recently lost our big girl Rambo. She was a lovely Buff Orpington Hen. She layed many eggs for us and gave us lots of love and laughs. She was a big fluff ball of love with lots of personality and little fear. We truly miss her. She was part of the family and will never be forgotten. We had a funeral for her last week. She is buried under a Hydrangea in the back yard behind the chicken run.
As one life ends another begins though. We could not leave our last chicken standing, Merdle, alone. We now have an array of chickens. We have two new chicks. A Light Brahma, Bianca and a Buff Orpington, Rocky (sticky with the Sly Stalone theme). We also have a 8 week old pullet named Opal. She is a Cuckoo Maran. She is a darling loving bird. The little chicks crawl under her wings as if she is there mother. Bianca chirps and chirps if Opal is out of her site. Rocky seems bold and curious like Rambo was. Opal is very happy falling asleep on our laps as we watch tv. She'll even fall asleep on her back if we flip her over to rub her belly. She was a true score. In the pictures the fluffy footed chick is Bianca. Enjoy.

First Consult

Sunday I had my first consult with my friend Danielle about growing vegetables.  After sitting down and talking for awhile about everything she was interested in we decided to start small.  Danielle is in a bit of limbo with her house.  They are deciding whether or not to rent out their house and move to some bigger land.  She'd like to start growing vegetables but doesn't want to go to all the work to leave it right in the middle of the season.  We decided it was best to do some container gardening so she could take them with her.  We chose some veggies and herbs for her to grow that would be easy and that she enjoyed eating.  This garden is for her.  We decided tomatoes, basil, chives and cilantro would be good.  We may decide to grow a pepper as well.  We looked around her house and discovered she had some pots that could be used.  We may need to purchase a few more.  We will both keep an eye out for good sales and deals.  To save some money I have already started many of these herbs and lots of tomatoes so I can supply her with the starts.  We will meet again in the beginning of May to pot up her edible garden.  We may decide later to add some cut flowers to her mix but we want to take it slow so she is not overwhelmed but most important that she is successful.  

Sharon's Garden: Front Yard Farms

http://daniellecornelius.com/

Front Yard Farms

Well I have made the leap to start my own little business. Do what you love and the money will follow, right? The name I have chosen is Front Yard Farms. My intent is to help people create beautiful veggie gardens and create food for themselves. Teach people sustainable practices as well as help with some ornamental gardening, selling herbs and veggie starts as well as ornamental starts. I visited my friend Monica's garden to give her some advice. She is a fairly experienced gardener so it was inspiring as well as helpful for me to get my mind really in the mode of my business plan. My next project is to help my dear friend Danielle, who has a bit of a brown thumb. We are going to get that brown thumb nice and green. Danielle has really taken on the responsibility to live in a more sustainable way. She has really gotten into the spirit of recycling everything, networking with others to generate good practices in her home and life, and has really made an effort to take good care of her mind and body. So she has decided as part of her process that she needs to become more one with nature and be able to be a little more self sufficient in her garden. We are going to start out with baby steps. She has a few things in mind that she wants to accomplish. First she wants to grow her own food, second she wants to compost more and understand the process, third she wants to be able to have fresh cut flowers for her house, and finally she wants to learn to can the veggies she grows. The last part is not something that I will provide for other clients but I am going to teach her what I know about canning. I should also say that much of this process for her is going to be therapeutic. She is going to challenge herself in an area that may have been a little overwhelming for her. Her husband does most of the gardening and now Danielle wants to be an active participant in the process. So we are going to start some projects that are just hers alone. I will blog about it here and Danielle is going to blog about it on her blog. Look for a website coming soon for Front Yard Farms. A woman on a mission to spread the love of gardening one person at a time.

