My Broody Hens!

I guess it is a female spring thing. Four of the hens were trying to squeeze into one box. One of the hens has been broody for a few days. I had to research what to do. What I read made me decide I needed a cage to separate the hens. I was all geared up to build two cages and use one on the dog kennels that is open bottomed. Then I read to try blocking the nest if that does not work use the cage. I have not handled our chickens and was a little fearful as I had read that they will be more aggressive if broody.

I went to get one of the hens and the rooster decided to come at me. I looked at him and said, "NO" in my mother voice. He scampered. Our roosters are not aggressive but I was nervous. The hens which are use to being held did not resist at all. They would just take turns trying to get back in the box. So we will see how that goes.

I decided to plant herbs that fight bugs in my beds yesterday. I was trying to wait until the almanac says to plant but could not. It is suppose to rain on the 24th according to the almanac and the weather channel. On a side not the almanac has been closer than the weather channel when predicting weather. If there is a break in the weather I will be planting more beans and tomatoes. In the back bed where I planted marigolds next to the tomatoes something ate the marigolds. Luckily whatever it is does not eat tomato plants. I do believe it is a critter as I have found the red wild strawberries in the beds. The marigolds in the front are growing better than the tomatoes. They even have buds.

I planted basil near the tomatoes I read they give flavor to the tomatoes. I planted regular basil in one bed, lime basil in another and lemon basil in another. I planted oregano near the cucumbers where I planted 8 only three came up. I will plant more cucumbers. I planted thyme and dill in the back beds for the cabbage and broccoli. I have been adding coffee grinds as well as I read bugs do not like caffeine. Luckily I do like my caffeine and have a pot of grinds every morning. I guess it is a female spring thing. Four of the hens were trying to squeeze into one box. One of the hens has been broody for a few days. I had to research what to do. What I read made me decide I needed a cage to separate the hens. I was all geared up to build two cages and use one on the dog kennels that is open bottomed. Then I read to try blocking the nest if that does not work use the cage. I have not handled our chickens and was a little fearful as I had read that they will be more aggressive if broody.

I went to get one of the hens and the rooster decided to come at me. I looked at him and said, "NO" in my mother voice. He scampered. Our roosters are not aggressive but I was nervous. The hens which are use to being held did not resist at all. They would just take turns trying to get back in the box. So we will see how that goes.

I decided to plant herbs that fight bugs in my beds yesterday. I was trying to wait until the almanac says to plant but could not. It is suppose to rain on the 24th according to the almanac and the weather channel. On a side not the almanac has been closer than the weather channel when predicting weather. If there is a break in the weather I will be planting more beans and tomatoes. In the back bed where I planted marigolds next to the tomatoes something ate the marigolds. Luckily whatever it is does not eat tomato plants. I do believe it is a critter as I have found the red wild strawberries in the beds. The marigolds in the front are growing better than the tomatoes. They even have buds.

I planted basil near the tomatoes I read they give flavor to the tomatoes. I planted regular basil in one bed, lime basil in another and lemon basil in another. I planted oregano near the cucumbers where I planted 8 only three came up. I will plant more cucumbers. I planted thyme and dill in the back beds for the cabbage and broccoli. I have been adding coffee grinds as well as I read bugs do not like caffeine. Luckily I do like my caffeine and have a pot of grinds every morning.

We spent the day doing school. Then my son decided to juice the case of oranges we have. I still need to clean the kitchen.


It is fun to find seashells in the garden!

The quiet before the storm.

It is a quiet morning here. The weekend was crazy. A fabulous women's retreat on faith. My children's homeschool celebration with a play.

While at the women's retreat there was a downpour with reports of hail in our area. All I could think about was the seeds I had planted that morning in sandy soil and wondering if they had been washed to the top. The first thing I did when I got home was check the garden. Only one seed was showing. I hope the others were still underground. I guess this will work further on my character. I always want the answers now! I know God is has been trying to train me for years to wait on Him. Waiting to see if we get results from our planting is hard.

The good news my wax beans and spinach have sprouted they were planted April 30th. At least I think they are wax beans I have never seen them at this stage. The root boxes that hubby planted are a sea of green sprouts but I have no idea what is what. Maybe we figure it out this weekend when he will be home during the day. The transplanted tomatoes, eggplants, strawberries, and bell pepper seem to be doing well. We will see which soil combo they like. One strawberry plant has three berries forming.

Something is eating my broccoli and it is not growing as well as expected. The lettuce does not seem to like all the rain we are getting. There is rain and storms in the forecast for most of the week. Oh my marigolds are sprouting too!

I told my hubby and kids what I want for Mother's Day is more mulch. My youngest son was shocked "you want dirt for Mother's Day". He is determined to get something else.

