Baby Chickens Are Here!

They are finally here!  After 3 weeks of turning eggs two or three times a day and hoping that something hatches, they finally hatched!

 This is a couple of chicks in the incubator waiting to dry out.

 

 

I am amazed how they go from looking nearly dead when they first tumble out of their shell to the little fluffballs that everyone thinks of when you mention chicks.

 

 

Here are some of them that have dried out already in the brooder.

 

Each one of them is a different color! 

 

 

 And the grand total comes to 5 chicks out of 11 eggs.

 

Still an improvement over last years hatch (2 out of 12).  Now we just have to wait to see if any of them grow up to be a rooster!  I can't wait to see what they look like when their real feathers come in. 

 



New Chickens on the Way

Spring fever has struck again and it's time for baby chickens to appear.  Last year I bought an incubator because none of my chickens went broody, so I wasn't going to get more chickens unless I hatched them myself.  Then I did something silly - I counted my chickens before they hatched, and ate the rooster before I was sure that I had a replacement.  So here I am with an incubator and no fertile eggs for hatching this spring.  Lucky for me, I know a person that has chickens and a rooster, so I traded him my non-fertile eggs for some of his fertilized ones.  I was going to borrow his rooster, but that would have been stressful on him and my flock, so I just opted to get some of his eggs.  This has two benefits: I will have new genes to add to my flock so I can have a better breeding program, and I hope to get enough chickens this year so that we can eat some of them.  Now before you go judging me for killing my chickens and eating them, please keep in mind that our chickens are not pets and they live the life that battery chickens can only dream of.  Also their deaths are as fast and painless as we can possibly make them.  I actually feel it is better to know that the chicken I am eating led a happy life that ended quickly and respectfully rather than to wonder if it spent a miserable few months in a crowded warehouse only to be carted off in a scary truck to wait in line to be killed in a smelly, filthy place it had never seen before.  But I digress......

So I set up the incubator in the corner of the kitchen where it was last year and made up a sheet where I could record the number of days they are to be set for, and when I flipped them. Eggs need to be turned two or three times a day in order to develop correctly.  Each egg is marked with an X on one side and an O on the other so I can keep track of which eggs have been flipped.  Chickens only take three weeks to hatch and the most exciting part happens each night when I "candle" the eggs to see how they are progressing.  It is amazing to see them develop from a tiny speck of an embryo to a wet chirping hatchling in just a matter of weeks. 

First Steps to a Better Life

It seems to me that simpler times have been left in the dust of today's fast paced life.  Everyone uses cell phones, computers, and debit cards.  What would happen to these people if they were launched back to a time were a cell phone wasn't an option, or they couldn't just run to the store to buy food, or order something they want online?  What if talking to someone on the other side of the country meant sending a letter, or going for a long trip?  What if the grocery stores ran out of food because the shipments didn't come through or there was a shortage?  We just don't seem to experience these things in modern America unless there is some sort of natural disaster.  And even then, people assume that there will always be help on the way.

When did we go from being stubbornly self sufficient to being dependent on a system that only helps us on the surface?  My grandparents knew how to grow their own food, make and mend their own clothes, and build and maintain their own homes.  Now we are dependent on farmers for our food, outlet stores for our clothes (which we just throw away when they are damaged), and construction companies for our homes.  We allow other people to tell us what to eat, how our food should be raised, and how our homes should be built in order to keep us safe.  Since when did we give up the right to decide for ourselves how best we ought to live our lives? 

Taking these rights back can start right here and right now.  Don't want to depend on the grocery store for your food?  Plant a garden.  Grow all the things you like to eat.  You might be amazed by how much better they taste when they are fresh off the plant.  Want to make a fashion statement?  Learn how to make your own clothing.  Learn to weave, knit, crochet, or sew.  Any of those skills could only help you, so what is keeping you from learning about them?  Want to know how to protect yourself?  Take a self defense class, or learn how to properly use a gun.  Want to know how to save a life?  Take an nursing skills class or learn CPR.

