Sunshine Babies

After a gloomy start this morning we finally got a nice sunny afternoon and everyone seemed to enjoy it, despite the humidity.  It has rained and stormed on and off here for several days and I was glad to finally see the sun again too.
The bitties have finally gotten big enough that I felt fairly safe in letting Mama take them out into the yard.  They have been having a blast too and Mama is pretty watchful and careful with them.  Several of the other girls probably have sore spots from getting a little too close and Mama launching herself onto them.

They had a pretty good line formation going out across the lawn today looking for bugs.  Very thorough! lol!  Later in the afternoon Mama Hen will take them back to their little run and ask to be let back in.  (We have to keep the gate closed so the others won't go in there and eat up their food.)  Anyway, they go back in then to get a good helping of ration so they won't go to bed hungry.  I noticed last night that she is now teaching them to sleep on the roost also, so they are growing up fast.

The wild hydrangeas are in full bloom.  I love these things because I don't have to do a thing to them.  Except maybe prune one occasionally to help it fill out a bit.  And the flowers last for a really long time.

I don't know if this is chamomile or feverfew.....I think the latter.  It is not a perennial but rather just resows itself freely every year.  I haven't added much to my herb collection lately and need to remedy that.  I definitely need to add borage, comfrey and maybe another mint. 

Some of the girls thought it was a good day to work on their tan. Ha!  They love to lay out in the sun.  It has taken me quite awhile to get used to this though and not immediately think I have a bunch of dead chickens when I come out and see them strewn about the yard.  I tell ya, the first dozen times I saw them do this it really scared the crap out of me.

The garden is doing well although this is a fairly crappy photo that doesn't show much.  The squash plants were some volunteers I just transplanted into a row.  Hey, why buy them if they are just gonna come up on their own?  Honestly, I'm a lazy gardener; I'll let the plants do as much as they can on their own.  Beyond the squash I have cukes (for pickling), eggplant, peppers and some late cabbage that is probably going to get thrown to the chickens.  Beside the squash I have one row of tomatoes.  I think four are for eating and the rest of for canning.  We also planted some watermelon and in the other run we have peas and green beans.  The bulk of the main garden is planted with corn.  Well, maybe just half.  It's a fair amount of corn though.

My grapes are doing great this year so that kinda makes up for the raspberries that have crapped out and the strawberries, which I have let get overran and are not producing much.  Hopefully the figs will do well this year, since we didn't get any last year.  That's one reason I try to have an assortment of fruits planted; you rarely have a year where everything does well and with an assortment you are going to at least have a couple things that produce.

Of course, seems like the blueberries always do well and this year is no exception.  The bushes have grown at least a foot or more and are loaded down with fruit.  All the fruit is in the border of the main garden and I have various perennial herbs in between the fruits.  In between the blueberries I have lemon thyme, oregano, catnip, sage and another variegated mint.

This variegated mint is not invasive like some peppermints; it seems to behave itself pretty well, and is supposed to be great at repelling mosquitoes and such.  Plus, it's pretty and has blooms on it for the bees.

After I finally had the revelation that I could grow beans vertically (duh), I purchased 3 cattle panels and made some very cool trellises the length of the run.  I then planted my beans in 2 rows, one on each side of the panels.  They are doing well and already starting to climb without us having to train them at all.  We did the same with the peas.  They are a bit shorter right now but should come on up and attach to the panels also.  This should help my back tremendously.

This is looking across the okra and pea/ bean run.  If you look closely you might be able to spy 3 little bitties doing bug patrol!  Mama Hen gets a little upset because she cannot get in there with them but she waits patiently until they get their fill and come back out.

 It's gonna take a lot more to get this soil to a really good level but it is MUCH improved over what it was when I first came here.  Now when we dig we actually find earthworms and hardly any grubs, which is the exact opposite of my first year or two here!  Of course, we regularly amend with chicken poop too, so it's getting there, albeit slowly.

So, that's the garden update.  Hopefully I'll have something a bit more informative next time.

