Chickens

For quite awhile boyfriend has been teasing me that he was going to build me a chicken coop in the backyard.

Over the long 4^th of July weekend we visited his friends in S. GA and I got to see first hand what he had in mind.

Of course they have much more land then we do considering we live in the middle of a city.  But keeping chickens in urban cities is becoming popular.  A friend of mine at work has a few chickens, and a lady I know one neighborhood over has some too. 

One of my first city girl questions was how do you get the eggs out?  Turns out its easy.  They built a box on the back of the coop with “nests.”

They swing the door open and there are the eggs.

Another of their friends down the road has chickens too but they were producing so many eggs that they gave some of the hens away. This group of chickens is laying about a dozen eggs a day.  They have a large close family they share the eggs with.

Part of taking care of the chickens is to let them out after work/school in the afternoon.  And even though they have a large piece of property to roam they stay around the coop. 

I asked how they get them back in but it turns out that at dusk the chickens make their way back into the coop on their own.

So do I want a small chicken house in my backyard?  I’d love the eggs but I think I will stick with the grocery store for now.  

Camouflage

After yesterday’s rainstorm I noticed a ripening cherry tomato hidden in the tomato plant.  The tomato almost looked like it was camouflaged by the plant.

I’d like to give it another day to ripen before I pick it.  Hopefully the squirrels won't see it.

This weekend I also noticed that the yellow squash plant along side the house had a few small squash growing. 

The squash are a very pale yellow.  The seem to almost blend in with the stems.  

I wonder if my garden is learning self defense techniques. 

Squirrel Strikes Again

This weekend boyfriend, a friend of his and I were hanging out when out the window I saw a squirrel snatch a tomato off my plant and run across the yard with it.  He ran toward the house and finally I had witnesses to the squirrel garden theft and snack!  I've had a lot of people tell me it must be birds or snakes eating all the vegetables - squirrels don't eat those.  But there he stood in my yard eating my tomato. Finally confirmation from independent eyes!

In the meantime my tomato plant keeps producing tomatoes.

I'm hopeful that eventually I will get to eat another one.  The first one was so good!

Peppers

I was pretty excited to see these baby peppers on my pepper plants.

And the jalapeno plant is producing tons of peppers.

Unfortunately for me the squirrels found those baby bell peppers. They are all gone and so are all of my almost ripe tomatoes.  I’m feeding my nemesis well this summer.

The squirrels haven't touched the jalapenos so I'm thinking about trying a hot pepper spray on the next round of baby bell peppers and tomatoes.  If anyone has any suggestions other then caging in my garden I’m open to hearing about them!

Collards in June

My collard greens are still growing well even in the 90 degree weather we have been having. However some sort of bug has discovered them and is leaving lots of holes.

I'm not really sure what kind of bug it is.  I've searched the leaves but haven't been able to find it/them yet.

Ups and Downs

About three weeks ago I made dinner from the veggies in my garden.  Almost immediately after that problems started.  And although my schedule made it hard to report on my garden I was able to take some photos.

The red pepper looked ripe and ready to pick. 

The squirrels must have known that too because when I came home from work it was gone.  My grape tomatoes started to disappear off the plant too. Then my struggling cucumber plant managed to produce a cucumber.

Sadly I found it in they yard – picked before it was ready. 

Again I blame the squirrels.  But it wasn’t all the squirrels fault. The squash plants, which were struggling with mildew problems, also died.  The green bean plants died too after I wasn't able to water them a few to many days in a row.

There are a few bright spots.  The regular tomato plant is hanging in there. 

The cherry tomato has not only taken over the garden but it has baby tomatoes.

And the jalapeños are still doing well.  I'm thinking salsa when the tomatoes are ripe.

The pepper plants are still hanging in there.

Although that pepper went missing when we went out of town for a long weekend.

Today I cleaned up my garden boxes.  I pulled out the dying cucumber, zucchini and green bean plants.   I trimmed the dead leaves off the remaining plants, fertilized and water them. 

I’m not giving up.  I’m looking forward to the tomatoes and am thinking about planting more green beans in all the empty space.  I’m even considering cucumbers one more time.  I do think I am done with summer squash for the season.  

First Spring 2011 Harvest Dinner

It’s a small harvest but it was enough to make a great dinner out of. The yellow squash was really good and very sweet.  I had to stop myself from snacking on the slices so there would be enough to make dinner out of.  I really hope that I can figure out how to grow more.

The green beans were surprisingly a little more tough and took more cooking then I expected so I steamed them before adding a little butter, oregano and Italian parsley from the garden along with the yellow squash.  I wish I had more veggies for tomorrow night!

The squash plants themselves are still struggling and the new fruit keep developing blossom rot.  I’m leaning heavily toward pulling out the worst of the plants and planting more seeds.  

It took about 45-50 days for the fruit to start growing which would be July. Since I have the seeds I think it’s worth a try.

Trellising Tomatoes

This weekend I finally finished the trellis for my tomato plants. 

It was very simple and only took two supplies, garden string and roll of garden twist ties. 

Boyfriend had already hung the cucumber trellis so it only took a few minutes for me to make it longer and create a grid for the tomatoes.  After creating the grid I used the twist ties to attach the grape tomato plant to the string grid. 

The Better Bush, regular sized tomato plant, is full of new fruit. I didn’t want to disturb it too much so I didn’t add the vertical string through it.

After finishing my task I was rewarded with a great summer lunch - the tomato I picked last weekend to ripen inside the house.  I picked some of my basil, sliced fresh mozzarella and enjoyed my first tomato of the season.

I only wish the squirrels didn’t beat me to the second tomato.  Or my green pepper.

I’m looking forward to the grape tomatoes ripening this week.

Squash continued

The squash seedlings that I transplanted from the vegetable box to the old plant bed at the end of March have their first baby squash.

Interestingly, neither the zucchini plants in the box or in the old plant bed have produce any zucchini. They both had blossoms so I'm not sure if there was something wrong with the seeds, a pollination issue or a beginner gardner issue.  The yellow squash plants in the box are hanging in there, however, they are still mildly infected with mildew and aphids so I keep cutting the worst looking leaves off the plants and keep spraying regularly for both issues.

The tomato plant has a bunch of new tomatoes and its first tomato has started to ripen.

I spent a good amount of time after work tonight cutting all of the dead and dying leaves off of all of the vegetable plants.  I'd been avoiding doing that the last two weekends.  I've also been avoiding finishing the supports for the tomatoes and peppers but I'm determined to get those done in the next few days.