Lammas and the potatoes

 

Lammastide is the time of early harvest, traditionally grains, but, here, potatoes. I don’t have enough land to grow enough wheat and oats to feed us, or the technology to harvest and separate out the grain, but I can produce potatoes. And, if I put them in the ground early enough, they need less water and are ready to give up their beds to other crops in early August.  The pandemic, plus a seed potato shortage, has made this a bit more challenging this year, but I pulled them on Monday, August Second, Lammastide.

This year, I put in a half bed of kennebucks, a large white potato that is a solid producer. They grew alongside leeks and carrots to create a “soup bed”; the potato leaves, despite my best efforts,  overwhelmed the celery before I could really get going. Next year. They came out—22 pounds—last week and were quickly replaced by the direct seeded fall crops. Arugula. Watermelon radish. Tat Soi. Lettuce.  If last year is ever an indication, these greens will keep producing until Winter Solstice.  They are already up.

This morning, I tackled the full bed, planted a couple of weeks later. Even with the water turned off for two weeks, a few vines were still lush. I tried working around them, but gave up. Two rows of Yukon Gold (17 pounds, medium sized tubers) and two rows of Blue (16 pounds, not as lovely as some other years) appeared as I expected, in terms of size and production. But, then, I had run a small row of huckleberries down the middle of the bed and they were….amazing. Huge! They beat out the Kennebecks, which are traditionally the largest potato. Clear and clean. Beautiful tubers. Deep purple outside, golden inside, and, I remember from last fall, yummy all the way through. 22 pounds from less than four. The bed emptied pretty quickly. I use my hands first, finding about 70 percent of the tubers while the compost I dumped on the straw mulch last week works its way into the bed. Then I take the pitchfork, with bare feet, and gently dig up the rest. This allows me to prep the bed for the next fall crop while harvesting the spring planting. Any big chunks of straw are set to the side, to be laid back on the bed later.

Once everything was out, I planted two rows of potatoes for a late fall harvest. It’s not as big, but it works! Then the hoses went back down, followed by the straw mulch. The other side of the bed will be filled with fall starts next week—kale and mustard, first, then the broccoli and fennel and cabbage. Depending on the fall, we will have a late harvest of potatoes and greens. Meanwhile, harvest begins.

Apple collection on Tuesday….

               

April

 

 

               The world has been warm and sunny for the past two weeks—lovely, but it just does not feel right, in Oregon, in April. This weekend, the clouds returned, rain softened the clods of dirt in my summer greens garden bed just before I needed to prep it for planting, and the sky is full of layers and layers of cloud with sun shining through the gaps. Despite the swelling slugs in the grass, it is beautiful.

                The greenhouse is full. There are some extra early cabbage starts in four inch pots from my first round of planting. The tomatoes have all been bumped up. Eighty six are waiting to go to new homes this coming weekend; 18 sit in gallon pots underneath the shelf, ready to be planted out in about three weeks, when the coop moves to the back run. The third round of plantings, known as the summer greens, is in six packs and four inch pots, resting over the tub. And today, I planted the vines, flowers, and herbs that will go out when it is truly warm in late May. After I start the corn tomorrow, every spot will be filled. The cat wanders in as I work, waiting to be boosted up to her shelf over the door, where she hangs a paw down while she naps.

  

              Outside, lilac and wisteria waft a deep purple fragrance over the back yard. Wild hyacinth and white alliums sprawl out of the beds onto the sidewalk. The early greens are ready for small soft salads. I mulched the potato bed this afternoon and Mr. Beezhold hopped right over to nibble on the dry grass, which is better than the rhubarb or the asparagus. The chickens are laying an egg most days and they have given in and are using the official nest box, rather than scrambling to get out or laying in the furthest corner of the run.  The fig tree has thumb sized figs forming at the base of the new leaves. Mark has to mow every five or six days to keep up; the push mower does not work well when the grass is too high.

