The Modern Victory Garden

You may recall that I previously posted about a coyote attack on our flock of hens that occurred Friday morning December 23rd while they were out free ranging.   I happened to be looking outside just when it happened and yelled so loud the coyote actually heard me and dropped the hen he had grabbed!     After chasing the coyote off the premises, we found the hen alive but she had all the feathers tore off of her back and a bad bite wound.    We immediately cleaned the wound, and began a regimen of irrigating it with a 10% Povidine – Iodine solution and giving her Amoxicillin twice daily.   We set up an isolation area in the coop for her, which gave her the company of the other hens while keeping her safe from them as well.    The particular hen that was attacked is one of two favorites we have in the flock.   We call her PG (short for Pretty Girl) because she has really beautiful plumage.   Or at least she did prior to the attack.    She also happens to be one tough little lady and despite the large gash in her back she quickly began eating and drinking well and managed to get around remarkably well right from the start.   After about six days in the isolation area of the coop and enduring patiently our twice daily wound care regime, she declared she was quite done with that nonsense and was ready to rejoin the other hens.    Back into the big group she went and carried on as if nothing had ever happened.   Truly an amazing lady!       

It’s been almost two weeks now since the attack and she continues to progress nicely.   We can even see some stubs of new feathers starting to grow in on her back where she was scalped.   Here she is last Monday while out with the group for a little supervised free ranging on the front lawn area.                               

Her wing feathers tend to cover most of her damaged back area, but you can see a glimpse of her damaged back in this picture and you can tell how many feathers were lost in the attack by comparing the plumage of one of her sisters’ at the top of the photo to hers.    She was not willing to sit still for a good close up photo opportunity so I don’t have a good image of her injury to share with you.    She is sick-to-death-tired of us messing with her back so her patience for any further fussing around with it is gone.   It’s probably just as well as it was a gruesome wound and not very nice to look at.   Thankfully it is healing up nicely and not nearly so awful to look at as it once was.      

We are delighted at her strong recovery and hope she will go on to yet enjoy a long life - in chicken terms at least.                                  

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   It’s fun to see what people are producing from gardens from so many different regions, and how they are using it.   Check it out and join in too!                        

I have not been blogging or spending much time reading my favorite blogs lately because I have been quite busy preparing for and then enjoying having my daughter home on a visit from Pennsylvania.   She flew in on the 22nd and will be here approximately a week, so my time is understandably devoted to being with her rather than the garden or my blog.    All should return to normal after the first of the year, but for now I am totally enjoying having her home and spending as much time as possible with her.

I did harvest some kale from the tree kale/collard on Friday.                 

I had intended to use it for that evening’s meal preparation but ended up using it for a treat for our hens instead – to calm them down after a harrowing experience.   You see, we had a coyote attack our flock on Friday morning while they were out free ranging.   I happened to be looking outside just when it happened and yelled so loud the coyote actually heard me and dropped the hen he had grabbed.   After chasing the coyote off the premises, we found the hen alive but she had all the feathers tore off of her back and a bad bite wound.   We immediately cleaned the wound, and have since been irrigating it with a 10% Povidine – Iodine solution and giving her Amoxicillin twice daily.   We set up an isolation area in the coop for her, which gives her the company of the other hens while keeping her safe from them as well.   She is eating and drinking well and getting around, but there is a high potential for infection so only time will tell if she makes it through this.                              

On Saturday I harvested a nice variety of greens for a mixed green salad - lettuce, spinach, mache, swiss chard, and some green onions.                  

They were part of our Christmas eve dinner menu which was prime rib, baked potato, fresh baked rolls, and a fresh mixed green salad.           

Harvest totals for the week of December 19th through 25th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Kale 0.50 lbs
• Lettuce & Greens 0.25 lbs
• Onions (green) 0.00 lbs (not enough to make harvest tally weight)

Total For Week 0.75 lbs

Total Year to Date 367.25 lbs                                    

Eggs collected this week – 12                                     

Our Christmas was particularly merry this year because our daughter was able to be home with us.   I hope all of you also enjoyed the pleasure of family and friends and the warmth of the season.                      

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

We have had a string of dry days recently, which has allowed the leaves that have fallen on the front lawn to finally dry out enough (after our heavy rains the prior week) such that it was possible to rake them up.   On Sunday my husband and I bundled up and together tackled getting them raked up.   We let our flock of hens loose on the front yard to graze and forage for bugs while we were there to keep an eye on them.   They love joining the human members of their flock for an expedition to the front yard.   I think they were finding lots of worms underneath the leaves we were working to rake up but soon they moved over to the small ornamental bed in front of the house.   I am sure they were finding lots of nice things in and among the fallen leaves and plant foliage that has died back for the season.                                        

They seem to like hanging out with my garden fairy that has a permanent residence in that bed – perched on an old stump.                         