Time Of The Season

For as long as I can remember that song has always been a particular favorite of mine and forever conjures up some kind of connection to this time of year that I can't quite put my finger on but is definitely there. And, since it was done by The Zombies, I figured it was more than appropriate enough for a post-Halloween/ Dia de Muertos post.  The album upon which it appeared was released in 1968 also, the year I was born, so that is just further proof I am actually an old hippie, born about a decade too late.  Lol!  Well, my oldest brother was 8 years my senior so my childhood years were spent listening to Steppenwolf, 3 Dog Night, The Doors and so on.  Not exactly the target audience of such music but it left a lasting impression on me for sure.
It wasn't until my 20s and maybe early 30s that I really indulged myself in the spirit of that time and music and I have to say, it was enjoyable.

We've had some cooler weather the past few weeks but today turned decidedly cold.  The wind picked up too and so it made for a day best spent by a warm fire with a hot, filling meal.  The girls seemed about as happy with the change as I was and stayed under the deck most of the time until the late afternoon brought a calm to the wind.  They ventured out at that point but it didn't take them long to end up in the garden.  They fuss and fuss to get out of there in the morning but then voluntarily go back in the afternoon.  But, hell, they're chickens.  Whadya do?

The day was so bright and clear it was hard to stay inside the whole time though and I took Chigger for a walk up the ridge.  There she managed to run a raccoon up a large oak tree and that pleased her to no end.
The coon did not seem particularly impressed.

 I managed to plant some broccoli and brussel sprouts but don't have very high hopes of them doing much at this point.  Even in the south if you want such crops to actually produce they must be planted when the ground is still warm and can foster actual growth.  They can survive winter temps here fine but don't do much growing during that time.  It was a last ditch effort on my part to be honest.  We may have a warm spell that would spur them on to produce but if our last few winters are any indication, that's not likely.  The lettuce mix I planted has sprouted though and will likely come up enough for me to get a decent harvest through the last of the fall.  My cold frame is pretty decrepit at this point and I need to go ahead and rebuild it in a new location, or I would sow some stuff there.

A few of the girls have not totally finished their change into winter clothes and biting cold days like today are fairly uncomfortable.  Greta just tried to hunker down between the tomato plants but the best bet was to just go inside.  That's been my strategy lately too.  Inside that is, not the tomato plants.  I got the results of my MRI and the official word from that was that I have "subchondral edema at the iliac margin of the SP joint."  In other words, my butt joint is swollen at the bone or, as we used to say in construction, I've got a sore ass.  Well seriously, it may be some type of odd arthritis, I don't know and neither do they exactly, at this point.  The BFD put me on a steroid pack to see if it would help the swelling and pain but so far, no such luck.  Now, you long time readers know I must really be in pain to take steroids and it is sort of a last resort for me.  And admittedly, if the BFD told me to I am more likely to follow his directions but, unfortunately, it has not helped.  I don't know what the next step is.

So, I do little bits here and there.  Lots of stuff to keep me standing up and not tempted to sit but eventually you kinda have to.  Since we are expecting lows int he 20s tonight I harvested all the herbs that I had been meaning to that would be affected, like the parsley and some sage, etc.  I picked all the cayenne peppers and have dehydrated a large batch to grind and I cut the few marigolds that the chickens had not absolutely trampled on for an inside bouquet.  They are one of my favorite summer flowers and I wanted to cling to their sunny beauty for as long as possible before the cold winter claims everything.

And So It Goes

 Well, as we had talked about a couple of posts back, this is just a kind of update of what's going on around here.  Heavy on the photos.  I was sitting here thinking to myself, 'well, I just don't have that much to write about.'  But basically, that's not true.  I mean, if I really consider it, there are tons to write about; growing herbs and their uses, gardening methods, crop experiments, simple life strategies, animal care, minimalism and the list goes on.  Truth is, I've just been lazy about thinking up stuff.  I've been kinda down for the past couple of weeks, or more, and just haven't felt like talking much.  Just my usual stuff I guess.  I have had trouble adjusting to being at home all the time.  And I know it's been like 2 years since I retired from construction but it's still working on me.  I guess I need more social connections than I thought.  But, I have been making some changes around here and am feeling better about things.  I'll explain as I go on.