                Late April is full of hope in the garden. Everything is started and growing. Nothing has been attacked by slugs, or flea beetles, or a chicken on a rampage…there are no failures or mistakes yet, no lessons learned the hard way. Soft rains help the cabbages grow and the warm sun pulls us all outside.

Garden Volunteers

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Volunteers. Given time and space, they move in and take over. Weeded out too vigorously, and the garden is barren, orderly, and empty of surprises.  In an established patch, they are in balance. In June, the choices we have made all spring become clear.

There are a wide variety of volunteers… first, the free seeders. I bought one packet of borage 18 years ago and we have never lacked for the herb since, which is fine because we love the flowers and the chickens love the leaves and seeds. Love in a Mist has taken over the dry shade under the apple tree and creates a bank of blooms and funky seedheads in May and June. One lemon balm plant has become hundreds. Lovage, while less prolific, is huge when it does appear. Feverfew creates a nice filler in a bouquet, as does the Lady’s Mantle that has moved into the paths between garden beds. Wild seeded cosmos and nasturtiums bloom before the May planted every year.

Once you have  potato crop, you always have a potato crop, a friend observed one spring. It’s true. Every one of my beds has at least one potato, every year, despite constant rotations and careful harvest. They appear in early March, telling me that the soil is warm enough to plant the crop. I can pull a few plants for the Fourth of July and have new potato salad for dinner. There is usually at least one very vigorous plant  sprawling out of the compost bins until the chickens eat the leaves. When I weigh the harvest, I calculate in the volunteers.

Three years ago, I tossed the insides of our carving pumpkins into the garden. The next spring, before I realized it, a vine was sprawling across the beans, so I rigged up a trellis and rope and lifted it above my head. Four huge, round pumpkins grew off of the vines, slowing turning orange in late August. They became the Halloween pumpkins. Last October, when I tossed those seeds, I was thoughtful about their placement and settled them at the base of my new cattle panel hoop. In April, they seeds sprouted and the vines are well on their way up and out. There is another vine crawling out of the potato bed…

The structure of the vegetable garden is orderly and linear—all of the beds are ten feet long, four feet across, raised boxes, with three foot paths between. They are sized to hold the chicken coop—four feet by five—during the winter months.  The main paths end in blue gates that lead to the chicken run and the compost bins. Each bed has its own soaker hose, which can be turned on and off at will. This imposed order is essential. However, the cheerful chaos of a volunteer pumpkin vine making a run for freedom and flowers blooming where they were not planted break the patterns every day.

 

Compost Piles

One of the benefits of the Stay Home, Save Lives spring has been the ability to wander out into the back yard and see how things are growing.  When my eyes are tired of looking at the screen, they are happy to rest on the hunt for the cabbage worm eating in the center of the broccoli plant. And, because it has been warm, wet season, everything is growing madly.

We  are also working on the compost mounds. The pruning and trimming of shrubs and trees is finally done—the Camilla has to wait until after the bloom—and everything has been hauled back and piled up next to the fence. Over the next few weeks, we will cut it all up, using everything from the Big Loppers to hand trimmers—and the occasional stomp—and fill the wire bins. We should work from one bin to the next, so that there is an order to the decomposition, but, occasionally we give into convenience and toss branches into the nearest bin. Mark has used a chipper in the past and it produced some really nice compost in a much shorter period of time, but it was loud and not conducive to Deep Thought, so he has returned to the hand cutting method. These days, as he is also working from home, he will wander out to the pile and trim while considering a sticky problem. Cutting compost is an ongoing meditative process.

Occasionally, we grow an extra potato.

There are three wire bins. We prefer bins because of their flexibility; when one is full and ready to be sifted, Mark pulls the wire away, sets it up into its new spot, and begins (with the help of the chickens) to sift out the finished compost and to toss the pieces that need some more time into the new circle. We add the kitchen and garden scraps to that bin while the others work in peace. There is room for five full bins in the work area, but we only have three, so we can move things around. By late July, there will be one hoop of fresh chopped material, one sprawled on the ground being sifted, and one working on decomposition.  There will also be an old garbage bin full of sifted compost for me to distribute to the raspberry and gooseberry beds out front.

