Spring time in the garden

Live & Learn

The fact that my squash and Morning Glory are blooming in the house is leading me to believe I was a little too anxious to plant back in February. Our last frost date is at the end of May so it will be interesting to see how things work out...

Some new additions for the garden

getting closer..

Chickens, Flowers, & Rocks....oh my!

ok, so my wife and I were watching the Wizard of Oz last night, therefore the goofy title...

I took Saturday off from tractor building so my wife and I could take the kids to their first Red Sox game, it was cold, but we all had a great time, and the Sox won, which was great. Sunday was nice and warm so I got right back to work on the tractor, which is now 99% finished. We also let the chicks run around our patio garden, which is another ongoing project. Hoping to fence it off later this year.

It's a Chicken Tractor not a Turkey Tractor

I spotted this little guy inside the Chicken tractor, when I grabbed my camera he started to take off

Signs of Spring on a gray day

The Great Chicken Escape

Let me preface this by saying this is the first time my family or I have ever had chickens so their is a learning curve. We have been keeping the chickens in the kitchen in what we referred to as their play pen. The play pen is a cordoned off area, lined with newspaper, designed to contain them, but also give them some room to run.  The walls of the play pen were not very tall and I bet you know where this story is going! Needless to say we left the house to run a few errands and came home to chicks gone wild! They had been running all around the kitchen and living room and left a few presents around for us to clean up. Not their fault we should have known better. The chicks are now living in "affordable housing", but at least they have windows. They have been growing quick, I think we will be moving them, and their "housing", down to the basement. I also think it will still be at least a few weeks before they can go outside.

Busy...busy weekend

What a busy weekend...Saturday I moved the rest of my veggies to 3" & 5" peat pots, they were outgrowing the TP tubes and needed to be transplanted. After that I went right back to work on the Chicken Tractor. Saturday I added wheels and a nest box. Sunday, I did the rest of the wood work and applied two coats of cedar stain. The next step will be adding the wire fencing and pulleys to work the door and feeders. Hopefully that will finish it. You can see pictures taken at different stages on this link  Chicken Tractor

Spring is coming!

The rumor is...we are supposed to have a warm weekend, in the 60's and almost 70 degrees on Sunday. Hopefully this is a sign of more to come. It will be perfect weather for working on the Chicken Tractor and hopefully finishing it up. The chicks are starting to turn into little chickens, they are getting their feathers and once the feathers all come in they will be able to go outside. We also had our first bloom, the Hyacinth closest to the house foundation is in bloom, it even beat the Forsythia....

A great book if you want to learn about growing food

Great read, lots of good ideas and different perspectives (like using TP tubes for seed starting)

Come on Spring I know you can do it

Just when I started to think Spring was getting close we got a few inches of snow on 3/31. And, for what was hopefully the last snow storm of the year, it went out with a bang, well kind of. The highway department did the banging as they destroyed my mailbox with their plow. The mailbox made it all year, through one of the worst winters in history, but I guess when they came by in the wee hours of the morning on April fools day it was just too much for Mr. mailbox and he must of decided to commit suicide...I say suicide because the highway department already told me it wasn't their fault and they would not replace it so that is the only logical explanation. He must of jumped in front of the plow when it came by.... But I say this, if sacrificing my mailbox to the winter gods will bring spring I will gladly bear that burden....come on spring!

The beginning of the end for Mr. Mailbox

Morning Glory & Zinnia...now on the window sill

 

The girls playing in their designated play pen area. They are growing fast. Hard to tell from the picture, but they are already starting to get their feathers. I am hoping to start working on the coop soon, just need the weather to cooperate.

Everything is upstairs now. The peppers are tiny, not sure why. Also in this pic, tomato, lupin, cucumber, watermelon, eggplant

The summer squash & zucchini seem to be really happy. If anything, I think I was too early on these little guys