shiukopuppy's Blog
shiukopuppy's posts about: chickens
Oct 17, 2007 | 2:21 AM PST
Tags: peas , snowpeas , poppies , toad flax , calendula , Sweet Peas , raspberry , garden beds , pyrethrum , wormwood , rue , feverfew , rosemary , chickens
The blossoms have dropped on the apple, pear and cherry trees. The pomegranate hasn't fruited yet. I've continued to harvest peas and today we realized that we were harvesting three distinct types of peas. I was happy that all three of the varieties that I planted are cropping - the telephone peas, greenfeast peas and the no-name snowpeas.
Today I planted some more flowers - poppies and sweet peas. I felt inspired as I was planting out seedlings I had raised from seed - calendula, toad flax, poppies, native bluebells and sweet peas. I hope that they survive long enough to flower so that I can take photos.
I've been reading how to manage my chickens naturally, and tore off some wormwood branches to keep in their coop along with fresh leaves of rue, feverfew and some rosemary stems. I also scattered pyrethrum and wormwood leaves in their dust baths. Smells lovely and they ran around and investigated the shredded herbs.
I bought a new raspberry to replace my dead raspberry plant. I still need to prepare the lettuce beds for the seedlings I'm raising, and want to make my garden more ornamental for viewing as well as for eating. I think I'll be moving into an apartment next year, so this will be my last summer with a garden - how sad!!
Sep 25, 2007 | 3:46 AM PST
Tags: chickens , eggs , coop , nest , silkie bantam
This is a view of the inside of the chicken coop. I've just realized
that they did not get named! Will need to chose them a name with our
neighbors who share them. These darling chookies are so tame and
affectionate. They're also very curious - more so than my previous
chickens. Their hairstyles are so puffy that I haven't seen their eyes!
Sep 15, 2007 | 4:54 AM PST
Tags: silkie bantam , chickens
Yesterday, I bought several types of flowers to add to the garden. I also fell in love with a young mandarin tree and another callistemon shrub which we added to our basket because they were so affordable! There were many varieties of vegetable and herb seedlings on sale for spring, but I couldn't allow myself any more of them after planting so many from seed.
Anyway, my neighbors who share our garden woke up excited by spring today and visited the same store. They built another vegetable bed and helped us with our chicken run. They planted seedlings of carrots, cauliflower, spinach and corn.
In the afternoon, we picked up the chickens from our friend's house and when they arrived at our house we opened a bottle of champagne with the neighbors and celebrated our new arrivals and the day's hard work.
Sep 11, 2007 | 2:36 AM PST
Tags: chickens , pesticide , DDT , herbs , vegetables , flowers
The discovery of pesticide residues in my garden came as a bit of a
shock, but I'm now trying to find ways to work with what I have. My
main approach will be to build the beds up with imported soil and plant
in this soil only - no digging, no root vegetables, no direct
planting.. It's inconvenient, but what can you do when pesticides
remain there for decades? I'd say it's probably a very common sob story
and I'm just glad that I do know what's really in my soil - my old
chickens probably did serve me DDT infused eggs, but I just didn't know
about it!
I had a look into my seedling diary for the spring expectations - am waiting for these darlings to grow:
Vegetables:
Thai, Bangalore, Cabai Burong Chilli
Tomatoes: Cherry Pomodoro, Tomato Mix, San Marzano
Eggplants: Machiaw, Melanzana, Asian Bride, Thai
Leek, Soy beans, Watermelon, Pumpkin
Herbs:
Lemongrass, Coriander, Shiso, Thai basil, Basil, Chamomile, Dill, Parsley, Sage, Chives
Flowers:
Foxgloves, Snapdragons, Poppies, Toadflax, Thistles, Sweetpeas,
Wisteria, Natives, Platycodon, Calendula, Cornflower, Strawflower,
Marigolds
I also bought some Rue and Feverfew at the garden center on the weekend. Will plant them with the Wormwood cuttings I took recently - they will go around my chicken run to keep them healthy. For the chickens, i will also grow Pigeon Pea, Tagasaste, and Lablab, plus my soy leaf scraps and linseed too for omega content in the eggs! The coop is still being built.. we are architecturally challenged..
I was sure I planted cucumbers and other things - will need to investigate further!
Above: 2 cute chickens from this Japanese website: http://www.is.hallab.co.jp/~a
ndo/index.html
There are loving photos of these chickens as they grow up!