The end result of a nice afternoon spent outside in the crisp fall weather was a tidy lawn, some happy chickens, and two very full compost bins.                        

The first bin is the almost finished pile, the second bin was completely empty and is now filled with leaves, and the third bin was about half full of debris that was just barely starting to rot.   I topped off the last bin, and the remaining bit of leaves was added as additional mulch on the artichoke bed.     

One more fall chore I can mark off my “to do” list as “Ta Done!”                   

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   Robin from The Gardener of Eden is similarly hosting “Thursday’s Kitchen Cupboard” each week to highlight how we use our harvests by either preserving or cooking with them.   It’s fun to see what people are producing from gardens from so many different regions, and how they are using it.   Check them out and join in too!      

I am officially into the fall/winter garden phase now.   I am using the late season fresh garden harvests to supplement the items we have in storage (onions, garlic, potatoes), frozen (green beans, corn, broccoli, pumpkin puree, kale, swiss chard, spinach, red cabbage, diced red peppers, sliced celery, and whole tomatoes), and canned items (diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, apple sauce, and dill pickle relish).   I also have some pumpkins I harvested last week that are now ripening off the vine indoors.   I will be adding these to my harvest tally when they are fully ripe and cured and they will be part of my “storage” supplies once ready.   So here is a recap of this weeks dinner menus and the garden harvests that were worked into them.   

Monday’s dinner menu: Spaghetti w/mushroom and meat sauce, and spinach salad with your choice of dressings.   The spaghetti sauce was made using a couple of whole frozen tomatoes from the freezer and a pint jar of seasoned tomato sauce (last year’s canning that I am still using up).   The mushrooms were purchased but very fresh.   The spinach salad was left over from last Sunday’s fresh harvest.   I have quite a few bags of whole frozen tomatoes in the freezer.   It is an efficient way to preserve tomatoes when they ripen in smaller groups that are not big enough to process by canning.   They are easily used for cooking by partially thawing them so that the skins slip easily off and then cutting out the stem end etc and then chopping up and using in recipes the same way you would a fresh tomato.    The texture is not the same as a fresh tomato so it cannot be used for fresh slices etc., but works beautifully where the tomato is to be cooked.   I like to start the thawing process by running some water over the solidly frozen tomatoes and then letting them sit at room temperature until the skins are easy to slip off.                                     

Tuesday I had a commitment to attend to after work, so I gave myself the night off from cooking (mostly) and picked up a take and bake pizza from our local Central Market.                                                             

Wednesday’s dinner menu: Boneless/skinless chicken breast chunks stir fried with diced leeks and swiss chard stems, and coarsely chopped swiss chard leaves in a spicy Shanghai orange sauce (bottled sauce) and served with hot cooked rice.   The leeks and swiss chard were harvested that evening right before I prepared the meal.                                         

Thursday was my birthday and we celebrated by going out for dinner.   I enjoyed lots of good food, wine, and a nice evening of conversation with my husband without the distraction of having to prepare the meal too.         

Friday’s dinner menu:   Leek and potato soup.   This soup was made from leeks harvested just a few moments before using them, potatoes from our storage boxes, and a few snips of fresh chives from the clumps growing in containers on our front porch.                                     

Leek and Potato Soup

• 3 TBS of butter
• 3 large leeks or equivalent amount of smaller leeks (white and pale green parts only – halved lengthwise and then thinly sliced – about 4 ½ cups)
• 2 large potatoes or equivalent amount of smaller potatoes (about 1 ½ pounds) peeled and diced
• 4 ½ cups organic free range chicken stock
• 3 to 4 slices of bacon cooked crisp
• 2/3 cup of organic heavy cream
• 2 TBS (approximately) of fresh snipped chives

Melt butter in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat.   Add leeks and stir to coat with butter.   Cover saucepan; cook until leeks are tender, stirring often (about 10 minutes).   Add potatoes.   Cover and cook until potatoes begin to soften but do not brown, stirring often (about 10 minutes).   Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil.   Reduce heat, cover and simmer until vegetables are tender (about 30 minutes).   Remove from heat.   Using a stick blender, puree the soup until smooth (alternatively you can do this in batches using a food processor).   Crumble into pieces the cooked crisp bacon and add to the soup along with the cream.   Stir until blended and then add salt and pepper to taste.   Ladle into bowls and serve with fresh snipped chives on top.   Makes approximately 4 servings.                  

