Tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet peas, Oh My!

So here are the updated photos of the garden taken yesterday. All the rain we've gotten this week has helped keep everything growing well and also green the lawn back up. The cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower have really taken off now too.

The empty rows in this bed are were the sweet corn has been re-planted. Keeping my fingers crossed that it comes up this time. I haven't tried growing corn in the square foot garden before but figured it didn't hurt to try. It's a 65 day variety so it won't get too big. The Space Master cucumbers are growing well and have started to climb their fence.

The tomatoes are growing well! I pinched off all the suckers today. By next week they should be big enough to start tying up on the fence.

The peppers have flowers on them and the carrots are looking good so far too. Now the Blue Lake bush beans I planted on the other side of this bed were growing really nice, until a furry little visitor came and nibbled on them.

Grrr... really hoping we can get rid of these rabbits!! Funny how they haven't touched the carrots!

Finally, the sweet peas are coming in still.  Have to get the kids out there to pick some more soon!

Next time I'll give and update on the DIY compost tumbler we built!

Wanted to leave you with a shot of some of the lilies blooming in the perennial garden right now.

How does your garden grow?

Our newly built raised beds were put into place back in May. We bought compost from Hsu's greenhouse supply in Brokaw and added peat moss and vermiculite to the mix and filled them up.

Dale cut some lath strips to mark out the square feet then we also added some T-post and fencing. On one bed the fence is along the 4 foot end as a trellis for the cucumbers to grow on.

The other bed has the fence going down the 8 foot center. My tomatoes were planted in two rows along both sides and will be tied up to the fence for support.

These pictures were from June 4th. I'll post new ones tomorrow to show how well everything is growing. The tomatoes aren't planted yet in these either. I had to re-plant the sweet corn this week as the first planting didn't come up. I used seed left over from last year so that didn't help. I also tried some older sunflowers and they didn't come up.

 These are the sweet peas I started under the plastic in the hoop house. They did really well and we are now harvesting lots of peas! The kids love to go out and grab them. On the right you can see the Russian kale is doing well too. We have had a rabbit problem though and the tops of most of the beets and chard have been nibbled off. We've been setting the live traps and doing some target practice on the ones we happen to see.

So far I really like the new taller beds. They are double the height/depth of my original raised bed and are easier to tend to. I've hardly had any weeds either!

DIY Compost Tumbler

If you enjoy gardening then you know all about the benefits of using compost. Black gold it is often called. It adds needed nutrients and helps correct problems with your soil. If you have a heavy clay soil, add compost to loosen it up. Dealing with sandy soil, adding compost will help it hold onto moisture. I've never heard anyone say they used too much compost in their garden.

But where do you get compost? Well you can buy plastic bags of it at garden and home improvement stores. If you are lucky, your community may have a yard waste site that composts all those yard clippings and lets you come pick it up for free. Many people who garden have their own compost piles tucked into areas of their yards. We have been composting here for a couple years. We haven't used anything fancy, just piling all the material up and turning it over occasionally. Grass clippings, bedding from the chicken coop and garden waste were all added along with some kitchen scraps. Every few weeks it would get turned with the tractor. The pile would sit and be added to during the growing season, by the following spring the compost would be ready  to use.

I would sure like the process to go a bit faster than that. In order to "cook" the compost faster I started looking into compost tumblers. They hold a smaller amount of material, keep it aerated, help the compost heat up and make it easy to mix often. You can spend a lot of money on pre-made tumblers. While browsing Pinterest  I saw a tutorial on making a tumbler from a large plastic barrel. It looked pretty straight forward so we started to gather the needed materials. The 55 gallon barrel came from a family member's work for free. We purchased the treated lumber from a home improvement store along with the PVC pipe, flange and hardware. The screws, bolts and closet rod we already had. The total amount of money spent on materials was about $35. Not bad at all!

The tutorial we used is posted HERE. A few measurements had to be adjusted because the size of our barrel was different and Dale made a few other minor changes he felt improved the design. Over all the tutorial was great so check it out.

Here is our process:

Start with the barrel, cutting out the half circle that will become the lid.

Use a file to smooth any sharp edges left by the jigsaw.

Attach the hinges to the lid. 

Now add the window sash latch which will hold the lid shut.

Now it's time to cut some holes for the closet rod.

