Summertime update

As this summer stretches into August already, we have been way behind in keeping up the blog. Our garden is at the point where its nearly bursting with produce, which unfortunately means lots of time devoted to picking, harvesting, chopping, drying, canning, pickling, making jams and jellies. All of which is great for enjoying home grown food well into winter, and not so great for keeping current with the blog.

The flock has been enjoying the cool comfort of their home in the basement, totally unaware of the scorching heat outside this summer. I like to think they appreciate how good they have it in their basement abode, cool in the summer and warm in the winter, but this is as delusional as our hope that they see us as anything more important in their lives than mere treat dispensers....

Despite having it made in the shade, the girls' behavior is back to being bizarre. It all started when 2 of the 3 of them stopped sleeping in their usual places on the roost, where they would perch all right next to each other in a little row each and every night. For no apparent reason, one began roosting on the top of the chicken wire enclosure, while another began sleeping in a little nest she made for herself down in the shavings. This we attributed to her going broody and wanting to sit on her eggs all night long. Things continued to get weirder as the peace that has prevailed in the basement coop all summer has given way to recent bouts of loud squawking and flapping coming from down in the basement. One of these bouts even happened while the home appraiser was here (how embarrassing!) He took it in stride, remembering the last time he was here. "Oh, right.... The chickens" was his response. So by this point of course, the chickens are starting to show the signs of all this ruckus when we go down to feed them in the mornings, sporting fresh new scabs on their combs. Poor Cluck, never known for her sunny personality, seems to be getting the worst of it by the amount of cuts and scabs on her comb. Ironically, Scabby --so named because she used to have a rather large scab on her comb-- is the only one of the flock without any scabs or cuts on her comb. So we have no idea what the hell is going on with the flock. Maybe a re-alignment of the pecking order?

Basement Life Perks

Despite the blazing heat that is blanketing the Northeast, our girls have been sitting pretty in their cool basement. Us humans occupying the upstairs of the house have not been so lucky. So while the girls slept indoors, Jeff and I took our tent and slept in the backyard. The ultimate in irony did not escape us, however we had a wonderful time grilling and acting like it was a regular camping adventure.

A few night before we had decided the heat was just unbearable, and we turned on our AC (which we try to avoid doing for eco reasons.) Come two o'clock that morning, and we were woken by the carbon monoxide detector alarm. While contemplating calling my parents to ask if we could crash there for the night, it occurred to me that I literally have a canary in the coal mine or in my case chickens in the basement. I went down there to see if they were affected by the carbon monoxide. Once I flipped on the light to see, I could tell they were all just fine and only annoyed that I had woken them. However, Cluck had decided to sleep instead of on the roast but on the edge of the wire. When I turned on the light it startled her and she fell forward hitting her face on the side of the bathroom wall. Brilliant! In the end we just opened the windows and the alarm stopped, but I am glad to have my girls to alert me to any problems with carbon monoxide... just yet another random benefit of the clandestine chickens!

What do they call this egg?

The eggs continue to get weirder...

Jeff was downstairs taking care of the chickens when I heard, "Lisa, did you give the girls an old carrot?" I replied no and then heard nothing from him. It was such an out of place question, it made me curious. Eventually he came back up stairs holding a small egg that did, in fact, look exactly like an old moldy carrot stick.

If the small eggs were called fart eggs, I don't even want to know what to call this one.

See, it is a carrot egg!

Rabbit Repellant

There is unwelcome livestock on the urban farm..... rabbits are eating our plants. (Esp. the corn.) Jeff and I have declared war! The chickens have helped us create our weapon... we are using rotten eggs in water and spraying it around the plants to deter the rabbits. Here is the recipe:

Three eggs
1/2 cup veg oil
2 minced garlic cloves
Three table spoons hot sauce
Teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup milk

Put everything in a jar and set it outside in the sun to rot for a week. Strain it once through a colander and a second time through a coffee filter or paper towel. Dilute the mixture with one gallon of water and spray in garden.

The chickens come through the save the day again!

Update: While spraying this toxic mixture gagged me, it has kept the darn rabbits away!

Seriously..It's Called a Fart Egg?

Are you looking at a one giant egg or one micro egg?

The upside of this latest adventure on the urban farm is that Jeff and I are now at the chicken parenthood stage where odd changes don't panic us...