Working on the compost mounds is a steady process and cycle in our lives. Tucked into the back corner, it s never tidy, never done, and a constant work in progress.

Green Dream

Green dreams….

These days, I wake at dawn, grey light filtering through clouds, through my eyes. It is not time to rise, drink tea, get moving on the day, but to dream, halfway between waking and sleeping. I have green dreams. I think what is growing in the front yard, the hop vine adding several inches a day, waving above the trellis. I remember the bean seeds I planted in the warm moist ground the day before. I plan where  and what I need to do next, at home and at the school garden, which we are slowly bringing back to order.  Weeds and irrigation systems tangle in my brain with potato starts and mints to be replanted on the herb mound. These days, there is no sound of traffic, or early morning workers on the move. It is silent, except for the haunting whoo  of pigeons, calling for the friends. And the quiet rustle of plants, growing towards the light.

Green dreams.

When I pulled the tarot card for My Day, it was the Knight of Cups: what kindles your dreaming soul?

September Gold

One of the hardest things about early September is having to move back inside for hours on end. We all feel it; even the cat is more inclined to sprawl in the sun, soaking up the dry heat before the long damp season begins.

It is the golden season. The light is a clear, liquid gold, pouring over the landscape. Everything turns golden—the fields, the leaves, the crops, the flowers, all gather in this light and reflect it back. In my garden, small pumpkins emerge from the tangle of green leaves—there are eight?! I had only counted five all summer long. Three were hidden. Sungold tomato vines sprawl over the others, small golden suns everywhere. We eat them constantly. The goldenrod is blooming and every pollinator from miles around is collecting on it, so it hums.   My fall crops are growing madly; they are in the brightest bed. Along the fence, one volunteer pumpkin vines is making a final run for it; it has grown three feet in the last two weeks and has a tiny fruit hanging from it. We will see if anything comes of it.

Harvest is everywhere. Last summer vegetables compete with the early squashes in the Farmer’s Market. All sorts of fruits spill over, all ready to be processed for winter. We bring in the potatoes and onions, dried beans and corn. The time of reckoning…what went well? What did not? It’s serious for us, home gardeners, far more serious for the local farmers. These six weeks between Lammastide and the Fall equinox determine how well we will eat this winter. Soon, we will break out the wool socks, start the wood stove, consider baked beans for dinner. Until then, though, I am stretching my bare feet towards the sun, holding onto these golden days as long as possible.

The South Side

                For the last two years, I have been experimenting with plantings on the south side of the house. It can be a challenging location. It receives full sun in the afternoon, is blocked by house on two sides, and is buffeted by the evening sea breezes.  There are a series of wine barrels, and other containers the size of wine barrels, that live in what was the driveway, as well as two small raised beds built up against the house. For a long time, it was the home for all of the tomatoes, which did well in the heat and also allowed us to nibble on sungold tomatoes as we wheeled our bikes in and out of the back yard. Two years ago, I decided to do some crop rotation.

                Last year, I went for the vining squashes in the pots and the corn in the beds. It did not work. The corn was fried in a heat wave and looked like something from the Dust Bowl. The squashes, although slightly shaded by a tree, were also hit by the heat and did not produce large fruits. I had mini-squashes which were not edible. I thought, if I had moved them into the full shade, they would have been ok, but it’s hard to move a pot full of a long pumpkin vines that are visiting the neighbors.  Scarlet runner beans will grow up the twine along the side of the house, but they will not produce beans (Heat again). The Three Sisters were not happy.

 

Resting bed

               This year, I tried the spring crops—peas, lettuce, mustard, and kale—as well as cabbages and broccoli.  That was more successful. Lettuces really like succession plantings in big barrels. Kale and mustard did pretty well in barrels, too. The longer, heavy feeding crops were not as happy; they were too crowded.  I did get three out of four cabbages, but the same generation did much better in a back yard bed.  I replaced some early crops with dill and zinnas, which are flourishing. And, oddly enough, so is a celery plant which I popped into one empty planter hoping to keep it going through the winter, rather than losing it to the chickens when  I move the coop onto the garden bed that holds its sister plant.  The bed next to the house had problems from too much undigested organic matter rather than from heat; it did not do well even in cool weather. Right now, it is resting and digesting, like a family after Thanksgiving.