As far as here though, I've got a lot more herbs and such growing than I had last year.  I try to add a couple of new things each year if possible.  A friend gave me several lemongrass sprouts and so I added those to my deck herb garden.  They are doing well.  I've got a lot of parsley going this year as it seems we go through a lot of that and I like to share some with any monarch butterflies that happen through.  Unfortunately, that doesn't happen much but we do get a few.

The oats have taken a real beating in all the rain and storms and those damn moles but it is trying to stand tall again.  I really have no idea what I'm doing with this stuff but it's a fun experiment.  Hopefully I will get a few pounds of oats from it.

The rest of the garden is doing well. 

This extremely cold past winter killed back all of our fig trees, along with all the other fig trees in Alabama.  I haven't seen any that got by unscathed.  We predict a fig shortage this year!  They are coming out at the roots again but I don't know if they will have time to bear any fruit.

Lots of squash and so far, no bugs!  Well, there is that spider there but you know what bugs I'm talking about.  My friend also gave me a dwarf zucchini that grows in a pot so I'm trying that out on the deck.  It's fruiting so we'll see.

The tomatoes are doing well and I almost have some ripe ones!  I'll be so glad to have fresh, real tomatoes.  I'm not sure why some of these photos look so out of focus.  It was getting close to sundown when I took these and that may be part of it.  Slow shutter speed.

Going to the gym has been good although I am having to take it pretty slow for now.  I joined mainly to be able to swim but after getting very bad headaches from my half hour swimming stints I'm not sure how that's going to work.  Best I can figure, most of the positions that you must hold your head in to swim stresses my neck too much and walaaa! a headache!  (I can't turn my head to the side repeatedly or look up for long due to the fusions.)  I can swim on my back or side and that doesn't bother me too bad but I think I need to cut it down to maybe only 15 minutes.  I do the circuit machines for cardio though and some light weights also.  It helps my mood greatly and lets me get out and about.

And lookie!!  we got some new sweeties.  It wasn't really planned but they are so sweet.  Allen went to a local auction to sell some of his pheasants, which he did, but he ended up buying 8 young chickens just 'cause he felt kinda bad for the lady selling these.  Unbelievably enough, no one was bidding on them.  So he bid and got them!  He also bought 4 Polish Crested, which I have always wanted, but when I watched them for a while I decided they may all be roosters, and quite aggressive, so I didn't want them.  These little goobers were just so sweet though and kept following me around the pen and I am such a sucker for cute little biddies.  They were also kinda getting picked on by the other birds and Allen was concerned about that, so I bought them from him and brought them down here.  Those Polish Crested can hold their own against those pheasants.

They are in the chick run and are having a great time.  I think I have 3 hens and 1 rooster.  I hope!  These are Buff Orpingtons by the way.  This was the incentive we needed to get rid of those two neurotic, noisy Brown Leghorns, so I took those to a lady that has a small farm not far from here.  They will still get to free range but with about 50 other chickens!

These are so funny; I just love to sit with them for a while each day.  They are so excited about everything and run to you whenever they see you coming.  They finally learned tonight how to go inside the coop house into their little separate "apartment", so they are catching on and settling in.

Well, I hope I will be back soon enough with something more interesting.  We go to Antiques Roadshow on Saturday!!!!!! so I may post before that or that may be the next post!!  Who knows!!  I hope you all are having  a nice summer so far.

Come Together

The Spring garden is doing well.  The broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower are finally taking off.  As you might can see in the photo,I do sometimes mulch with pine straw.  This would freak some people out I know but you work with what you've got and I've never noticed it being detrimental to the plants.  I do have a layer of old leaves down on the ground first and then the straw over it.  The pine straw is free, abundant and it does not seed anything.  Anyway, way in the back you can see the garlic and sugar snap peas coming up well.
The potatoes are also doing great but they got a little burnt by a cold snap night before last.  They should bounce back fine though.

