Some of our favorite pets are our chickens.  We've had chickens for about seven years.  It is a bonus that they produce all the compost I need for my garden and they give us eggs. Our three year old carries them around and can't understand why she can't bring one inside.

Our one year old loves to collect the eggs.  "Egg" is one of her 10 words and she says it each time she hands me an egg out of the nesting box.

 These are the eggs that survived.  Each child goes through a stage where there are a few (ok, many) casualties.

Every spring, I cannot help but buy a few baby chicks.  I walk into Cal Ranch and hear the little peep peeping from the chicks and can't help but smile.  Mostly, I buy them for my children.  I think it is such a great part of childhood.

So this year,  I bought two Buff Orphingtons (my favorite chicken) and two White Leg Horns.  

I also did something new this year.  I bought four meat chickens.  My parents are on a humanitarian mission and one of the big projects they have done is provide chicken pens for people in Guyana to raise chickens for meat.  They get really big, really fast and will have to be killed.  I'm a little nervous about this because I already like their personalities.  They are very docile.  But I wanted to have the experience (well sort of, my husband will have to be the one to do the butchering) and know how to do it.  

Last year, I kept them in the bathroom in my basement.  I bought them in early spring and by the time it was warm enough to put them outside, my bathroom looked like a chicken pen.  It was horrible.  So this year, I am keeping them in the greenhouse.  I put shade cloth over some hoops to provide some shade, because it was quite warm.  The next two nights are forcast to be cold, so I brought them in tonight, but they will go right out in the morning.  

 Today I just let them wander.  They spent the day eating bugs (yeah!).  I can't believe how much the meat hens can eat!

Our dog Tinkerbelle loves to watch the chicks.  She also loves to stir them up.  She has spent years around chickens but has never hurt one.  She loves to chase them though.  

We have tried several varieties of chickens and have enjoyed most of them.  We have bared Rocks, Buff Orphingtons, Golden Sexlinks, Auracaunas, Lace Whyndots, Rhode Island Reds, and several other vaireties I can't think of right now  The Buff Orpingtons are my favorite because they are so docile.  They lay well also.  One of my favorite things about my chickens is the compost they provide.  I give them all of our scraps.  Bits and pieces of vegetables trimmed from dinner prep, kids left over apple cores, left over cereal, everything (except chicken).  I put my grass clippings in, leaves in the fall, and straw in the winter.  They mulch it all up and make a beautiful compost for my garden.  I use it on my berry bushes and everywhere the dirt needs improving.  

Well, It has been a week, and my four meat hens has turned into 14!  They are such nice, docile chickens.  No fighting at all...and I have a forgiving husband.  Or maybe he is just used to me.  He might ban me from going to Cal Ranch or IFA during chick season.  I came very close to bringing home Silkies.  But I refrained.  I have to have something to do next year.

I'll apologize up front for the length of this post. It's LOOONG.  But I also added plenty of pictures to try to keep you from getting bored.  And if you're a gardener in any way or want to be, there's a lot of good information here.

We've been married 15 years and grown a garden for probably 14 years.  Before we had our own home, we would use the garden plot of an older person who wanted a garden but couldn't care for it themselves.  For the most part, our gardens have always produced well and because they've always done well, we've pretty much done the same thing every year.  We've always started out by tilling the garden, setting up irrigation, then buying most of our plants at the nursery and planting them near the end of May.
Below is a picture of what our typical garden would look like after first planting.  The plants you see were purchased at the local nursery and we planted seeds for things like corn and beans.

The picture below was taken at around the end of the growing season. The tomato plant at the very end of the row was at least 10 feet tall.

This is a picture of our son holding a bell pepper from the garden. Our plants were always huge, producing large amounts of produce.  

So why change the way we do things?  Why fix what ain't broke?  After learning some of the things we've learned this past year I'm convinced there are better, cheaper and healthier ways to grow our garden.  Plus we really wanted to know how to garden from scratch.
When I say cheaper, I have to be honest, this year we did NOT save any money.  It was a bit of an investment to get everything started the way we wanted to, but the majority of it can be reused for years to come.