                I like the idea of quick growing greens outside the living room windows in the early spring. It brings the garden closer to the house when we really need to watch something grow. I think I will try that again next March.  I am also thinking of bringing the snacks forward —cherry tomatoes and ground cherries—so that we can eat them easily. Flowers and herbs can fill in as the season moves along. They will tolerate heat and being moved if needed for a few days. Maybe the real question should be: what do I want to see when I gaze out of the windows?

A Week in Garden Harvests

Radicchio

    

            I am in love with radicchio this season. I bought some seed this winter, when all greens looked good in the catalog (hence my overabundance of cabbages and broccolis) and started it in February, first in six-packs, then bumped up to a barrel in the yard and some four inch pots. It has been lush for months.  That has been one of its charms; whenever I harvest a full sized plant, I have popped another, from the four inch pot stash, into the hole. It keeps on growing without missing a beat. So far, it has been one tough plant, even when it was hot and dry a few weeks ago. It even repels pill bugs and earwigs!

                It is also a beautiful plant. Deep green leaves, veined with red on the outside. A cabbage-y, swirly leaf layout in red and white inside.  Some are more red, some more green.  When it first grows the true leaves, they have an adorable little twist to them, like the piping on a cake that turns inward to create the head. Layer upon layer of leaves build up on that twist, and the biggest lay down to frame the plant. So lovely.

                Radicchio is tasty, too. We started eating the young leaves in salads in late April. Lately, I have been harvesting the heads for sautéed greens. They are bitter but not spicy as mustard greens and they mix beautifully with kales and mustards. Last night, we ate them cooked with an onion and garlic, toasted pecans and raisins. So good.  Such a nice counter point to the ricotta pie that was left over from the night before.  This one is clearly a keeper.

Parsnips!

Yesterday, I dug what I thought was the last few parsnips. If you had asked me how many where in the ground, I would have replied about six…Mr Beezhold, the hungry bunny, has been eating the tops like mad, so it was hard to tell. When I dug in, I found at least two dozen solid roots. Some were intertwined. Some reached down into the clay a foot below. A few were small and popped right out, but they just kept coming. I gave them all a quick bath with the hose, roasted three for dinner, and began to re-plan our meals for the week. Parsnip and Cheddar soup, here we come.

Other parsnip options:

·         Sautéed with butter

·         Parsnip muffins

·         Parsnip cake with cream cheese frosting

·         Gratin with leeks, fennel, and potatoes, garlic

·         Winter Minestrone soup

Parsnip and Cheddar Soup

Chop equal amounts of parsnips (peeled) and potatoes, one medium onion, and about half the amount of carrots.  Barely cover with water, add salt, pepper, and some caraway seed and dill, and boil gently until very soft. Chunk about a quarter of a pound of cheddar. Toss the veggies and the cheese together into the cuisnart and puree. Return to the pot, add milk to achieve the right consistency, and heat slowly. Eat for dinner with cornbread and salad.

The Garden Notebook

               Four years ago, I started a weekly entry garden book, based upon the weeks of the year. Each week is a page with brief entries for ever year. After I figured out how to count the weeks—no mean feat—it worked.  I figured I’d have six years on the page; after four years, I think I’ll come closer to twelve. The process takes about five minutes a week, either on Saturday morning or when I do something significant during the week. This year, it has really begun to prove useful.

                It’s been cold. But, in early March, I always think that it has been cold and damp for a very long time. This year, thanks to my lovely garden book. I have evidence. Usually, the daphne is blooming by now. Some years, the camilla is covered in blossoms. The plums are blooming. This year—nothing. Buds, but no blooms. I am right. It has been cold. There has been snow.