There are a million different ways you can make your life more secure and simple.  All of them begin with taking that first step.  Are you ready to begin?

Home grown pickles

Anyone that knows me knows that I am world's biggest dill pickle fiend.  I could eat an entire jar of pickles in one sitting if I lost all self control.  Growing up my parents nicknamed me the pickle queen because every time they bought a jar of pickles it would dissapear in two days. 

Now being fully aware of my love for pickles, I decided that I was going to grow enough cucumbers to keep me happy in the pickle department for a full year if I could.  The first year we grew a garden out here I didn't even come close.  My cucumber plants didn't grow very well because they were being shaded out by our monster zucchini plants.  The next year I devoted an entire side of the fence in the garden to growing nothing but cucumbers.  I picked alot of pickles that year though I am still not sure if they will last me until I can make more this summer.  Lets just say I have them on a rationing program so I don't run out.

So growing the cucumbers is the easy part.  Make a nice garden bed, plant seeds in ground, add water and wait until your cucumbers are the perfect pickle size before you pick them.

 

 

Here is where it gets a little labor intensive.  For pickles to be their best you should start the pickling process when they are just picked.  If you need to wait a few days before you have enough for a whole batch of pickles you can throw them in the fridge until you are ready, but don't use any that become soft or wrinkly.  They won't taste good or be as crisp.  The recipie that I used for my pickles comes from the Ball book of Home Canning and is called Grandma's homemade dill pickles.  The recipie says that it takes two days to make these pickles, but you can usually get it done in one day as long as you start the process early in the morning.

When preparing your cucumbers for pickling make sure you scrub them well.  Any dirt or debris left on them can ruin a whole jar of pickles (which is a horrible horrible sad thing).  When you make your pickles you can slice them any way you want or leave them whole, just make sure you trim a little off the flower end of the cucumber or your pickles may be bitter.  I've tried making spears and whole pickles and I have to say that the whole pickles seem to hold their crispness a lot better, though they don't fit in jars as nicely as spears do.  I have also heard they make something called pickle crisp if you are having crispness issues, but I usually don't use that and haven't had any pickles that were unusually soft.

So you mix up some salt water according to the recipie and layer cucumbers and ice until your bowl or crock or whatever is full.  Then pour your salt water over that until all of your cucmbers are covered.  Weigh it all down with a plate so that your cucumbers stay under water and put in the fridge for 12-18 hours.  You don't want to go longer than 18 hours or you will have super salty pickles when you are all done.

The next step is to set up your canner, jars and lids and make sure the water is boiling before you ever take the pickles out of the fridge.  Once you get that going you can make your pickling juice which is just vinegar, water and salt boiled with some pickling spice for about 20 minutes.  After everything else is prepared for your pickles you can take them out of the fridge and rinse them very well under cold water.  I learned the hard way that if you forget to rinse your pickles then they will be intolerably salty, so make sure you rinse them well.

Next add a clove or two of garlic to each jar along with a dill flower (or dill seeds) and some whole peppercorns.  On top of that fill the jars with as many pickles as you can fit.  Top off the jars to the correct level with your pickling juice, apply the lids and set them in the canner.   I always make sure that I pay attention to the time when I make my pickles.  Up here in the mountains I have to adjust for altitude, but I don't want to overcook them or they will become soft. 

Once they have spent enough time in the canner I take them out and let them cool on the counter until the lids seal over with their infamous pop.  When I store them, I make sure to remove the screw top of the jars so I will know if the seal has broken before I use them.  Loose lids mean I don't eat from that jar. I'd rather toss a whole jar of pickles than come down with botulism from improperly sealed canned food.

Preparing Potatoes for the Garden

I have been awaiting the arrival of the seed potatoes at the local co-op for a couple weeks.  Then this past weekend they appeared:  sacs of lovely seed potatoes just waiting to be planted.  The last few years I have stuck with red potatoes.  I think they were a variety called Norland.  This year I wanted to branch out a little so I am planting 4 different varieties of potatoes

Viking Potatoes

 

Yukon Gold Potatoes

 

Norland Potatoes

 

Purple Majesty Potatoes

 

This last variety of potato is supposed to have dark purple skin and flesh that make it high in antioxidants.  I'm not sure how much we will like this kind and they are not known to keep well so I am not planting as many of these as I am the others.