On Saturday we chose to make it a “clean out the fridge” day and just ate leftovers.   Usually we don’t do this on a weekend, saving the convenience of a left over night for busy workdays, but this week the leftovers were accumulating in too great of a volume and needed to be used up sooner than later.                            

Sunday’s dinner menu: Chili with beef and beans.   This was made in our large crock pot.   I started 1 lb of dry light red kidney beans soaking the night before so they were ready to be rinsed and used by mid-morning on Sunday.   I browned some beef stew meat (grass fed beef) in a little oil in a saucepan and then set it aside.   In the crock pot I layered in 1 onion cut into large chunks (from storage), 1 cup of diced red sweet peppers (frozen), 1 lb of light red kidney beans pre-soaked, rinsed, and drained, ¾ lb. of browned stew meat, 3 large tomatoes cut into large chunks (frozen whole tomatoes – partially thawed with the skin slipped off and the stem end removed), 1 pint jar of tomato sauce, and seasoning to taste (dried ground cumin powder, red cayenne pepper, chili pepper powder, and salt/pepper).   Cooked in the crockpot for hours until the beans are tender and the beef is fork tender.    

Frequently, I get questions as to how we use the bounty of eggs our flock of hens provide us each week.   I thought it might be good to just recap here the answer to that question.   First, I try to keep a dozen boiled eggs on hand in the fridge which we use for making egg salad sandwiches or slicing up on salads etc. for lunches or for just snacking on.   Second, we alternate between having oatmeal or cereal for breakfast with days that feature eggs for the morning meal.   Sunday is always a late start brunch for us and eggs are always used for that in some fashion.   Third, we use them for baking and cooking as needed, and occasionally we have omelets for dinner when I need a very fast option for dinner.   Finally, after all that is said and done though, our hens often produce way more than we need for our own consumption and I share that extra with others by periodically giving a dozen eggs away to some of my employees who have requested to receive them when available.                             

While we have had lots of extra eggs to share with others, in the future this may not be the case as I must sadly report that we lost two of our hens on Saturday to an attack by raccoons.   While I was away putting in some volunteer time at the Kingston Farm and Garden Co-op Giving Garden Saturday morning, some raccoons dug under the property fencing and attacked our flock that was out for the day grazing and foraging in the larger fenced in area.   We found “parts” of one of the hens and the other is just completely missing in action.   We assume she was killed and then dragged off.   We blocked the hole that was dug but totally expect them to be back in the near future, since they got a taste of fresh chicken from our flock.   We saw a large family of raccoons passing through our front yard about two weeks ago and strongly suspicion it is the same group that came back through again.   Our task now is to protect the remaining four hens from the same fate (if possible).   They are having their hours of free ranging reduced (later start and earlier return to the secure hen yard and coop).   In addition, my husband is doing a perimeter walk of the fence before letting them out each mid-morning, to ensure no new holes have been dug for access and he has our shot gun on hand for a fast dispatching of any that should dare show themselves again.   While it is sad to lose the two hens, it is something we have been expecting to have happen eventually.   We actually only need four hens but purchased six chicks initially because the odds were high we would lose a few along the way.   We have been very lucky to date with the health and continued survival of all of our chickens.   However, I guess our luck ran out on us Saturday.              

Harvest totals for the week of October 24th through October 30th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Berries 0.00 lbs (not enough to round to ¼ pound)
• Leeks 1.50 lbs
• Swiss Chard 1.00 lbs

Total For Week 2.50 lbs

Total Year To Date 341.75 lbs                    

Eggs collected this week – 18                              

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Harvest Monday

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   It’s fun to see what people are producing from gardens from so many different regions, and how they are using it.   Check it out and join in!          

Monday August 1st was my first day back home after my trip to Pennsylvania.   My priority that day was to harvest the abundant snap peas and Sun Gold cherry tomatoes.   I also harvested some carrots but did not manage to get a picture of them. 

Monday’s harvest was incorporated into that evening’s dinner which was baked seasoned/breaded pork chops with chunks of carrot baked along with them in the same pan (butter was put in the dish and melted in the hot oven before adding the chops and the carrots) plus steamed snap peas (served simply with some butter and a sprinkle of salt) and some homemade macaroni and cheese.      