And the larger hole for the toilet flange.

Attaching the toilet closet flange that will become the air vent and 

adding a piece of screen to keep out critters.

Cutting the holes in the 3" PVC pipe, this will let the air flow inside the

tumbler keeping everything well aerated.

Time to cut lots of air holes around the barrel.

Wood all cut for the base.

Assembling the tumbler, the closet rod going through the barrel and the PVC pipe inside.

Attaching the uprights and the base.

Adding the legs to the base.

Finished Tumbler!

Now I need to put it to use! I'll let you all know how it works. 

Be sure to go to the Tutorial for all the details on assembling the tumbler.

Building more raised garden beds

Today was a bit too cold and windy to work outside on the chicken coop. Instead we set up in the shop to work on building two more raised beds. They will be in addition to the 4' x 16' raised bed we put in back in 2009. This time we used green treated (arsenic free brand) 2 x 6 x 8's. Dale cut everything to length and used screws to assemble them into 4' x 8' boxes, two rows high so they will be 12" deep. Then we ripped a 2 x 4 in half on the table saw to use as extra bracing in the corners.

Now we need to put landscape fabric over the bottoms and put them in place. We will use a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite and compost to fill them up with. Our compost pile from last year looks pretty good but we will need quite a bit of it. Our neighbor gave us a load of cow manure to, but it's too fresh to use right away. Once that's had some time to age it will be a great addition! 

Our next project will help us make more great compost and make it faster too! I will post about that as soon as it's finished.

Mini hoop house is up!

The mini-hoop house is set up on the square foot garden. We have peas and arugula already sprouting and the asparagus is poking up too. Some severe weather is possible tonight so I'm hoping the plastic holds on and I don't find it out in the field next to us in the morning!

First day of summer... time to catch up!!

Well, not much for a regular blogger here lately! Lots of things to catch you up on though.

First, the chicks we hatched here at home are doing great! Looking more and more like adult chickens all the time. We gave 6 of them to a friend and kept 5 four ourselves. In return we got a red silkie! Oh she is a beauty!! I'll have to post a picture of her soon, she has blue earlobes!

Our Muscovy pair are still waiting on their eggs to hatch. This will be the hen's first clutch, so we are hoping she's a good momma. We've have some predator issues and reinforced their pen as much as we can. Now to just hope for the best!

Our 7 one year old hens are laying 6 eggs a day now. Still waiting on the two new  partridge Penedesenca pullets to start laying. They were supposed to have hatched in January, so I think they should be laying any day now. They are not friendly chickens at all, but I can't wait to see their dark chocolate brown eggs!
The other nine pullets we bought are doing really well. They took over the coop the broilers were in. Now this group is very friendly and calm. The Buff Orpingtons like to be picked up and held along with the new Silkie. We have such a great variety in this bunch! Lots of different colors to see.

The broiler chicks were taken into the butcher at 8 weeks old. They grow so fast!! Now we have a freezer full of delicious home grown chicken! I tried a new recipe for roasting them and it's my new go to for delicious moist chicken! Low and slow is the way to go with these.

Now on to the garden update!!

Dale and the rest of us put a lot of work into getting the new large garden bed ready for planting. It was just a field of grass earlier this spring. Take a look at some of the progress we made.

Here another shot of our mini hoop house too.  I removed the plastic at the beginning of June once our night temps were warmer.

My trays of transplants that I started from seed were all ready to be planted out after hardening off in the hoop house. They are all doing well in the garden now.

I harvested all of the diakon radishes today, the larger ones were beginning to bolt so it was time. The chickens feasted on the tops and I cleaned up the roots for us. Now I'm not a big radish fan, but I had read that these large radishes, when roasted, taste a lot like parsnips. Parsnips I like! So I pulled a few last weekend and roasted them along with some carrots and our chicken. Delish! I'll be planting a fall crop of them!  We've also lunched on BLT's with the L-lettuce coming straight from the garden. So good and fresh. There wasn't much asparagus to harvest yet this year, but it's coming along. We also ate beet greens one night with supper after I thinned the bed. The kids surprised me and really liked them!

I need to get out and take some updated pictures of the gardens and chickens soon! But it's raining today so that will have to wait. I'm glad to have the needed rain, but now we need some warmer temperatures too!

How does your garden grow??