I never got the strawberry bed redone like I wanted but they are doing good anyway.   I think I did mange to finally run those damn moles and voles out though and I can still add some soil to this bed in places until I can redo it later.  From the looks of the blooms we should have a fairly decent strawberry harvest this year.

All of my fruits are in the border areas of the main garden and in between the fruit bushes I have filled in with herbs.  It seems to work well and I like the way it looks.  All the herbs are doing great so far.  Very full and lush this spring.  This is the oregano.  It's planted amongst the blueberries.

I took an old bucket that was missing it's bottom to use as a planter for keeping the thyme contained.  I recently harvested a good bit of this and it has really flushed out well since.  It was getting pretty straggly and the haircut has helped it regain it's fullness.
 

I was very excited to see the sugar peas doing so well, as I've never grown them before.  I need to get a trellis up pronto for them though.  And mulch them also. 

The azaleas are blooming for the first time! and putting on lots of new growth.  Now, they love the pine mulch but I can't actually use pine straw around them because they are out where the chickens can get to them and mulch like that does nothing but just beg for the chickens to come tear it up!  However, I discovered I can mulch around the azaleas with pinecones.  The chickens won't bother those, especially if you use those hard, green pine cones, because they stick their little feets.  Sissys!  Haha!

The dogwoods are really pretty this year too but I just have not been able to get a decent photo of them.  Since we have cleared a few trees back, many of the dogwoods will get a lot more sun now and I think that will help them fill out in the coming years.  They should be really pretty then.  And, I planted azaleas under a number of them so it'll be a 1-2 whammy of color!
I finally feel that parts of the landscape and gardens are really coming together this year.  The garden scaping is not done but the garden itself is doing really well.  The perennial plants are settling in and with the annuals it's just a matter of pulling the old and putting in new as the seasons change.  The soil is vastly improved over what it was originally, although it still needs improvement.  The cherry, plum and apple trees are getting some size on them and I may get a tad of fruit this year but I do still need to add several more.
The harsh winter did kill a few things this year though.  I think it may have got one or more of our new fig trees and it killed my dwarf gardenia.  Of course, that's not a food shrub but it was pretty.  My rosemary shrub died also and the lavender, so those will need replacing.  Two of my tea plants kicked off too, but I don't think that was necessarily due to the cold.

There are even more of the native, dwarf irises this year and they are coming closer to the house.  I love these things but don't dare try to transplant them.  I tried a few times before and they never make it, so I think it's best just to let them do their own thing.  They grow in clumps along some of my hiking trails so I am just content to see them there.

The gorgeous, warm weather we've been having has really got me fired up about things and I've been working on several projects.  I've even done a little more tile work on the fireplace surround but it's not really enough to show yet.  I still hurt a good bit at times and have some rough days but I'm better and I'm trying not to let the pain knock me down again.  I'm also trying to work myself into a real schedule of pottery during the week and house building on the weekends or in the evenings.  Of course, there are exceptions to things and some schedules but I do better if I have a set time for everything.

I hope you all are getting some spring work in although I think I heard some of the northern areas got more snow this week!  Eeek!  I am so glad I live down South!

Get It While You Can

I guess this is just a little photo update of what's going on around here now.  Whole different set of plants blooming now in the driveway flower bed.  The daisy-like flowers in the foreground is Feverfew.  I need to pick a good supply of the flowers to dry for tea.  It funny 'cause last summer these disappeared but I guess the seeds survived in the ground and came up this year.

I FINALLY got a clematis vine to bloom!  It's not very big but has lovely flowers on it.  I'm not sure why I have such trouble with these.

Most of the garden is doing quite well.  On the right you can see the first bits of the peas and green beans coming up.