Tuesday’s harvest was just one lone tomato and I missed getting a photo of it.   This was used along with some lettuce from last week’s harvest (in the fridge) to make tacos for dinner that night.  On Wednesday I harvested some raspberries in the early morning before work.   They were eaten fresh by the two of us and were gone before the day was out.        

That evening after work I harvested some tomatoes, lettuce, and a very small pepper.                        

The cherry tomatoes and tiny pepper were just eaten raw as snacks.   The rest was used to make that night’s dinner - bacon lettuce and tomato sandwiches made with sliced up garden onions (prior harvests in storage), the large fresh leaves of lettuce, crisp bacon, and thick slices of the ripe tomatoes on honey multigrain bread spread with lots of mayo.   Yum!   

Thursday night I harvested a full-size tomato plus a handful of cherry tomatoes, a medium sized pepper, and a bunch of sugar snap peas.              

The tomatoes were just eaten raw as snacks.   The rest was used to make the evening meal, which was a stir fry of onions, peppers, sugar snap peas, and strips of lean pork.   After the vegetables and meat were cooked a spicy Thai peanut sauce was added and cooked until heated through and then it was served with cooked rice.                             

Saturday I harvested a nice variety of items including celery, beets, tomatoes, a pepper, a small zucchini, cucumbers, basil, bush beans, and some raspberries.     

Most of the celery and all of the cucumbers, zucchini, and raspberries were eaten raw as snacks.   The rest was used to make Saturday nights dinner.   The feature of the meal was slow cooked barbecue baby back ribs.   I did a dry rub of barbecue seasoning spices on the ribs and then slow cooked them in the oven for almost 4 hours at 300 degrees.   During the last hour I brushed on some sweet and tangy barbecue sauce.   The barbecue baby back ribs were served along with Italian Bean Salad (tomatoes, basil, and peppers were used along with previously harvested onions from storage), steamed green beans (served simply with a little butter and salt), and roasted beets that were peeled and then diced up (also served with a little butter and salt).   Delicious!      

Sunday was another harvest of a good variety of items including potatoes, carrots, snap peas, lettuces, and a nice head of savoy cabbage.                 

The lettuce was washed, spun dry, and then torn up into pieces and made into a very large bowl of green salad.   This will be kept in the fridge and used for lunches and other meal prep over the next several days.   Making up salads on the weekend when I have more time, helps me manage a hectic workweek.   The snap peas were just rinsed and eaten raw for snacks.   The rest went into the preparation of Sunday night dinner – grilled steaks, oven roasted crisp potatoes, and a coleslaw made from the cabbage, grated carrots, a little diced onion (previous harvest - in storage) and my favorite sweet slaw dressing (1/8 cup of maple syrup, 1/8 cup lemon juice, ¾ cup of mayo, and a dash of grated nutmeg).                             

Harvest totals for the week of August 1st through August 7th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Basil 0.00 lbs (not enough to round up to ¼ pound)
• Beets 0.75 lbs
• Cabbage 1.25 lbs
• Carrots 0.75 lbs
• Celery 1.00 lbs
• Cucumbers 0.00 lbs (not enough to round up to ¼ pound)
• Lettuce 1.25 lbs
• Peas (snap) 2.00 lbs
• Peppers 0.25 lbs
• Potatoes 2.00 lbs
• Raspberries 0.50 lbs
• Tomatoes 1.75 lbs
• Zucchini 0.25 lbs

Total For Week 11.75 lbs

Total Year To Date 152.75 lbs                               

Eggs collected this week – 33                           

Some Creatures In My Garden

My garden always has a few creatures in it, some are welcome and some - not so much.   The wild rabbit that was chomping down my strawberry patch earlier this year appears to have moved on (or was eaten by our local coyotes).    But almost as big as a rabbit, our maritime Pacific Northwest slugs are a force to be reckoned with in the garden.   There are a lot of them this year in the potato patch.   Despite regular slug picking patrols on my part, they still are rather plentiful.         

Luckily the potato leaves and vines are lush and thick and the plants are holding their own despite the abundance of munching slime makers.           

There is another group of creatures that live on the edge of my garden and have a voracious appetite.   They would eat the garden down to nothing if given the opportunity.   Just to show you what a difference the fence makes… look at this picture of my bean patch on the garden side of the fence.                

And then look at the bean patch leaves and vines that grew through the fence… well, look at the ragged edge of what USED to be vines and leaves!    

The creatures that did this munching are actually welcome residents on our property.   Have you guessed who they are?   Well, let me just say that I don’t begrudge them the tidbits they eat from the edge of the fence because they provide us with 4 to 6 eggs a day on a regular basis.   Yes, that was my little flock of hens that have been trimming any vegetation from the garden that dares to grow too close to (or through) the fence.   Here are three of them in the chicken coop nest boxes this morning, busy working on their contribution to our good eating.        