Planting Schedule

Today I planted some more seeds indoors. I got quite into the spirit of things today by pasterizing soil at home. I baked my potting soil in the oven for thirty minutes at 250 degrees. You may think this is a bit extreme and a bit stinky. It is worth it in the end when you see those darling little plants poke their heads out of the soil in those pots lining the window sills.
Once I got my soil out of the oven I started basil, Walla Walla onions and some pickling cucumbers. We will see what happens with the onions. I understand that onion seeds don't save very well. Meaning you should by or save new seeds every year. Many other seeds save fine for a few years under the right conditions. Keeping them dry and cool. I also started peas outsided today. I plan to start some chamomile, leeks and more cucs inside this weekend. On the 20th I will start some coriander, eggplants, and start some leek seeds outside. March 27th I will sow carrots, bush beans, lettuce, spinach, radish, kohlrabi and watercress outside. April 17th I will sow cucs, onions, more radishes, and tunips outside. I will continue to plant turnips, lettuce and possibly carrots every three weeks after the 17th of April to get a good winter crop going. I plan to plant lettuce under a cucumber trellise. When the last frost has happened, which should be about April 3rd and the soil is quite warm I will start to move my starts outside. Is there anything magical to these dates you ask. No. It is just how I planned my planting schedule this year. In years past I have scrambled around trying to get plants in the ground and being a bit late on most. Who knows if I do the garden dance enough they may become magical dates. There is quite a good chart for winter gardens on Territorial Seeds website.

I busted out the pots and dirt today people...

Okay as promised here is a sneak peek at my schedule of planting. Today I managed to start some tomatoes inside in pots. (The other half is in Vegas for three weeks so I can pack the kitchen with little pots of treasure with no complaint). I started Morgage lifters, a Japanese black tomato that is actually from Russia, claims to have a rich flavor, mmmm. I started two others, one collected from a friend's garden I have renamed the Cherry Lynsky and another that my mom renamed Cucamonga. Hopefully I will get those little peas in the ground. Hopefully it won't rain too much. So stay tuned I will be writing out a complete schedule or it may got like this. But I'd like to be able to give those of you that want it a heads up so you can plan. Happy gardening.

Planting Schedule

I have made a commitment.  Well at least I put it on my calendar with the goal of following through.  I have decided that I am going to start my seeds indoors on February 7th.  I will make every effort to log the days that I start seeds and plant things.  I am really focusing on my veggy garden this season.  I have been inspired to grow fall and winter veggies this year.  During our "lunch time chats" at the MG program a gardener that has been growing winter veggies for twenty years brought in a sample of his beautiful crop.  In the past I have been too late to get my starts in the grown for fall and winter veggies or been intimidated by the process.  I am making it a goal of mine this year to write on the calendar when to put in all my seeds and plants.  Maybe I will get it right this year.  Or at least some of it right.  Stay tuned for planting schedules and some good info on vermiculture.  

Getting geared up

I am anxiously awaiting my seeds to arrive in the mail.  I ordered them a few days ago.  Mostly veggies.  I am looking forward to getting my peas in the ground and their supports up.  I am going to make every effort to record dates here that I am putting seeds and plants in by request of a friend.  I want this blog to be helpful and inspirational for people.  I hope to be putting up my own website soon to offer support and consultation to fellow gardeners experienced and beginners.  This weekend I hope to draw out some plans for the front yard.  We plan to remove the rest of the lawn and hell strip of grass. Because lets face it the only reason for grass was to show wealth after WWII.  Lets make a new green movement of gardens and food in our front yards to show our wealth.  Our wealth of getting back to basics.  Family, sustainable living, eating organic and feeling the earth beneath our hands and knees.  Lets do it for us, for our families, for our children and our communities.  Gardens can save lives, can save someone sanity, can save someones spirit and soul.   

Getting Creative

Well it is that time that we start getting our seed and Dahlia catalogs in the mail. I love to peruse through the catalogs and daydream about warmer days. I have been flipping through the Territorial Seed catalog as well as the Swan Island Dahlia catalog. If you have never been to the Dahlia farm in September it is truly a treat. You should really check it out. Acres of beautiful flowers. It is much more rewarding to get up and close the these beauties. As far as the seed catalogs go it is amazing how many different types of beans there are. Green, yellow and purple. I had to purchase a few types. I am truly excited about a dark almost black tomato. It originates from Russia and apparently has a taste that is indescribable. Rich and thick. Sounds good to me. I can never resist the interesting tomato breeds. I am going to take a shot at growing eggplant this year. Big Daddy (Danny) loves eggplant Parmesan. So we'll see if we can get some good meals out of those.
On another note a friend of mine was so inspired by all my talk of my worm bin. She found it necessary to carve a scare crow from a potato. He is now happily living among the worms. Protecting them from any intruders. I hope to give a class at my plant exchange on worm bins for all those enthusiast even those of you that just want to recycle more.