Considering Chickens

Wifey and I have been flirting with the idea of getting chickens for a few years.  Over the last month our interest has grown as we've had some issues with finding high quality organic eggs nearby.  Something about our trip last weekend sparked us to start actively working toward that goal.

On our way back Wifey was doing some research as I drove.  For type-A planner types like us, there's a lot to consider.  Breed, coop vs chicken tractor, where to put a coop if we use one, and how to take care of them when we're out of town are just a few things to evaluate.  After researching costs to buy coops (and evaluating quality of construction and materials), he put up a post on our development's Facebook page inquiring whether anyone knew of someone looking to unload a coop.

One of our friendly neighbors said he had an old coop that his flock had outgrown and he was willing to give it to us if we're interested.  We checked it out today.

In some ways, it's in good shape, but some parts need some work.  Apparently, he used it for a few years with no predators having had success getting to the flock.  Also, unlike a lot of the ones we found for sale online, it's made with actual lumber.

On our way back to the car, we were admiring his flock and newer coop.  Our neighbor pointed out a few of the niceties of the new coop and finally offered up the eggs that had been laid that afternoon.  You certainly don't get much fresher than that.

Signs of Spring

We got home Monday from a long weekend away and wanted to see if there were any new signs of spring.  Although the property is still quite sleepy, there are some signs of awakening.

Our chives, pear tree, and peach tree all have new growth.

Our goji berry transplant from last year is budding out!  I was concerned that it wouldn't have made it through the winter.  I'm glad I was wrong.

We also have some signs of new budding on the raspberries and blueberries, but I couldn't get clear pictures of them.

Weeding the strawberries

Wifey had some time to herself while The Bear took his nap yesterday.  Because it was really warm and she wanted some sun, she weeded the strawberry bed at the bottom of the side garden.  I'm incredibly thankful because I had been dreading that job.  It looks fantastic now.

Where previously it was a vast canvas of green, we can now see the strawberry plants!

We have Robbins Ave Tomato sprouts!

A week ago I did a post about trying to save the Robbins Avenue Tomato.


I'm happy to report that we've discovered we are up to a total of four sprouts!

After we finished dancing around rejoicing at the slowly-growing count, I was corrected by Wifey.  The seeds we're trying to resurrect were ones she had saved from the year after we gave up on our old garden plot.  That year we tried to do something, anything while adjusting to new-parenthood on a smaller scale using square-foot gardening methods in our townhouse backyard.  That means the seeds were from 2011, not 2012 or 2013 as I'd guessed in the prior blog post.  That any of them have germinated truly is miraculous.


I'd feel a whole lot more comfortable with more to be completely honest.  Ordinarily I plant 36 seeds each year when the seed is just from the previous year expecting to lose some from seed pods not releasing from the seed leaves, damage during transplant, damage in the garden, or in the case of last year death from bad water.

This is a fantastic step in the right direction, but we're hardly "out of the woods."

Sunday/Monday projects

After trimming the first juniper bush, The Boy and The Girl spent some time beginning to dig it out Sunday and Monday. 

I scraped flaking paint and dried-out window glazing for the greenhouse.  I got another 4 or 5 windows finished.  Six to go.  Once the window scraping was done, I helped work on the juniper removal.  There's still a good bit to go before we can do any real prying on it.

Working on the greenhouse

As I mentioned a little while ago, Wifey and I are going to build a greenhouse to go next to our driveway.  That job benefits us by getting rid of the overgrown juniper (which we don't care for) and gets us the greenhouse.

Today, The Boy and I cut back the first juniper we'll be removing.  Once that was done we recruited The Girl to help us haul everything to the gorge in the woods behind the house to toss everything in there where it'll break down.  I've seen what our local landfill does with yard waste and we're doing better by the earth the way we do it.

I also scraped flaking paint and dried out caulk from two more of the wood windows.  No pictures of that.

Another bluebird house added

We got another bluebird house recently.  I hung it nearby to the other one with the big kids this morning before the weather got nasty.  I had The Boy run in the screws with the cordless drill.  The Girl helped carry stuff to and back from the tree.  I find they are more interested in nature if I teach them about it and include them in the activities (as they're capable).

Can we save the Robbins Ave tomato?

My wife's paternal grandfather was a very interesting man.  He had a number of interests, but one that he was known for in the family was his love of vegetable gardening.

Until he died a few years ago, he maintained a large garden in his back yard which he spent a considerable amount of time and energy.  Well-landscaped with hedges and trees towering above, the path to the garden opened up on a large clearing that contained a large asparagus patch, some pole beans, beets for canning, peppers, a couple of raised beds for greens, and his pride and joy -- the Robbins Ave tomatoes.  Legend has it that until the early 90's, he used to do gardening on a large plot on a friend's farm.

As I've been told, Wifey's grandfather always wanted the biggest and best tomatoes.  No one knows what varieties he used originally, but I've been told that he started off with a few varieties of beefsteak-style tomatoes, cross-pollinated the varieties by hand and saved the seeds from only the largest and best-looking tomatoes.  The next year, he would start new plants from those seeds.  For 20 years (give or take), he followed this process until the time came that he just couldn't work in the garden any longer.

His enthusiasm begat success in the garden.  For years, family gatherings had pickled beets, garlic, or green beans, fresh tomatoes, asparagus, or the occasional bell pepper used in a dish.  For all he did, his Robbins Ave tomatoes are the main topic among the family (particularly our generation) when the garden is mentioned.

Those tomatoes were revered so much that a year before his death, a professional photographer was commissioned to take a picture of him holding two of his Robbins Ave tomatoes.  Wifey has such fond memories of her grandfather and the magic held in his garden that we have a framed copy of that picture in our kitchen.