Another creature we purposefully work to keep on our property are the worms in our worm box.   You may recall that we set the worm box up the first part of July.   We have since been putting food wastes and kitchen trimmings into the box regularly and are now shifting over to putting wastes into the right side bin.                      

In the left side, the food wastes are all getting gobbled up by the worms and our population of worms is definitely growing.   When you dig into the bin even a little bit you will reveal many worms and lots of baby worms – well at least for a few seconds before they all quickly vanish back into the muck of the pile they are working on to avoid the exposure to light.    They are a little hard to see in a photo but if you look close you can see several of them that had not managed to wiggle out of sight before I snapped a photo.                 

I will close with a picture of a creature that is always in my garden whenever I am there.                

My cat Sid likes to sit in the shade of the corn patch or under the large leaves of the cabbage patch and keep me company while I work in the garden.   I like to think it is because he is guarding me while I work, but I think it is just his inner tiger calling him into his vegetable garden jungle.                    

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

A dense mixed species forest surrounds my garden.   The perimeter of the garden is a transition zone that has many large rhododendrons, ferns, and a constant encroachment of blackberries and other brambles.   Periodically I have to use a machete and brush loppers to cut back the encroaching brambles and exuberant growing rhodies because if I did not push back the jungle of growth it would eventually reclaim the garden area.   Today I did a major brush cutting and trimming effort on the back perimeter of the garden, which was earlier than I normally do this task but necessary as I am prepping the area for installation of some cross fencing.   The end result was a good pushing back of the jungle and I placed some stakes to show the general line of the fence to be installed.        

The fence will separate the garden from the rest of the back fenced area that will be the continued free-range area for our flock of hens.   This gives the hens a large area to range on daily but allows me to protect the garden beds during the main growing season.   They will be allowed into the garden area to graze during the summer season but only with supervision.   During the winter months they will be given full access to the main garden area again (winter crops are protected with grow tunnel covers) so they can work down the bug and weed population.   There will be two gates in the cross fencing section.   The main one up by the house and coop area and another one that opens up into the dense woodlot that will be part of the chickens range area.   Here’s where the gate into the woods will be located.               

I hope to get the fencing installed fairly soon.   Mid-March is when a lot of the early crops need to start going in and I want to have this small construction project completed well ahead of that time.                  

The hens love it when I turn over soil or otherwise disturb vegetation as it opens up access to bugs and worms and/or supplies some fresh vegetation to nibble on.   They followed me around all afternoon as I was working, enjoying the benefits of my labor.                     

This is a rare picture as it has all six of the hens in it!   Usually they are busy in different groupings and it is difficult to catch them foraging all together.   They seem to really like hanging out with us when we are outside doing things and frequently ask to be picked up and held – particularly the littlest all black hen pictured on the left and in front.   She is absolutely the sweetest creature and has turned into my buddy.                                       

Started another big round of seeds on Saturday including the regularly timed tomatoes (which I expect to largely give away unless I need them to replace plant losses from the early start tomatoes), peppers, celery, and some swiss chard.   I moved the onion seedlings out to the unheated greenhouse to make room for all the new seed trays under the lights.                   

Next big project is getting the cross fencing installed.   Hopefully that will be soon!                       

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Harvest Monday Recap             

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   It’s fun to see what everyone else is harvesting from gardens in so many different regions.    Check it out and join in!                       

The new thing in our harvest mix this week is some fresh white button mushrooms.   These are from the mushroom growing kit residing in our spare bedroom.   I also harvested some mixed greens on Saturday of mache and young lettuce, swiss chard, and spinach leaves.   The rest of our vegetable needs this week have been coming from storage, home canned, and frozen items.               

We still have about three more weeks before the greens will start really taking off again (increasing day length and sun strength) but I have noticed that they are already starting to show some new growth even if it is painfully slow at this time of year.                                

Harvest totals for the week of January 17th through January 23rd (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Lettuce & Greens 0.25 lbs
• Mushrooms 1.50 lbs

Total For Week 1.75 lbs

Total Year To Date 3.25 lbs                      

Eggs harvested this week - 35                                 

Some Updates                                               

The onion seedlings I started last weekend are largely germinated at this point.                               