Two days ago we came home to find the tinniest egg you can imagine a chicken laying. We laughed it off and figured it had something to do with Cluck being broody (when chickens decide to sit on their eggs to hatch them despite the fact that they aren't fertilized and will never produce chicks). The next day I came home to find another "micro egg." Cluck was still broody, and I had to fight her to get her off the micro egg. Well okay, it seems that I should look into this. (Thank goodness we aren't human parents yet and don't have to pay to take our kids to the pediatricians.) About a half an hour of  internet research, and I had my answer. As is usually the case with all odd chicken behavior, it was perfectly normal. Turns out, that sometimes chickens just lay the egg too soon. They tiny eggs are called fart eggs since some people believe that they happen when the chicken farts and the egg just falls out! So I guess Cluck should lay off all the beans in her diet! 

Clandestine Chickens and Neighbors

Yesterday, while toiling away in the garden, our neighbor came over to check out what were planting and growing. Our corner of suburbia is pretty densely built up, so this is normal. In fact, looking from our back yard, we can see down across three adjacent backyard gardens. We have great fun trying to check out what the neighbors are planting and doing in their gardens without seeming nosy. Anyways, so our neighbor comes over, and after talking about our successes and failures growing different things in our gardens, he offers to cut us some of his amazing rhubarb stalks. We gladly took him up on his offer and gave him a dozen of our eggs (which we have an abundance of, now that the girls are in full production) in return. Our neighbor is an older, retired guy, who used to have chickens when he was a boy, and is convinced in his opinion that Rhode Island reds are the best, and that we should get some. Unfortunately we are presently limited to what we can keep in our basement, but we still appreciate the recommendation. He also mentioned that he had his son over recently, who was very surprised to see our micro-flock through the basement window. Luckily we have a neighbor who is pro-basement chickens, so its not a big deal.

Thinking about it, in this day and age, it really is a great and wonderful thing to know and talk to your neighbors, and to be able to exchange good, homegrown food, like fresh rhubarb and eggs. It would be so great if this happened all the time. Our neighborhoods and communities would be much friendlier, healthier, safer, and well-connected places to live if there were more of this type of activity.

Planting Time!

I am excited and exhausted to say that Jeff and I got our garden planted this past Memorial Day weekend! I woke him up out of a sound sleep Saturday morning around eight by shaking him and announcing that today was finally planting day!!! He was just thrilled, but after two cups of coffee and a reminder of how amazing the produce will be, he got going. We set up all the seedlings from our inside garden on our patio table. This year we started most of our plants by seeds which we kept in a small table top greenhouse in front of a south facing window in our living room. We also had six trays of seedlings which I took in and out everything day before and after work. (Thanks goodness we were finally planting since I was sick of having to do that, and I am sure my neighbors were done with seeing me in my PJs flailing around with seed trays every morning!) We believe in using a slow release fertilizer once for the season so we spread that over the entire garden surface and began digging in all the plants.

Turning the entire garden surface (thank goodness we registered for a pitch fork for our wedding), individually digging all the holes for the plants, and watering for our new 20 by 30 ft garden ended up taking the two of us most of the weekend. However, now that everything is in, the rest of the garden maintenance is not as time consuming until harvest!

I had fears that the lasagna garden (see post explaining lasagna gardening here) wouldn't work somehow, once we started to plant... did I get enough dirt? would the cardboard rip up as we planted? etc. However, it worked out just fine. Towards the outer edges the layer of dirt was a bit thin, but we planted marigolds there (to keep away pesky animals) so we weren't too concerned with making sure those were perfectly transplanted.

This year in our zone 5b garden we have planted:
Two varieties of heirloom corn
Four varieties (two heirlooms) of tomatoes
Tomatillos
Eggplant
Spinach
Cucumbers
Red Onions
Three varieties of peppers
Purple bell peppers
Red bell peppers
Asparagus
Black beans
Green beans
Lemon Balm
Dill
Rosemary
Mint
Stevia
Tarragon
Quinioa
Purple hull-less barley (for chicken feed)
Purple Adirondack potatoes

Command Central- Garden Plan on graph paper and seedlings galore!

Our new "lasagna" garden

The black raspberries!

The garlic we planted last fall

The grape vines