 

Right now they are hanging out in the sunlight on the kitchen table until they grow bigger shoots from their eyes.  When the shoots are about an inch long I will cut them into smaller "seeds" and let them dry out for a day before I plant them in the garden.

 

 

 

Strawberry Patch

Last year I decided that I didn't care if we were only renting the land we lived on, I just wanted a strawberry patch.  I figured that it would make some nice strawberries while we were here, and maybe some future tennet might appreciate them as well.  My original plan was to get a couple different varieties of strawberries so I could enjoy a longer harvest.  Some kinds of strawberries only bear fruit once in the early summer, and some will go on produing strawberries into the fall.  Unfortunatly the only ones I could find were the everbearing variety - so no June bumper crop for me.

Strawberries are perenial plants that will come back every year so they need a more permanent home than a garden bed.  I decided to put them on the far side of my herb patch where they wouldn't be disturbed too much and they could spread as much as they want.  I am secretly hoping they take over the whole herb patch and path and maybe even get into the yard a little.  There can never be too many strawberries in my opinion, and once you taste one picked straight off the plant, you will wonder how they can even call what you buy in the store a strawberry.  Fresh picked strawberries are the sweetest fruit you will ever eat!

So I planted about 30 plants in the corner of the herb garden and proceded to cover them with mulch.

What I didn't expect was that my chickens thought freshly planted strawberry plants were delicious. 
By the time I saw what they were doing, they had eaten about 10 of my brand new plants!

Chicken damage

 

 Lucky for me many of those that I thought were gone for sure sent up new growth a couple weeks later.

Some of my new plants were so happy in thier new home that they started making flowers right away.  As much as I would have loved to eat fresh strawberries that first year, I really wanted the plants to devote their energy to growing strong and making more plants, so I pinched off any flowers that I could find.  I think our total strawberry harvest for last year was two tiny strawberries.  I've read that pinching the flowers the first year makes for a better harvest the following year.  So far it seems to have payed off.  This spring I can see that the strawberries have sent off many runners and have filled in the bed nicely.  They have even expanded their area by sending runners over the edges I had marked with rocks. 

As the temperatures have come up, the strawberries have started to grow again this spring and I hope I will be rewarded with a large harvest in a couple of months.

 

Strawberry patch coming back to life after winter

 

 

Planting Peas

This year I am planting peas along the short side of the garden in the bed that was occupied by the tomatoes last year.  I made sure to turn over the bed last fall after pulling the tomato plants so it would be ready for planting early in the spring.  I wanted to do several plantings of peas this year so I can have a longer harvest of them, but haven't figured out how to accomplish this when I only have one fence for the peas to climb on in this area.  So my first planting went in on the 11th and it was only one row of peas spaced only one inch apart.  I planted them so close together because I figure that not all of the seeds will sprout and I want to thin them a bit anyways.  I know it sounds wasteful, but it is easier than trying to replant more seeds once the first batch has started. 

To plant the peas I just used a hoe to make a trench along the fence and dropped the seeds in.  Then I covered them so that they were about 1/2 inch deep and patted the soil down firmly over the seeds.  Over that I put down about an inch of straw mulch to help keep the moisture in and then watered them well.  Now all I can do is wait. 

Once I see how well these come up I may decide to plant a second row in front of the first one.  My hope is that by the time the first row is dying back, they will leave something for the second row to climb up on.  It will just be hard to harvest the peas if they get all overgrown on each other.  I know, it's a terrible dilemma - having too much to harvest!  I can only hope to be so lucky.

Spring has Sprung in Garden Land

Spring is literally days away and now is the time to get busy starting all those seeds for things that like it hot outside.  Today was a major planting day.  I would have waited a few more days, but the forecast wasn't looking to bad, so I decided to make it an early start for the big planting.  This is what I planted today:  4 kinds of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, brussel sprouts, 3 kinds of peppers, 3 kinds of tomatoes, and cilantro.  I would have also started a few basil plants but I think I ran out of seed for them.  Guess I will have to pick some up next time I run to the store.