Saturday I started a six-pack each of the following tomatoes:

• Defiant PHR (Hybrid)
• Legend (OP)
• Market Miracle (OP)
• Siletz (OP)
• Stupice (OP)
• Sun Gold (Hybrid)

These are ultra early started tomatoes and will require extra attention and prolonged care, as they will not be planted out any earlier than I normally do.   They will be much larger by transplant time though and from my experiment last year I learned that the ultra early started plants provided much greater harvest in our area’s typically short warm season.   I will still be starting some tomatoes at the more usual starting time of mid February, but they will be backups for my ultra early start tomatoes and will be given away to my staff and coworkers if I end up not needing them.     My intention is to use only the ultra early start tomatoes for my own garden needs this year.                                                

I frequently receive requests for information and updates on the chickens so I thought I would take a moment and give you an update and overview on our flock and it’s management.   Our six young hens we acquired as chicks around the first of April 2010 continue to thrive and produce abundantly.   We have been getting between 35 and 37 eggs a week.   The egg production varies from day to day with a low of 3 and high of 6 – but typically averages out to 5 a day.   The hens have a well-engineered and comfortable coop that opens up into a large covered and secure hen yard.   They also have a fenced backyard that they are given free range of during the day from about 8:30 in the morning until dusk.   This large back yard area has a woodlot and shrubs in it that provide them additional protection if needed.   It also has a dry area behind the garage that is protected by a large overhang.   The girls like to use this area for their afternoon dust baths and naps!                                  

We make sure they are in their secured yard and locked in safely (protected from predators) every evening and wait until the sun is up and we are up and about before we open up the gate to their hen yard to allow them to begin free ranging for the day.   They have access to several water containers, layer crumbles, some hen scratch, and free choice grit and oyster shell at all times.   The water and feed are replenished daily.   The coop has a deep bed of pine shavings in it and the nests have sweet smelling timothy hay in them.   The coop gets cleaned once a month with all the bedding pulled out, a good sweeping or shop vacuuming, and then fresh bedding put in.   The coop has it’s own water container, hanging feeder, a heat lamp in one corner that is on a thermostat so it kicks on if the temps drop below 50 degrees inside, and a regular light that is on a timer that switches the light on at 5:30 am and off at 5:30 pm.   The hen yard is raked up weekly to remove the poop and spilled/spoiled feed.   All of the yard rakings and coop cleaning debris is then composted.   This routine of cleaning keeps everything tidy and smelling good.   I think it contributes to healthy birds as well.   Over the course of the week we probably devote an average of about 3 hours to the care and maintenance of the flock and the collection of eggs.   Currently the hens are enjoying free ranging in the garden area but in February we will be installing a short section of cross fencing which will allow us to keep them out of the garden beds during the summer growing season.   We will still be bringing them into the garden area periodically for some supervised grazing of the walkways, but only when we are there to ride herd over them and protect the crops.   Even with this change they will still have a very large area available to them for free ranging in during the summer season.   We intend to let them free range the garden area once again during the winter months but only after the crops are harvested and the winter crops are covered for protection.   They do a great job of reducing the slug population and keeping weeds down.

The last update I wanted to provide you with is on the tree kale/collards plants.   I received several starts from a regular reader of my blog (Cherie) earlier this winter and I potted them up to root out.   Initially I had some very good success with virtually all of the plants successfully rooting out and sprouting new leaves.   However, I made the mistake of moving them out to the unheated greenhouse to grow on and a prolonged period of cold and wet knocked out several of the starts and made the remaining ones look quite sickly.   I salvaged the remaining plants by moving them back into the shop under grow lights.   Of those, two are still looking very frail but one of them revived wonderfully and is doing great.    Here it is today.              

Even if this is the only one that survives, I should be good to go because once this is firmly established in the garden; I can take more cuttings from it and root them out to propagate more plants.   I am treating this plant with great care though, as it appears it may be the only one that I get to maturity. 

That’s about all the news and updates for now.   The PVC fitting I needed to finish the second-generation horizontal pea trellis project has been ordered and shipped and should be here by next weekend.                     

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

I started my Saturday out by cleaning the chicken coop and yard thoroughly.   It was the first task I did Saturday because the weather forecast was calling for a substantial soaking rainstorm to arrive about noon and hang around through the early evening.   The soiled litter was swept out of the coop and combined with the chicken yard rakings to feed the compost pile.   I then used our shop vac to get all the remaining bits of shavings and dust from the corners, ledges, and floor of the coop.   The shop vac was then also emptied into the compost pile.   Scrubbed and refilled the water containers and feeders and then put down a deep layer of clean shavings in the coop as well as some fresh dry timothy hay in the nest boxes.   It takes me about an hour to do a thorough coop and yard cleaning and I timed it just about right because as I headed back into the house at about 11:30 am the rains arrived and settled in for the day.           