The broccoli has done much better this year; larger heads and all.  I have harvested about 4 quarts of the stuff so far.  Ate two and froze two.  I still have about 6 plants that I have not touched.  I may pull up some of the ones I've cut and use the space to plant some more hot weather crops and leave a few broccoli to produce the occasional side crop, if it will.  I'll sow another crop towards fall to try to have some for the winter.

The raspberries are doing great!!  Fingers crossed!  The birds have been rough on my strawberries and I had to put netting over them; may have to do the same with these.  I'm not much on preserving raspberries so I'll probably just gorge myself on them fresh!  It's a fine trade-off to me.  Fresh, plump berries for a few weeks as opposed to mushy, mediocre berries all year round.

Good bug or bad bug??  He didn't seem to be eating my plant; just kinda hanging out.  Beautiful design work on 'em.  Maybe a warning symbol to birds not to eat?

Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird have raised one brood already this year and have started on their second!  I moved their nesting box into the fenced garden area after those damn raccoons ate their babies last year.  Now all those coons will get is a handful of hot wire if they try to get at them.  The bluebirds really seem to enjoy this area, even with us occasionally working in the garden.  And they patrol the garden regularly for bugs to feed their babies and themselves.  The garden is really starting to deliver the goods and all the critters like the birds and worms and such are very active in it.  I think I'm almost as proud of the garden as I am of the house.

Ten Green Bottles

The other evening I spent a bit of time putting up and organizing many of the herbs I have grown over the summer and had drying.  Wooo!  the excitement of my life is just too much sometimes I know!  I take it a little at a time so I won't be overwhelmed with it, you know? lol!  Anyway,  I have been working from the beginning here to grow as many medicinal and culinary plants as I can and have a fair collection going now.  Most of them are perennial, so once established I really don't have to worry about them anymore.  Just make sure I harvest and dry plenty before winter to make it through.  I ran through my clear jar collection before I ran out of herbs, so I must go searching for some more jars.  Ooh, and I made some way cool labels for the jars on Word and printed them out on individual stickers. You can kinda see if you enlarge the photo.  If you have any available dirt it just makes so much sense to grow your own, rather than buy all these herbs.  Most are super easy to grow and of course, fresher if they are just outside your door, therefore the taste is always superior.  As of now I grow or wild harvest peppermint, catmint, catnip, lemonbalm, passionflower, feverfew, echinacea, dill, parsley, vitex, oregano, basil, chives, sage, mountain mint, beebalm, lavender, red clover, thyme and probably a few more.  I use these for cooking and teas, usually medicinal or just relaxing.  For example, sage tea is a great cough suppressant.  I hope to add many more herbs to my collection in years to come.
I thought it would be funny to label a few jars Eye Of Newt, Bat Wings or some such because it never fails that when newcomers see my pantry they say, "wow, are you some kind of witch?"  At least, I think that's what they're saying......witch?  b......?  Anyway!  It cracks me up that so many people think that if you use stuff like this you're like, "really out there"!  woooowoooo and all that.  Pfft!  Of course, I guess in all fairness, the animal skulls laying around don't really help my rep but they are just decorations.  Seriously.

Hey!! We are supposed to get snow tonight!  Snow!!  in November in Alabama?  Must be that global warming... Really, I don't believe I ever remember it snowing this early in my time.   Hey, I think I said that last year around the first week of December??  Hhhhmmm.

The Follow Through

I don't think I ever showed ya'll the completely finished pantry!  This is pretty much it completed.  I do have a little touch up on the paint and a tad of shoe mould to run but it's pretty much done.  I was pleased with the final product.  You can see on the top shelf some of the stuff I canned this year.  Hopefully I will add a few more pints of things to this still.  I have about 12-14 half pints of jams, 4 or 5 pints of salsa, a couple of pints of pickles and about 2 dozen pints of pickled okra.  I know that's not a lot but it's better than I did last year.  I hope to can a few more tomatoes at least, as my Amish Paste are still coming in.  I have also harvested and dried a lot of herbs, which are in the glass jars on the countertop.  I also put up shelves over the window and door to hold canning supplies and extra jars, etc.