 

My seed starting shelves are literally jam packed.

 

Hopefully the weather stays nice enough that I can keep putting the seedlings outside.  Nothing beats real live sunlight when you are trying to get things growing.

 

Lettuce takes the leap

This year I really want to make succession planting work in my garden. Last year the first batch of lettuce I planted outside did great. I planted the seeds directly in the garden, covered it with straw, kept it watered and waited.

 

 

These tiny sprouts really took off and we ate tasty fresh spring salad for a few weeks

 

 

Sadly, no other lettuce sprouted quite so well in the next few plantings I made.

 

This year I am trying something a little different.  I am starting my lettuce and spinach indoors in batches.  The first batch that I planted was in recycled paper towel roll tubes. 

 

 

They were growing so well in those containers that they all had roots poking out the sides.  They were screaming to be planted in the ground so today I granted them their wish.

 

It is not quite spring yet so I mulched them all pretty well with some straw.

 

 

They had been hardened off this week by spending their days on the back deck next to the house.  They still aren't strong enough to hold up to the stiff wind and chilly temps at night so they will still be covered for a little while yet

 

I recycled old water jugs by cutting off the bottom and fitting them over three plants at a time.  Hopefully the plants are strong enough to withstand the cold nights with a little help from the plastic.

 

I planted the second batch in another set of planters a few weeks ago and they seem to be coming along nicely.

 

 

 

 

 

I started another round of lettuce and spinach today also, so hopefully they will be about this size when the next batch is big enough to go in the dirt. 

 

The whole idea with succession planting is to make sure that your whole crop doesn't ripen at the same time.  The key is to time your plantings so you can continually harvest about the same amount throughout the season.  With lettuce this means I need to plant a new round every 2-3 weeks throughout the summer.  It's not so hard to keep up with it now because there isn't much going on in the garden just yet.  Once more plants go in then the constant watering, weeding, and picking tend to take over my spare time.  If this starting them inside then transplanting them outside works better than the direct seeding I did last year, then this is something I will need to get better at.

 

 

 

Water Conservation

I grew up in northern Illinois.  Here the summers were hot and muggy and the winters dropped plenty of snow.  Droughts were a rare occurance and flooding was more likely in the spring.  Water conservation wasn't really something that people worried too much about with gardening in that area. 

Now I live in Colorado.  The area that I live in is considered high desert and much of the water used for farming and/or gardening here is piped in via irrigation canals throughout the whole valley.  This area is super dependant on reservoirs and winter snowfall to water their gardens come summertime.  There is so little precipitation in the summer time that sometimes when it looks like it should be pouring buckets, the water evaporates into the air before it ever hits the ground.  Add some strong dry winds and your garden can become a dry, cracked wasteland in a day if you aren't careful.

Most of the farmers out here depend on covering their fields with row upon row of irrigation ditches.  They flood the fields every couple days just to keep the ground from drying out too much.  Last summer water was so scarce that some fields went unplanted because there wouldn't be enough water to keep the plants alive.  Many of the home gardeners I've met out here also use irrigation ditches for thier gardens.  Irrigation ditches are nice in that they require very little effort to water your crops once they are in place - just turn on the water and wait a few hours.  However I imagine that they waste a ton of water by exposing such a large surface area to harsh sunlight and drying winds during the hottest part of the day.  Some people also rely on sprinkler systems to water thier garden.  Again this is a practice that I believe is very wasteful because of evaporation.  Sprinklers don't insure that the roots of the plants are getting an adequate amount of water and some plants are sensitive to having water on their leaves when the sun is shining on them - double whammy in my opinion.