                Because it has been cold, I feel like I am falling behind.  I should have beds covered with the hoops and plastic, prepped and planted, I think. I am a season pusher….but, when I check my notebook, I see that, really, I am on schedule. Seeds are all ordered. With the laurel hedge whacked back and the debris hauled to the compost area, I have completed pruning. I have cabbages and broccoli bumped up and under the greenhouse light. The tomatoes are just emerging in my warm classroom. I am on schedule. I am just chilly while working.

                The notebook is helping in other ways, as well. I make notes to my future self on posties and place them on the appropriate week as reminders. I have maps and seed order forms from previous years so that I have a better grasp of rotations. I have a section for next year’s plans, so that I remember to dig out the gooseberry and move it in the fall. I track rainfall in the winter, cucumber harvests and canning schedules in the summer. I know when I got that swarm of bees last spring and the last year we brought home chicks. I know when to hunt for eggs, because this flock refuses to lay in the coop. I had general knowledge in the past, but now, there is data. Evidence. I like it.

               

2018 Harvest

Blueberries: 3 quarts dried

Plums: 6 quarts, dried

Apples: 8 quarts, dried

                8 pints, sauced

                15 quarts, pressed for juice

Tomatoes:  48 half pints, roasted

                  17 pints, sauced

                9 pints, salsa

Figs: 6 quarts, dried

                14 half pints of fig butter

Pickles: Dill—8

                Bread and Butter—5

                Senfgerkin—11

Pears: dried 5 quarts

                3 pints, sauced

Honey- 1 quart (more in the spring!)

Black beans: 1.5 quarts, dried

Potatoes: 69 pounds, total

                Deseree—18 pounds

                Butte—10 pounds

                Blue—21 pounds

                Yukon Gold—20 pounds

All of the bold was grown in the backyard, of within walking distance of the house.

               

Tomatoes on the March

Tomatoes are on the march in the Urban Homestead. It has been a very good year. I moved them into the back garden beds as part of a crop rotation, where they have always been very happy, in the garden beds or in big black tubs.  There are two beds of tomatoes: one for sauces and one for eating out of hand.

                I made a few changes to the varieties that I plant. I added Grandaro, a large paste tomato that I found in the Johnny’s catalog. It has been very prolific, which huge fruits that are resistant to blossom end rot, which has always been a plum tomato problem in my yard.  On their own, two plants are responsible for almost all of my sauce. I will be planting these again. I also planted two new sandwich varieties. A friend gave me some free oxheart seeds, so I planted them. They are truly the size of an ox heart, and ne plant put out over a dozen large, richly flavored fruits. They were excellent on a tomato sandwich. The other new variety was Tangerine, which put out round orange globes that were also yummy in salads with basil and olive oil. Add the usual varieties-- Sungold and Peacevine, Heinz  and Stupice, as well as the winter Longkeepers—and I had a perfect mix of color and size in the back yard.

                This year, I experimented with tomato sauce. For years, I have roasted most of my winter stores, slicing them in half and roasting in a hot oven until wilted. This year, I took out the crock pot for a little variety. I chopped the tomatoes into quarters, sloshed half a cup of water into the base, and turned it on to slowly cook down. Overnight, with no effort, I have a thick and chunky sauce. It piles up in the fridge until I have three or four quarts, then I can in into pint jars for winter soups and lasagna. I have roasted, sauced, and salsa-d enough tomatoes this year that I am seriously thinking on planting half as many, only for eating, next summer.

Adaptation, not Mitigation

                Climate Change.

                Twenty years ago, when we first moved into our little house, I scraped and painted the entire exterior one summer. In doing so, I learned all about the micro-climates in the yard. The south facing wall was hot—to be avoided during peak sun hours—but could be used to grow heat loving crops. I moved my tomato barrels to that space and never looked back. They throve.  Every few years, I changed out the soil so that it was not diseased. I always had to water the plants more than when they were in the back yard, which is sometimes shaded, but they bounced back in the evening.