Since the weather Saturday made doing anything outside miserable, I spent the afternoon indoors watching a couple of movies, sorting and putting away laundry, and making applesauce.   I had a box of Gala apples that I purchased on my way home from a recent visit to my mom.   I cut them into quarters, steamed them for 15 minutes until tender, and then processed them through my Roma strainer to remove the seeds and skins - creating a beautiful applesauce for canning.   Ended up with 5 quarts of applesauce for the pantry and a bowl of it in the fridge for immediate eating.  

This morning (Sunday) after the jars were thoroughly cooled and I verified they all sealed properly, I put them with the rest of the home canned items in my hallway closet.   I use this closet for storing most of my jarred goods because the shelves are really deep and very sturdy.   The white packages and wood box  on the lower left are my fine china and silver storage.   The shelves below (not visible in the photo) are where we store the extra bedding and linens.

The rain we had yesterday and through most of the night helped my recently seeded green manure/cover crop of crimson clover sprout and grow on.   The large bed is sporting a definite sheen of green this morning.  

If you notice in the picture above, the beds that have crops growing in them that the chickens may find attractive to eat are covered with hoops and bird netting to protect them.   The unprotected beds either do not have anything growing in them currently or are items the birds leave entirely alone.   Protecting the beds with crops in this manner is simple and allows me to then let the chickens have free range of the entire fenced in back yard of our property during the day.   They graze the weeds and grass down from the walkways and actively search out bugs which provides them with lots of free organic forage and keeps my garden area in good shape.  

By letting them have access to the garden walkways like this, I have been able to stop doing the monthly chore of weed whacking the garden walkways.   I will still have to use a machete to whack back the blackberry brambles that encroach from the edges of the surrounding woodlot, but the chickens are keeping everything else mowed down pretty nicely.   It does require me to cover and protect the garden beds and crops though, but honestly I used to have to do that anyway when our old dog was alive as she would dig up and walk through the beds regularly if I did not.

The chickens usually finish laying eggs by mid morning and are then allowed to spend 6 to 7 hours roaming about the fenced back portion of our property foraging.   They always have access to the coop and the safety of the covered chicken yard but only return to it during the day briefly to get a drink of water and feed on the layer crumbles.   In the evening, they return to the chicken yard and coop and we lock them in for the night to keep them safe from raccoons and other nighttime predators.

The hens have been excellent about using the nest boxes in the coop for laying. We placed a fake (wooden) egg in each nest to encourage them to use the boxes for laying and they figured it out right from the start without any problems.   They use all six of the nest boxes in the coop but they seem to particularly like the two end boxes. 

I often find two eggs in the end boxes because the hens will take turns laying and tend to pick those nest boxes to lay in. 

The light colored egg is the fake wooden one and the two brown ones are the real eggs.                 

Monday is a holiday for me (Columbus Day) so I will be home from work and it is forecasted to be drier and more pleasant than either Saturday or Sunday.   I am planning to plant out my garlic and do some more fall garden clean up on Monday as a result. 

Fall is here. The cold fall rains have arrived, the days are getting much shorter, and the sun strength is definitely dwindling.   I am lucky if I can get home from work in time to be able to harvest something for dinner before it gets too dark to see well.   Luckily, the garden is not in need of much ongoing attention at this point, so the diminished amount of garden time is not a problem.   What does need to be done is easily taken care of on the weekend.   Before long it will be time to rake up leaves for the compost pile. 

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone else is harvesting from gardens in so many different regions.  Check it out and join in!          

There were no singular large harvests this week. Instead, I harvested a nice variety of items and our menu was quite varied as a result.    I got enough cucumbers that I can make a ½ batch of our favorite dill pickle relish today (Labor Day - Monday).     Wish I had more to make a full batch but the weather went really cool and wet again and I am feeling lucky to get the cucumber harvest I have.                          

I did not get pictures of all the harvests, but here is a good portion of them.   

Harvest totals for the week of August 30th through September 5th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

Green Beans 2.50 lbs

Celery 1.50 lbs

Corn 0.25 lbs

Cucumbers 4.00 lbs

Herbs (dill) 0.25 lbs

Potatoes 2.25 lbs

Rhubarb 0.75 lbs

Spinach 0.25 lbs

Tomatoes 2.50 lbs

Zucchini 2.00 lbs

Total For Week 16.25 lbs

Total Year To Date 191.75 lbs                               

As of Sunday (September 5th) we now have five young hens laying eggs and we got 24 eggs for the week. There is only one of the six that is not laying yet, and I think she will start up too very soon.    Here's a picture of just two days worth of egg collections.             