There are several ways to slow evaporation and conserve water in the garden at the same time.  The most basic is to make sure that you water the roots of the plant directly.  Some people use soaker hoses or an underground irrigation system.  I don't have that kind of money, so I just water by hand.  Just after planting I will walk the rows with a watering can just to make sure that only the row is being watered and not everything else (trust me the weeds don't need the help).  When the plants are well established I will water them directly with the hose - but only at the base of the plant, because I don't want to damage the leaves.  In the additions to the original garden I have dabbled with using irrigation ditches around some of the beds, but I still need to work out the kinks in my plan.  I have also heard of planting seedlings in depressions in the ground so that they can make better use of any sort of rainfall or run off than they would being planted level with the ground.  Another way to conserve water is by using a vessel called an olla - which is a porus clay pot that is buried in the center of a mound of plantings and filled as needed to keep the ground adequately moist.  It's like the ancient version of a soaker hose.

 The other thing I do to conserve water is mulch.  There are many different types of mulches you can use: plastic, rocks, newspaper, grass clippings, or straw.  I settled on using straw because it serves many purposes.  First of all it is cheap.  Out here you can buy a bale of straw for $4.00.  One bale will cover several beds.  Secondly it is biodegradable.  Our soil is very hard clay soil so any organic matter that can be added to it will only be beneficial in helping the soil to retain moisture better and drain better at the same time.  Third, straw allows water into the soil, but slows evaporation and maintains humidty at the base of the plant which can be very important for new seedlings.  Another benefit of straw mulch is that it will protect very young, small plants from late frosts.  The only drawback of straw is that it doensn't deter weeds very well and can introduce weeds unless it is allowed to rot for about a year before it is used in the garden.  Overall I think straw is a pretty great mulch because it serves so many purposes for a relatively low cost.

While I realize that not everyone lives is a semi-desert area, water conservation is still an important part of gardening everywhere.  Water is a limited resource on this planet and this is becoming more and more apparent every year that we have droughts across the country.  By using good water conservation practices we can make sure that we will have enough water for our needs in the future.

Planting Potatoes

The first time I grew potatoes was two years ago.  Never having grown potatoes before I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  If you look up how to grow potatoes you will find there are as many ways to plant potatoes as there are varieties of potatoes.  You can grow them in buckets, in tires, or in straw.  You can plant them shallow and hill them up as they grow, or plant them deep and fill in the holes as they grow.  Any way you do it the basic concept is to let them grow, but make sure that you cover the base of the plant to make sure that the potatoes don't see daylight - plant them too shallow and you will have green skinned potatoes (which should not be eaten).

Potatoes are actually related to tomatoes and they will make little round green fruits, but I don't think that the fruits are edible (and I wouldn't advise trying to eat them).  I've come across a few websites that will actually sell potato seed, but what they are usually referring to are seed potatoes which are nothing more that potatoes with eyes that are growing sprouts.  You can cut a sprouting potato into several "seeds" and each one will grow into a new plant and make more potatoes (as long as there are one or two sprouts per chunk).

The first year I attempted to grow potatoes in deep holes.  I prepared the bed in the usual way by turning over the soil and mixing in some compost.  Once I decided how far apart I should plant my potatoes I dug a hole about 9 inches deep for each one, set one little potato chunk in each hole and covered them all with about 3-4 inches of dirt.  Does this leave deep little holes all over my potato bed?  Yes.  But it does make watering them a little easier since you don't really have to guess where you planted anything. I also had to make things extra difficult for myself because I had decided to interplant onions with the potatoes that year.  When it came time to fill in the holes little by little the growing onions tended to get in the way.

Once the potatoes were big enough and the holes were level with the rest of the garden it was just a matter of time until we could harvest.  The hardest thing about growing potatoes is knowing when to pick them.  It is hard to tell how big they are when they are underground, and you don't want to dig up the whole plant just to find out if it is ready because you might kill it.  I've been told that you can dig up one side of the plant and pick all the potatoes that you see, and come back later to get the rest.  I tried it and all I can say is that if you dig up one side of the plant you might as well dig up the whole thing.  They never seem to recover from the shock which probably means that the potatoes that were left in the ground won't get any bigger and might start to rot.