                This year, I decided to move crops around. I put the tomatoes in two raised beds in the back yard, where they are huge, lush, and covered with fruits. I planted my corn and scarlet runner beans in the front beds and the winter squashes in the barrels, dreaming of reading on the couch to the sound of rustling corn leaves.  It has been a failure. It looks like a scene from The Grapes of Wrath, even with daily watering.  

                What is different? Where we once had a few days a summer where the temperatures rose to the nineties in that space of the yard, we now have several days in a row where the temperature is over 100 degrees against the wall. The vines do not shade the wall; they cannot grow in the heat. The corn, which is a drier, grassy plant, is fried.  These very hot days are no longer an aberration that will shift quickly; they are normal.

                We talk about mitigation of climate change regularly, things we can do to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The usual—drive and fly less, eat less meat, insulate your attic, etc. We rarely talk about adaptation to the changes that have already occurred. I need to adapt to the changing climate in my yard. My mitigation—growing vines to cool the wall—has failed. I must adapt if I wish to use that space for growing crops. My plan for next year is garlic, some winter wheat, and early lettuces and mustards.  It will be mulched, but not planted, in late July and August. What else will we need to do to mitigate the impacts of increasingly hot, dry summers here in Oregon?

Hose Repair

                It is hose season. All of the planting, seeding, mulching, and weeding is done and I spend my days hauling hoses around, watering planters and hitching them up to the garden irrigation systems.  The hoses are growing old; I put them in twenty years ago now, so they have issues. On clear mornings, I will start the water running through the veggie garden and head inside for a second cup of tea. Ten minutes later, I come out to a geyser, water shooting seven feet in the air from the center of a bed. Every other creature in the yard is thrilled. The bees fly over to drink the water from the leaves; the rabbit and chickens are excited by the event; the cat hides from the spray.  I peer into the bed, soaking my glasses so that I cannot see the problem. This is always a wet repair.

Hose Repair steps:

1.       Find the leak. Get very wet in the process.

2.       Find the trimmers, which cut a soaker hose quite well.

3.       If possible, recruit an assistant to trun ff the water once the leak is located.

4.       Cut the hose while the water is running. I’ve tried to shut the water off, but I can never find the leak, even if I marked it with a twig. Water flows through the garden bed, but no longer in the air.

5.       Shut off the water.

6.       Find the repair bucket. This happens often enough that I keep repair supplies on hand, along with spare irrigation parts.

7.       Find two hose clamps and the plastic tube.

8.        Slide the hose clamps on the hose first.

9.       Splice the hose with a plastic tube. Move the clamps right up on the tube.

10.   Crank down on the hose clamps as tightly as possible.

11.   Turn on the water for testing.

12.   Retighten the clamps.

13.   Rearrange the mulch over the hose.

14.   Go inside, put the kettle on, and dry your face and hair. Maybe change shirts.

Every summer, I swear I will replace the sweat hoses for the next season and, every spring, I lay them down as I plant out the veg starts. Maybe next year...

Spring Homestead Updates

Homestead updates:

Pie for my sweetie

1.       I AM smarter than a chicken! After being locked into the coop all day, until Eggs Were Laid, for five days, they decided that laying eggs on their side of the fence was a pretty good deal.

2.       Both hives of bees have settled in and are packing in the pollen—a god sign of bee larvae.

3.       The planting is done. The squash plants have moved into barrels in the front yard to replace the leaf mulch pile. The leaf mulch is on the revamped garden bed along the sidewalk.

4.       Solar production is up—12 to 13 KWH on a sunny day.

5.       The school assignment calendars in the back of my classroom now show the Last Day of school for the year.

I

A Week Alone in the Garden

                Mark has been gone for a week; he went home for a funeral and to catch up with friends and family. The time has been a revelation; I have realized how I was able to go through grad school while working full time—I lived by myself. There are hours more in the evening when I am on my own. Dinner is simpler; oddly enough, I spend less time on-line; I can focus my attentions on one thing after another.  No one interrupts my train of thought. It has been a very productive week. It does not hurt that it is peak garden planting time and the weather has been lovely as well. I don’t think I would be so peaceful and focused if it had rained all week.