Happy Gardening and Harvesting!               

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Saturday morning was spent running errands and shopping, but I was back home and everything was put away by noon and I was able to get a lot accomplished with the rest of the day despite the later start on it.   The main thing I wanted to get accomplished in the garden was to pick the bush beans and, at the same time, remove the spent plants and compost them.   My husband had the chickens out for their daily grazing/foraging and he was working on trimming back some of the brambles that were encroaching on the garden while he kept a watchful eye on the birds.   As a result I had his company in the garden – along with six little feathered helpers. 

This is one of the two bush bean patches and you can see in this photo that I had already begun harvesting and removing the bean plants.   The chickens quickly figured out that when I pulled up the plants, that I not only disturbed the soil yielding worms and various bugs, but that I shook bugs off of the plants too!   They had a feast of worms, spiders, tiny caterpillars, a beetle or two, an occasional cutworm, and even some tiny slugs although they will not eat the really big slugs (and who can blame them?!).

I piled up the bean plants that I pulled and then carted them off to the compost pile.   With all the bean plants I added Saturday, I finished completely filling a bin and need to start a new bin for collecting garden, kitchen, chicken coop, and yard waste. 

In the process of foraging, the chickens did a mini cultivation of the soil such that it is largely ready for a layer of compost to be added at this point.   Here’s the bed after I was through with clearing it out.   The front portion of the bed has dill and some carrots growing in it.   The bed directly behind this one is the parsnip patch.   I have resisted the temptation to pull one to see how they are coming along, but based on the top growth, I believe these will be a good sized this year. 

The second bush bean patch was planted in the front portion of one of the vertical grow beds, in front of the pole beans.   Here’s what the bed looked like before I similarly picked and stripped it out. 

Here is what it looked like after I had finished the harvest and clearing out project.   Notice my helpers followed me to this area of the garden as well!      

The bush beans were much better at coping with our cool summer than our pole beans have been.   I will continue to get bean harvests from the pole bean plants, but they are not producing heavily and it will only be enough for fresh eating needs through the early fall.   I have been quite happy with the Royal Burgundy purple podded bush beans and will definitely be growing these again. 

In addition to the bush beans I harvested, I also cut some celery, some rhubarb stalks, some dill heads, and dug up some potatoes Saturday.   By the time I headed into the house late in the afternoon, I had a full harvest basket of items – all of which ended up being used before the day was out.  

The celery was cleaned, trimmed, sliced, and then placed on a cookie sheet in the freezer.   They will be added to the freezer bag of celery slices that I have going after they are solidly frozen.   The potatoes, a few of the green beans, and the rhubarb were used to make the evening meal for the day.   The potatoes were peeled and sliced thinly and then used to make Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes.    The rhubarb was cleaned, sliced into 1 inch pieces, and (because it yielded three cups of finished pieces and I needed four cups) I combined it with 1 cup of frozen blueberries and made a rhubarb/blueberry pie.  

The dinner menu was baked spiral cut ham, scalloped potatoes, steamed green beans (with just a little butter and salt) and rhubarb/blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert.  

After dinner, I prepared the remaining green beans by trimming the ends and rinsing them and then processed a batch of dilly green beans   Here's the recipe: 

Dilly Green Beans

Yields about 4 to 6 pints

• 2 pounds green beans
• ¼ cup canning salt
• 2 ½ cups vinegar
• 2 ½ cups water
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, divided
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 heads dill

Trim ends off green beans. Combine salt, vinegar and water in a large cooking pot. Bring to a boil. Pack beans lengthwise into hot jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Add ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 peeled clove of garlic, and 1 head of dill to each pint jar. Ladle hot liquid over beans, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath canner.

I wrapped up about 8 pm last night and enjoyed a slice of that pie and watched an old sci fi movie.   Here are the finished dilly green beans this morning after they were cooled and I had removed the rings from them.   The purple-podded green beans colored the pickling brine with a bit of a purple color, which I think is attractive.

Today (Sunday) we are planning to spend the day at the Bloedel Reserve gardens on Bainbridge Island.   Monday is a holiday, so I am hoping to spend another productive day in the garden and do a little more preserving too.   I really love three day weekends!   It gives lots of time to do homestead chores and projects, plus provides an extra day to just play.

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener