WEEK 20: Lessons Learned

We decided to plant everything from downstairs (except the wildflowers) into the garden beds on Marianne's birthday, which was May 14th. Around here the word on the street is not to plant anything until the Victoria Day long weekend due to that lingering chance of frost, however our plants were getting too tall and HAD to go out!

Once we planted them in the garden it was all to clear that we let them grow too tall.  The tomato plants fell over, and by the next day after their first watering they looked like they may have a rough road ahead of them.  Next year, we will delay propegation to prevent this from reoccuring.

 

YIKES!!!

 

It will be interesting to see how the three new garden plots will turn out as well.  The original one from last year was fertilized in the past, while the three new ones are just light and sandy.  If we had the chance last fall we would have created the gardens and placed chicken manure, and other compost to lay the ground for this year.  I guess we shall see what we get from those sandy gardens where we planted our tomatoes, peppers, squash, and cabbage plants. In other words, everything from the basement!

For the strawberries that were already established from years ago, some netting was thrown over them to keep out the birds.  And boy do we have a lot of birds!

The chickens had another field trip outside this week and were introduced more to their new home.  Aaron finished the ramp, and the lid over the brooding boxes.

 

Step right up!

 

Brooding boxes, complete with shingles!

Next week, with temperatures forecasted to soar in the mid 20s, we want them to have their first sleep over in their new digs.

WEEK 19: Plant problems and Cheeky chickens

Our plants in the basement are growing so tall and we want to get them out as quickly as possible, but they are calling for frost on the 12th, so we have to wait a little longer.  Our tomatoes are definitely too tall now.  Luckily with more than one plant per seed pot they are holding each other up. While we are away at work we would place all the trays outside for hardening off in the breeze and sun. Next year, we are not going to plant our tomatoes so early.  We probably could have easily waited another three weeks!

TOO TALL TOMATOES!!!

Squash at the right height :)

Our cabbage though has even bigger problems.  About half of them dampened off and had to get thrown out.  Hopefully the others will make it to the field next week.

Cabbage plant showing signs of dampening off

Out in the garden, most of our seeds planted are coming up, except the cheap lettuce pack we have had for a couple of years now. 

The chicks have now graduated from the heat bulb way of life and now have a standard 75 watt light.  Their feathers are coming in nicely, though their heads remains fluffy. They are also almost done their chick starter and soon they will be introduced to the layer feed. We love them so much and they are so full of character as they run around and jump in the air while flapping their wings.  They are now perching on the side of the encloser in the garage.  For sure we now know that one of the birds is indeed a rooster, even though we were supposed to get all hens.  Not a big deal for now.

Can you find the rooster?

WEEK 18: Spring Gardening

This week it was 20+ degrees Celsius and the spring rush is on! Our neotropical migrants are coming through, with Point Pelee National Park hopping with birds and birders.  Here at home we have new migrants, while our tamaracks are turning green.  With spring going into hyperdrive it is time to get the garden going!

Marianne's Dad came to plow the back fields, and Aaron rototilled them afterwards.  One garden (the closest one to the house) had potatoes, beets, lettuce, peas, turnips and spinach planted. 

Aaron's Mom and sister came over on the weekend with some plants including cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, jalapeno and habenero peppers, along with some bell peppers and onions.  For the peas, a trellis was put up.  Can't wait to see how it looks covered in peas!

Aaron's Mom also brought over 2 varieties of strawberries. We have a patch of strawberries already out in the back field so we interplanted.  We have a lot of Robins and Grackles around, so we think we better get some netting to throw over these delicatble delights!

Week 17: Fun with Chickens and Homemade Composter

Well spring seems to have finally made an appearance! The grass is turning green, the Mourning Doves and Cardinals are starting to build nests in the yard, and our chickens are growing fast! They graduated from the chick feeder and are now eating out of a real chicken feeder.  We decided to let them go on a field trip upstairs into our living room.  All 16 chicks participated, and after a half a paper towel roll later of chicken poop, we decided the field trip was over and it was time to go back to their little home in our garage.

It looks like our beets never came up in the garden outside, so we will have to do some replanting.  Our old stock of radishes that we sprinkled out in front of the kitchen window didn't come up either.  In propagation everything came up except the jalapeno peppers. Again, those were old seed.

On the weekend Aaron made our composter which is going out in the back yard with the garden plots.  He constructed it out of the old fallen pieces of aspen and mulberry in our cedar fence line. The bottom is currently lined with the chicken's used bedding along with contents from our kitchen compost bucket. It took him about two hours to build the composter out in the sun where he got his first major sunburn for the year.  Whoops!

A month ago we went to the Chatham Home and Garden Show and gathered contact information from 4 local 'green' energy companies (solar, wind and geothermal).  One of those companies (OYA Solar) had some good info and seemed to be the most forward to put in the extra efforts and with zero up front cash-commitments to make a solar installation possible.

Currently the only way for solar to be feasible (economically) is to sign a 20 year microFIT contract with the OPA and accept a government subsidy for power generated.  Essentially what we have signed up for, presuming our MicroFIT applicaton is accepted by the OPA and we get the OK to supply Hydro One with our own solar generated power, is a 10kW fixed solar installation on the south side of our roof, with a 7 year payback on a system that should be viable for 30+ years (with a 20 year warranty).  This should end up providing a second source of income for the 7-20 year period after it is paid for, and give us the option be to be hydro independent in the 20+ year time frame.  We will find out if it is a go in 8 weeks.