                In the last week, I have:

·     

    Planted out the tomatoes with cages.

·         Laid all of the hoses, in all of the beds.

·         Planted some new herbs, bought at the Thyme Garden last Sunday.

·         Planted the bean bed and the corn patch.

·         Mowed and trimmed the back yard.

·         Pruned the grape vines over the dining room door.

·         Planted the roots—parsnips, carrots, and beets.

·         Transplanted herbs in the greenhouse.

·         Cleaned up the berry alley.

·         Repainted a beehive roof.

·         Hived another swarm of bees.

·         Maybe convinced the chickens that they can lay eggs on the right side of the fence.

·         Cleaned the brambles out of the back alley.

·         Cleaned out the recycling pile.

·         Looked for a new birdbath (failed there, so far).

I’ve also been to two council meetings, taught school, met with several people on city issues, and spent two hours at Government Corner on Saturday,  eaten a lot of asparagus,  and finished two books, as well as spent several hours, at least, staring into space. It’s been a good week.

She Persisted-- Chicken Run, part two

   

                        It’s been a rough couple of weeks on the Chicken Escape front. Rosie and Aussie keep getting out, desperate to lay eggs in the day lilies and under the empty rabbit hutch. The third young chicken, Amelia, has settled into the nest box/pollinator habitat that I created from an old hive.  I stalked them one day and closed gaps, but that did not work.  I clipped a wing on both, which reduced how high they could fly (no more over the eight foot trellis), but they still got out. I moved all of their launching pads. Still out.  I clipped more severely, but they were out the next day.

      

          On Saturday, I settled  into a few hours of yard work, planting out the tomatoes, determined to catch the escapees.  For a while, all was quiet. When I turned my back and went into the greenhouse, Rosie made a break for it. I caught her dashing across the lawn and put her back. Five minutes later, she was out—a gap near the gate. I closed in. Out again. Close the gate gap. She started to pace. Amelia settled into her nesting spot, looking smug.  Meanwhile, Aussie began the assault on another section of fence. I closed gaps. Toss and close. Toss and close.  Finally, I was tired of the game and the frantic, panting pacing around the fence. I put Aussie into the coop and shut her in. There, I told her. Lay your egg. She gave in. Twenty minutes later, she was out and Rosie was in. Another egg. I let everyone out and they all climbed over the trimmings around the compost pile for the rest of the afternoon. This morning, they are not coming out until they have laid their eggs.

               After all this was over, I realized I was wearing my “She Persisted” tee shirt. The irony was clear. Here I was, the dominant creature in the back yard, tossing the interlopers back over the fence every time they broke through. I closed gaps to make it more difficult for them to get out. They persisted. They created spaces, squeezing out where I was convinced they could not. They watched each other, seeing where each had success.  They talked to one another. They yelled at me. The other chickens looked on; two are too old and plump to take action.  Meanwhile, I worked on my side—clearly the better, bigger side—of the fence. In the end, I tossed each one back into her house, saying “Go to work there.”  Today, they are not even allowed out.

                Maybe there is a lesson here.

               

April Madness

Late April is a tricky time in the garden. The slow rains are done, but downpours alternate with bright sunny moments, forcing all of us into carpe diem mode. This weekend was no exception. On Friday afternoon, I was clearly behindhand because of wet soil, meetings, and bad timing. We spent Saturday catching up on house cleaning and watching the rains rush through, followed by enough sun to dry the roads before the next downpour began. I made a list of everything that needed to be done and assigned it to days in the coming week, working around budget commission meetings. Sunday afternoon’s task was emptying the compost barrels.

After lunch, I pulled on boots and garden pants and headed out back. I stopped into the greenhouse to admire the open shelf where 72 tomato starts had been until Friday afternoon, when they ALL went away (a new record) and realized that a few starts needed water.  I meandered back to the house with the watering can and tended to the plants before beginning the listed project. After gathering the big wheelbarrow and deep shovel, I headed for the chicken run. There were to garbage barrels full of sifted compost from last fall that needed to be empty before Mark could tidy and begin sifting the winter’s work.  Twenty minutes, tops, I thought. And it did go quickly, which was good, because it was starting to rain again. The herb bed in the back took some of the compost, then I added some to the asparagus, and the bed on the south side of the house.

That’s when things began to turn from “small project” to “all afternoon.” Maybe, I thought, I should toss over that bed while I am here and pull out some of the weeds that are growing there. That will only take a few minutes. I got out the pitchfork and tossed the bed.  After that,  I headed back. The rain was still holding off…maybe I should plant out those cabbages under the hoop? That would be quick, too. When I went in to get the cabbages, I noticed that the collards and chard, planted at the same time, really wanted to be freed from their containers as well.  Should I bump them up? Seems like a waste of effort if they could just be planted. But the bed needed to be tossed and de-lumped. I looked at the sky. The shower was passing.

Ten minutes later, I was deep in bed prep, plastic cover tucked to the side of the bed, hoops off, chickens commenting on the process.  The sun was warm. The plants were really ready to be planted out. Even the signs were painted. I tucked them into their summer home and headed back to the greenhouse with a few starts that would not fit.  They needed to be bumped up. Other starts needed to be tended inside as well.  And the shelf needed to be brushed off. And maybe the doorstep should be swept? Oh, and there was that rake head, painted blue, that Julia dropped off when she picked up tomatoes on Friday afternoon. That needed to be worked into the front garden fence.

  I was outside for two hours completing a “twenty minute” activity and I still hadn’t picked up all of my tools. The sun was out. The air was warm. It was time.

I am smarter than a chicken!

I am smarter than a chicken. I am. I have college degrees. I am smarter than a chicken.

The chicken coop left the garden beds two weeks ago. It was time to begin planting and they needed to  be in Summer Quarters, behind the garden fence, around the compost piles, and under the laurel hedge. It’s a nice spot. They have shade, places to hide, and lots of compost to dig in. However, this batch of chickens has decided that they do not like to lay their eggs in the coop. One likes the empty rabbit hutch, the other the day lilies. The third really does not care. She lays an egg wherever. So, when we moved the coop, I knew we were in from some work.

                The first day, we tied the fencing to the trellis and hung pinecones off of the high bars. Pinecones have worked in the past to convince chickens that there is really a higher fence. The next day, there was an egg in the rabbit hutch. I shut the  hutch door and put up some twigs around the gate, which is the low point in the defenses, and added some pinecones which  look cool and  move, unlike twigs and wire fencing.

                For about two weeks, I have been adding twigs to the fence whenever I find a gap and a chicken egg out (thry often let themselves back in after laying). One day, I was home early enough to watch a determined chicken check out the defenses. I thought we were good until she climbed onto the top of the (empty) beehive and launched herself over, flying through a remarkably narrow gap.   I tossed her back over and rearranged the hive, away from the fence. She still got through when I was not watching.

                I spent an hour  one afternoon arranging some tempting nest boxes in the run. The old langstrom hive that I have never used, tipped on its side, was one candidate. A milkcrate of straw in the coop was another. I considered a pile of straw under the hazelnut, an old favorite, as well, but did not do it. My egg-dropper took me up on the hive box offer and has laid two there so far. The others refuse.

                Saturday morning was warm and sunny, so I headed out to do some serious spying on the ckickens.  Armed with the grass trimmers, I observed. Rosie, the hutch layer, pushed her way through the gaps around the gate. I closed them and tossed her back. She found another gap. Toss. Close. Trim. Major fuss from the other side. Fly. Gap. Toss back. Fuss. Repeat.  I watched and waited for over an hour, hiding behind the artichoke, trimming and raking the grass, until I was sure she could not get over, and left for twenty four hours.

Free Bird!

                I came home this afternoon and went on the egg hunt. One blue egg in the hive box, one brown egg in the day lilies. One chicken under the hutch, watching me balefully. Clearly, there are still some gaps. I need to make sure she cannot push her way out from UNDER the fence this afternoon.  I AM smarter than a chicken.