 

When we realized that some of the Robbins Ave tomato seeds still exist, it was instinct to us to plant them to try to keep that strain alive.

The odds are slim that they will germinate -- best guess, they're 5 or 6 years old.  I did some research and found that according to the Virginia Cooperative Extension, the average viability of tomato seed is only 4 years.  Also, we only have 19 seeds and they weren't stored in seed bank-like conditions.

Regardless, I'm going to give it a shot.

Foraging for worms

We had a considerable amount of rain this morning.  Based on the amount of water in our wheelbarrow, it looks like we received over 3" of rain overnight into mid-morning.  In a break in the rain, Wifey and I went out to check on the house perimeter (to see if here was anything alarming) and noticed the worms were out on the street escaping the water.  Keen to teach a life lesson and get the big kids outside, we offered to pay them to collect worms for the garden.

Worms are great for composting.  Worm "casings" (a nicer term than "poo") are fantastic for compost.  I've read some articles that say that one of the best ways to compost food scraps is to feed it to rabbits then take the rabbit droppings and feed it to the worms to turbocharge the composting process.

Anyway, the big kids enjoyed hunting for the worms almost as much as I enjoyed watching them do it.

They did quite a great job collecting the worms.  You can't really tell in the picture below, but that mass of worms was roughly 1/2" deep.  They are now broadcast into the side garden to spread their wormy goodness to the soil.

Some small progress on the greenhouse

It's been a few weeks since we decided we're building a greenhouse then promptly bought some windows and a door for it. 

Yesterday afternoon, we finally got the time, energy, and freedom to do some scraping on them.  I don't know that it's really worth a picture, but we scraped on three of the fourteen windows.  Flaking paint and dried out caulk have now been removed from each of those three.  Baby steps...

Hoop House is in place

The weather this week has been pretty miserable.  As such, it's taken me a bit of time to get the hoop house in place.  I finally accomplished it this morning, though.

It's protecting some spinach that somehow managed to make it through the winter.  It's small, though, so I figured it would be a good target for rescue.

More seeds are started

No point in taking any pictures, but within the last few days I've started the seeds for the following plants:

• Napoleon Sweet Bell Peppers
• Tomate Verde Tomatillos
• Old Virginia Tomatoes (slicing)
• San Marzano Tomatoes (roma)
• Black Vernissage Tomatoes (cherry)

How to build a (hula)hoop house for the garden

As I mentioned in a previous post, I want to build a hoop house for the garden using hula hoops for the rounded supports.  I finally started work on it last night.

First, I cut the hula hoop in half with a hacksaw.  I identified where the join was located (where the single tube was joined to make a circle) and dropped a line from that location and made a mark on the hula hoop where the line intersected the circle.  I did this to be sure I'd segment the hoop into two equal halves.  Then I cut the hoop at the join mark and the line intersection mark with a hacksaw to make two equal arcs.

Once that was done, I measure the distance between the two ends of each arc and found that mine was approximately 36" from end to end.  To make a square box (which is what I'm doing), I'm going to have the hoop arcs span from one corner to the opposing corner.  The hoop arc represents the hypotenuse (the long diagonal piece for the non-engineers) of a right triangle (meaning there's a 90 degree angle opposite the hypotenuse and separating two equal length sides).  To calculate the distance the sides need to be requires the use of some trigonometry.

In a right triangle, sides X and Y in the picture the same are the same length.  So once you calculate the length of X, you automatically know what Y is.  We know that the hypotenuse is 36" as represented by the measurement of the hula hoop arc from above.  To calculate X we use the formula below.

sin (angle) = Opposite side / Hypotenuse

Plugging in what we know, we have the following:

sin (45 degrees) = X / 36"

36" x sin (45 degrees) = X

36" x .707 = X

25.45" = X

To track down the sin of 45 degrees, you can either use a scientific handheld calculator, the scientific function of the calculator built into your computer operating system, or if you happen to know the square root of two, divide that by two.  I used my computer calculator because I've long since forgotten my sin angle stuff from schooling.

So now we know the length of the sides.  As such, I cut two sides of my lumber to 25.5" long (because it's close enough).  For the other two sides, I made them 3" longer.  The reason for that is that you need the inside of your box to have the dimensions as we calculated.  2x4s, 2x6s, 2x8's (and so on) are the dimensions of the lumber before they have been planed, the actual thickness is 1.5".  We are having two sides to you need the wood to be 3" longer.  Now we have all four sides cut.

Now, put the long sides oppose to one another and the short sides opposite to one another to make a square.  Then drill pilot holes (so your wood doesn't split) a little smaller in diameter than your wood screw.  Once that's done, install your wood screws.  I recommend either 2.5" or 3" long wood screws to give plenty of thread engagement with the wood you're screwing into.  You will now have a square frame.

Now that that is done, you can install some conduit brackets to clamp the hoop pieces in place.  The size brackets depends on the diameter of your hoop arcs.  Mine is 3/4" across, but since it's a half-circle piece, the conduit brackets need to be for 1/2" conduit.  I test fit everything and it looks like it'll work nicely.

Once you install the conduit brackets, you're all set to install it in the garden.

Over top you cover it with either a greenhouse fabric or you can use plastic (ideally, UV light resistant to keep it from breaking down).  Just bear in mind that the thicker the plastic, the less light is let in to help the plants grow.  The benefit to thicker plastic is that it helps retain more heat if you're concerned about really cold winters.

I just covered mine with the greenhouse fabric since I think the bulk of the really nasty weather is over for Maryland.