-fertilized the entire garden with chicken poo tea. Thank goodness for this garden gold mine! Each time I water the garden with I see marked growth overnight!
I keep a fifty gallon barrel filled with chicken poo tea at a corner of the
the garden. To fertilize the plants I use a pail and make repeated trips
back to the barrel. This works best for me, after having tried using a
watering can and finding it cumbersome.
When the tea level inside the barrel reaches below half I top it off with
more water as long as there is still poo at the bottom of the barrel.
Later, when I no longer need to fertilize, I will add more poo from the
hen house along with the wood chips. After the chips have become
saturated with the tea, I will spread them onto the raised beds around
the plants.
At the end of the season they will be turned under to get a head start
at fertilizing next year's garden.
-trimmed all the tomato plants. Though far behind schedule due to the chickens having gotten into the garden uprooting everything early on, there are finally tomatoes on the vines.
-pulled the few tiny weeds that were beginning to grow among the onions and other root veggies. Mulch, the gardener's best friend. Thanks to lots of mulch the weeding chore has been reduced to just a few minutes now and then.
-fed and watered all the critters. With the hot temperatures their water troughs evaporate before they can drink all the water. So they must be refilled two or three times a day.
-moved all the meat chicks and mama hen to the chicken tractor which will be their new home. The mama chicken that would not hatch her own eggs, has taken to being the mama for these chicks and won't be separated from them. So she is in the chicken tractor teaching them how to eat the grass and scratch for bugs.
These little chicks are going to grow to about 9 pounds each and will provide meat to our table for the entire year.
The garden is far behind schedule due to the early set-backs created by the chickens having gotten into the garden twice and uprooting everything! But, despite this, everything is growing fast and the first of the tomato transplants have fruit on them. The yellow beans have been providing about 1 pound of beans each week, which is perfect for us. And the green beans I planted a couple of weeks ago along side the yellow beans are growing and preparing to replace the yellow beans once they are finished.
The onions are doing nicely so far. I have my fingers crossed since these are the first to be grown from seed. I have never had any luck growing big onions..... hoping this will be the year I succeed.
I am also trying to raise some rutabaga, carrots and beets. Although I have had success with beets in the past, these rutabaga are my first time.
Carrots have never been successful for me in the past either, never getting very big. But, the route to success if fraught with failure, and thus I keep trying.
I planted the zucchini late for a change, only because I didn't feel like eating it yet. This year I decided to have it later rather than sooner.
I am also focusing more on growing pumpkin in stead of Butternut or Hubbard squash this year.
It will be so nice to have the garden at the new farm where I have the space to grow all the different vegetables I would like.
Besides the kitchen garden, there are plans for a perennial garden, an orchard, and a garden for berries as well as one for herbs. There will also be testing garden where I can try growing things I have never tried to grow or have never tasted before.
Will will be returning to the new farm at the end of July for a two week stay. During that time I will build boxes for raised beds. It will be easier to lay out a garden design with the boxes rather than the posts and string which I have used and didn't like.
Lots of work scheduled for the next farm trip, can't wait.
No comments:
Post a Comment