I do have to say that our very first harvest was quite impressive.  One of the first potatoes we picked was about the size of a soft ball and weighed at least two pounds.  We had several more that were also quite large.  We also learned that picking potatoes is something of an art.  You can pick them any time after the plants have flowered, but for big potatoes you wait until the plants die back.  When you go to dig them out of the ground you have to estimate how big you think the plant is underground and start digging far enough away from the plant that you don't pierce any potatoes with your digging fork.  We learned that lesson several times the hard way as we dug up our first crop.  Luckily you don't have to throw away those pierced potatoes, just make sure they get used pretty quick which is easy to do in our house.  We love potatoes for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  In fact we got so spoiled on our fresh home grown potatoes we were quite disappointed when we ran out of them and had to go back to using store bought potatoes.

Onion Seedlings update

 

I planted the first round of onion seeds on January 5th and the next round about a week later.  So far the seedlings look fairly happy.  They do get a little droopy because it is so dry out here and it's hard to keep their shallow containers evenly moist.  Even so, they keep growing.  At this point some of them are at least six inches tall.  I'm debating on transplanting them to their own pots before they make it out to the garden.  I just don't think I will have enough pots for all the seedlings, or enough room under the grow lights.  Not to mention enough time to transplant all the seedlings - there are about 200 of them in these two little flats.  I am hoping that I will be able to transplant them directly into the garden even if I have to build a temporary hoop house over them.

 

These two pictures are about 5 weeks after planting

This is how big they are at about 8 weeks

 

Some of the onions didn't make it, but the ones that are still here are growing stronger everyday.

I've been trying to get them used to the colder temps by putting them outside during the day.  Luckily we have had some pretty nice weather this last week.

 

 

Internet issues

Sorry about the lull in posting.  Our internet is not working right now and it may be a few more days before it will be again.  I will get back to the daily posts again as soon as I can.  In the mean time just enjoy the pictures of past posts!  I sure do!

Ice Lake Hike

Last summer we had gradually worked our way up to hiking some of what I would define as more difficult trails.  By more difficult I mean higher elevation.  The trail to Ice Lake takes you above tree line which is around 12000 feet.  I believe the hike starts at an elevation of around 8-9000 feet.  This means that almost the entire hike to the lake is uphill, and we aren't talking a gentle slope either.  Some parts of this trail make you feel like you are on the stairclimber from hell.  Once you get up far enough though, the view can be a nice distraction from the burning in your legs. 

 

 

I believe we did the hike around the month of July.  Hiking in this area is best for only a few short months of the year because of the early start and late end to winter at the higher elevations.  I've also learned that hiking is best done early in the day during the summer months because the monsoon storms generally start in the early afternoon and it is not safe to be above treeline in a lightning storm - unless of course you enjoy being a lightning rod.

Another bonus of hiking during that time of year are the wildflowers.  Acres and acres of colorful flowers all along the trail as you hike through mountain meadows and along tiny streams from melting snow. 

 

 

I think the most amazing part of the whole hike is once you get above treeline.  The whole world opens up before you and you can't even imagine how you could possibly still have to hike uphill anymore (maybe is was the altitude that made me feel that way).  I was quite impressed by the retired folks that were passing us hiking up this trail - being as young and fit as we are, we were finding it difficult to catch our breath.  I don't know where those people got the energy from.  All I can say is that I hope that I will be that fit when I get to be their age!

The final destination of the hike was a crystal blue lake nestled just under some forboding looking rock faces.  It was quiet and serene and it makes you feel like you are the only person on the face of the planet.  The lake's water was so clear that you could see pretty far down into the lake and I imagine that it is deeper than I think.  I was a little surprised that there were no signs of life in that water, though I'm sure that the cold water combined with the short summer and high elevation there probably aren't many species that could survive there.

Round trip I think that the hike took us about 4-5 hours.  It could have taken longer if we stayed by the lake for a while, but some mean looking clouds were rolling in over the mountain and we had no intention of getting stuck in a thunderstorm out there.  Needless to say, we made great time on the way down.