It is funny the dirt we got from the lake is sprouting "sea" shells. We have found several and with the rain more are coming to the surface.

I have been checking the garden everyday. I love being able to see the progress.

The bees are out this morning. I think another hive is building to swarm I have some ideas on what to do to avoid-After looking on web and looking at our bee book. However it involves messing the with hive itself so now I have to wait that word again for hubby to be able to do the physical work. He is working a part time evening job for me to be able to be home more.

Last night I gathered eight eggs from the coop. We got 6 on Sunday. They really liked the wild strawberry leaves I put in there last night. One the roosters keep coming over to me which caused the other rooster to come over and chase him into the enclosure. They did this several times. They are such fun to watch.

This post will not include pictures because my daughter has the camera somewhere. I am hesitate to post pictures of the kids on the blog however they have them on my space. I just have not had time to take the pics. It is nice that most of the planting is in ground and just has to grow now.

Today is baseball if not rained out. I guess it is time to get busy on the housework.

What I learned today

As I said this is to be a record of what works what doesn't. It may get long and boring. You have been warned!

It was funny last night I went out and there were kids from the neighborhood in the coop with the chickens with my son. It was funny to watch! They have been laying today and were very noisy. I took pictures of the eggs they look larger than they are.

I spent the morning with my coffee and a trowel planting. The first thing I learned is read the packs of seeds. My gardening book said to soak the seeds 2-4 hours the packet said overnight. I have decided to wait and soak overnight. Considering my hour of planting turned into 5 it is just as well. The almanac said the 30th is the most fruitful day to plant. I did not sow seeds just transplants I wonder what the difference is. Luckily tomorrow is okay to plant but then there are 5 barren days. Most of my time was running the string to mark the square feet. My youngest son was helping I was going to get to write things done for a "science journal". I also thought the measuring was a good exercise as well. We also measured the ph of the soil with a meter I bought. Not sure if working as all my soils register the same thing. He quit after getting the strings done saying it was hurting his back. He had no problems later on the slip and slide. I let him measure the squares for some reason they are not square or even. Luckily, I do not get to hung up on these things.

The other time consuming thing is trying to decide what to get in first since we are having to wait to build more beds as time allows. We are getting free dirt that has been drudged from a lake bottom and free mulch from another source. It just takes time going and loading it up. So I spent the time planting the larger plants that were purchased. Which reminds me I have a bag of Lima beans somewhere to plant. I did dig up a broccoli plant to put in pepper plant. We have different beds with different dirt mixtures from our free sources so I want to see what does well where. I will make notes of what worked best later.

My tomatoes- I found a site that had this procedure for planting tomatoes. It involved fish heads, aspirin, bone meal, and more. The only thing I had on hand was aspirin. I will add lime with water like the square foot gardening book recommends hopefully that will prevent fruit rot on the tomatoes. I planted tomatoes in the back beds, the front bed, the ground where my husband had dug holes and filled with the dirt we got, and in containers. I planted bush and vines. I have 18 plants planted so far. Hubby started some from seed I did not transplant. I do not know if they are vine or bush.

Two of beds are mystery beds. Hubby was tired and trying to hurry to plant the root vegetables by the moon chart and planted all the root veggies. However they are not marked. One bed is sprouting like crazy. He and I did not communicate on the square foot method the seeds were broadcast. Confession we have fought more over gardening than money. We both have our own ideas over where and how to plant.

I have about 16 strawberry plants. Four were purchased as larger plants in peat containers this year one plant has produced 3 berries. 3 plants can back from some I ordered online 25 plants in bag for 20.00 it was not worth it. The plants did not grow at all. I purchased a bag at Kmart with 10 plants for 3.99 they are producing leaves. This my way of learning how to grow strawberries. As usual I have big plans to have starter plants from these as well. Waiting is the hard part. I also moved all the plants down to full sun out of the driveway where they were in the way.

I also found out that the square foot gardener says to put one eggplant per one square foot. The package says to give the plant 3 feet. Confusion city--so I put some in the foot, one in a bed that only has 4 plants and one in the ground. The bell pepper plants Hubby bought 9. I could not bring myself to not plant them. Again I did in different beds to see what works and some in containers.

I am enjoying taking picture of what is going on around here. I was very happy with what all I saw this morning. The hives were all busy or so it seemed.

Hubby thinks one the hives swarmed it is very disheartening. It was our strongest hive last year. He has someone who has offered to mentor him in beekeeping we can't wait. There is a saying I have been reading on bee sites. Its says, "Ask ten beekeepers a question and you will get ten different answers." Like gardening it is a learning process that takes time and trial and error. I have a hard time with this. I like to how something should be done and then do it and have it work the first time.