WEEK 24: Back home from Vacation: Garden, and Chicken Run

We attempted a back country camping trip in the Chinguchi region this week which is between Sudbury and Temagami.  Unfortunately, it has been an exceptional year for blackflies and mosquitoes, and in the end we were only out for two and a half days instead of the original seven.  When we came home a few days early we noticed that our garden looked exceptionally well!  Our romas grew at least three times their size, and everything else looks great except for our edamame with only three plants showing.  While we were gone we had around 4 inches of rain that fell which is great for our plants, and great for Marianne's Mom who was taking care of the garden while we were away.

HERE ARE SOME SAMPLE PICS:

Cabbage

 Peas and Tomatoes

 



 Peppers and Onions



 Potatoes

Beets

 

 Tomatoes

Squash

The chickens were happy to get outside again and forage.  However, they are getting bolder by the day and wander further away from their home.  One night, one of them didn't go into the coop and stayed outside all night! Time to build the run.

It was easy to construct our chicken run with some pressure treated fours by fours, used corn crib wire, and miscellaneous used fencing from Marianne's Dad. A 5/8th inch piece of plywood was used for the door.  The chickens seemed happy with it, and so are we now that we don't have to keep a constant eye on them. 

Chicken run with the gate 

 Another angle of the chicken run

 



 Our rooster starting to look like a BOSS

 

In other news, strawberries are now in season.  None of our strawberries made it due to the frost, so a trip to the local u-pick is coming up in the not to distant future.  One of our favourite places to pick strawberries and raspberries is Pardos Berrie Farm near Blenheim along Highway #3.  Next year, we will try to grow raspberries along with strawberries.  Our neighbour has blueberries, so hopefully we can doing some berry bartering.

WEEK 22/23: Creepy Chickens and Mesclun Mix

After the Chickens moved into the coop, we noticed that instead of using their perches, they preferred to roost on the ledges next to the window and anywhere else where they can get as high as possible.  It is quite a site as they jockey for position with much pushing and shoving each other aside and in the end some even loose their footing and fall into the bedding.  Aaron opened up the side of the coop one night and there were even 2 chickens trying to sleep on the heat bulb shield!

A somewhat creepy photo photo of inside the coop at night.  Notice the chickens on the ledges and 2 trying to sleep on the heat bulb shield!

Later in the week the weather finally warmed up and the heat bulb was taken out.  We let the chickens out once in a while to forage.  They stay close to their home which is comforting. 

We ate our first vegetables from the garden today.  It is a Mesclun Mix that includes arugula, radicchio, red romaine, and spinach. We will be harvesting it probably every other day for a while. 

Mesclun mix.  Just gotta wash off the mud and it's ready for eating :D :D

 

Next week we will be going back country camping. It will be interesting to see how our garden is coming along when we get back.

 



WEEK #21: Small Succeses

As if it wasn't bad enough that we planted the tomatoes when they were already too tall, but on top of that we had two nights late this week that had frost.  The potatoes clearly showed signs of damage, along with our tomatoes, and as for our squash...well.....it's dead.  The strawberries also got damaged with loss of flowers.  We may not have any strawberries this year.

Potato plants showing frost damage.

 

The potatoes had only minor frost damage, and will probably grow out of it.  The squash were completely destroyed, so Aaron planted seeds in the ground on each mound to start over.  Our tomatoes that went out sickly clearly got hit hard.  All of the roma tomatoes were dead, with a few beef and cherry tomatoes still lingering.  Luckily, our neighbour, George Clark, who gave tomato plants to Marianne's Gramma and Mom last year, dropped off some beef tomatoes for us :D Marianne's Dad may even know someone who might have romas as well.  We are keeping our fingers crossed.

We decided this week to plant the rest of our seeds outside.  We planted a row of yellow beans, a row of green beans and a row of edename (soybeans), two more rows of cabbage, two rows of rutabaga, a row each of spinach, leaf lettuce and Boston head lettuce.  Now everything is planted in the beds.  Next year, we are going to have everything out by the first week of June, or get something big enough to cover our crops at night in case of a lingering late May frost.

Other happenings this week was creating a shelf and stacking the rain barrels on it to collect water in the future. The location is on the south side of the shed.  The only thing left to do is to run an extension from the eaves trough to the barrels themselves, hook all the barrels together and add a tap.

Recycled 55 gallon drums turned into rain barrels

 

 

Rain barrels next to the chicken coop for scale, and so you can see where it has to be connected from the eaves trough.

The chickens are now full time residence of their new chicken coop.  They are doing really well, and when they are let outside they stay very close to the coop.  They are so fun to watch as they jump around and make short runs and even shorter flights in the air.  We have been very fortunate thus far to still have all 16.  We are not sure what to do with the one rooster, but for now he remains with the flock.

The chickens getting adjusted to their new digs.  So far they seem to be loving it!

Inside their new pad.....POSH!

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.