Directly opposite that wall is this wall with the electrical panel.  Code requires your panel to have at least 3 feet of clear space in front of it so we simply put it by the cased opening of the pantry so it would naturally stay clear.  We had room to set the little wall for it out slightly in order to make little storage cubby holes there too.  It's just right for a small broom closet type thing and to hide stuff like toilet paper and such but still be easy to get to.

 I put up a few extras like this bulletin board to record stuff I run out of and all.  The shelf above the door also holds table linens and such.

This is the hardware I chose.  I like the very streamlined and contemporary look.  I know a lot of people think homes in the country should look, well, country but that is just not my cup of tea.  All of the fixtures, appliances, switch plates, hardware and the like are brushed stainless in my house.  It's a very clean, minimalist look to me.  I think it goes well with the maple woodwork and cabinets too.

Dirty Day

Since Blogger has now made it near impossible to tell in what order your pictures are going to appear on the blog I am just going to start writing and maybe that title will make sense later! With this many pics I don't feel like trying to straighten them out. When I left you in the last post I was going out to dig potatoes, and we did. I have spent a lot of time in the garden the past couple of days actually, harvesting a number of things and I took a bunch of photos of what I saw. I have had a miraculous surge in the number of honey bees visiting my place!! The corn has just been swarmed with them but I couldn't get a good picture to save my life. So, I snagged one on the peppermint. I am just SO happy to see so many of them in my garden.

I have been very happy with some of the harvests so far and disappointed with others. I guess that's normal. This is what I picked today. There's a good bit of okra on the bottom that you can't see and I picked a good mess day before yesterday. For you non-Southerners, a "mess" is a description of volume or quantity. A mess is generally the amount that would make a good serving for a couple of people but it can vary.

The figs are actually doing well this year, at least so far. Hopefully, these babies will mature this year into sweet goodness. Both trees have quite a lot of buds.

So, to the original title. I was happy that there were even potatoes to be dug and nothing had eaten them or spoiled them. I only dug the Red Pontiac and left the Goldrush in the ground to get a little bigger. Of the Red Pontiacs, we got 16 pounds. I was a little disappointed to say the least. I was hoping for a bigger harvest since I planted 4 pounds. And yes, I hilled them up several times. Maybe not enough though. This made my harvest come in at about $0 .81/ lb. Not much better than what you can buy them in the store. But, they are fresh and clean, chemical-wise anyway, and they were very pretty and blemish free for the most part.
My other root veggies were so-so also. I got about 5 pounds of onions and 2 1/2 pounds of garlic. Not record setting, but an improvement over what I have gotten in the past. I think as the soil improves here through natural amending, harvests will get bigger.

All of my herbs are doing well however, especially this parsley. Another blogger somewhere suggested growing parsley in with strawberries so I gave it a try. Seems to work! I have never done well with parsley but have harvested two large bunches from two of my plants already and should have much more if I want it.

The pepperocini peppers are doing great!! Peppers do well here for some reason, any kind. I have pickled 4 pints of these so far. After I taste them in a couple of weeks I'll give ya'll the lowdown.

The cantaloupe are doing well, at least by my standards. I have not had much luck with melons in the past but these are doing well so far. I harvested one small one yesterday that had ripened and it was sweeeet! Hopefully these will hang on. I hate to say this because i know the conditions of some parts of the US but we have had quite a bit of rain this past month and I'm afraid that with it and this humidity I might have some fungus problems in the garden. I have set each melon up on a plastic pot to avoid the wet ground and this seems to work.

This little crap has started to crow. It's pretty pitiful but they are trying. He started belting out the other morning and every chicken in the place stopped dead silent and looked around. They were like, "what the hell was that?" He strutted around anyway as if to say, "yeah, that's me! I'm bad! Uh-huh".

And watermelon!!! One big one so far and lots of little ones. These are Black Diamond and I have no idea how big they are supposed to get. Guess I could read the seed package. Or one of you could tell me if you have grown them yourself! I would say this one is pushing 15 pounds.