Seed starting.  This will be your first step if you're starting your garden from scratch. This is something I learned from Ivie. Actually, almost everything new I've learned about gardening, I've learned from Ivie. She's already been doing a lot of this for years.
In the picture below, is a little device we call a soiltuber.  My husband, Jason, built it.  He's very handy like that.  It's job is to compact the soil into little tubes which can then be used to start your seed.  There are a lot of advantages to starting seed this way.  First, you don't have to purchase any containers to plant seed in.  Second, the roots stop growing outward once they come in contact with the air, so unlike in a container, your roots do not become root-bound. This results in much less, if any, transplant shock when you put your plant in the ground, so you'll have a  faster growing, healthier plant.   


You may be wondering where you can buy your own soiltuber. There really are not many available. Here is a link that will take you to Johnny's website (which, by the way, is our favorite place to buy seeds), and a video tutorial on how it works. Hopefully we'll have our own video tutorial ready to post soon. Follow the link and in the search box type in "soil block maker" (soiltuber is our own invented name, you'll come up with nothing if you search for it).  They cost over $30 plus shipping.  Or you get one of ours.  If you ask really nice.  And pay us $25.  Plus shipping. If you're interested, contact us HERE.
You can see in the pictures how the soiltuber leaves a little spot in the top for your seed to go in, then you'll cover it with soil.

Because you'll be starting these up to a few months before you can actually plant them outside, you'll need to keep them indoors under a grow light.  You can buy a grow light but they're not cheap.  Or you can make your own.  Jason made one for us from some old fluorescent lights that were no longer being used.  You can also use a 48 inch shop light. You can find plans for one online. The pictures below are homemade ones at a friends' house. Notice the chain on the side.  You'll want to be able to adjust either your shelf or your lights up and down.  If the light is too high above the plant, you'll get tall spindly plants instead of full ones.
One thing we learned is that heat helps.  A lot.  Our lights are in our basement where it stays really cool and it took our seeds much longer to germinate than it did our friends who kept theirs at warmer temperatures. Some of them (tomatoes and peppers) didn't germinate at all until I bought heating pads for them.

The two trays can hold a total of 64 plants.  Which is probably plenty for your average garden.

But what if you want to start a million and four plants like we did?  Or maybe it was closer to 704, but at the time it felt pretty close to a million. Either way, we definitely don't have enough room in our house for a million or 700 plants and we don't have a greenhouse.  But we have the next best thing.  Which brings me to what I wanted to talk about next-

LOW TUNNELS. Possibly the most exciting thing I've learned this year. They're very inexpensive compared to a greenhouse, they're much easier to put up than a greenhouse and when compared to an unheated greenhouse, the plants grow better.  Ivie put some of these up in her yard last fall and harvested greens out of them all winter long.  Even when temperatures reached NEGATIVE 13 degrees F, the plants did fine. She also has a greenhouse and it didn't stay nearly as warm as her low tunnels. Of course you're not going to be able to grow tomatoes and peppers all winter long, but your cool weather plants will do great.

Here's a look at how we did our tunnel.  We put ours up in January, during a week that the temperatures and warmed up enough to thaw the ground a bit.  You can make your tunnel any size, but our tunnels are all 20 feet so I'll give instructions according to that. You can purchase most of the supplies in bulk for cheaper, depending on how many tunnels you want to build. Plus, you'll need a pole bender.

Here's what you'll need-
5 or 6- 1/2in x 10ft conduit pipes (yes, you can use PVC but you'll be sorry when it snows or gets windy)
9 gauge wire- it usually comes in 50 ft roll
Nylon cord (don't use cotton)- something with a work load of 200-300 lbs
28ft x 10ft- 4 or 5 greenhouse film- 
25 ft x 10 ft Agribon
Wood stakes- 8 inches or longer
Sand bags filled with sand or rocks

We hope to soon have a video tutorial on how to set these up, but THIS is a link for an instruction manual from Johnny's.  You'll notice that we do some things different. First, in the picture below, you can see we run our cord the entire length of the tunnel, wrapping it around each hoop in the process.  This keeps it from sagging as much. Second, you can see that our Agribon layer is lower than the plastic layer.  Most of the low tunnels you see online, have the Agribon and the plastic layered right next each other.  The reason we've done it this way, is because the air space between the two seems to keep things much warmer.  The 9 gauge wire we have listed is what you will use for the lower layer.  You'll cut it into hoops about 78 inches, give or take.

If it all seems a little overwhelming you can buy a kit for any size tunnel you want with everything included.  It may even come out cheaper if you only want one or two tunnels.  If you're interested in buying one, Kim and Ivie build the kits.  You can contact them HERE.

 

In the photo below you can clearly see the air space between the two layers. Also in the photo below, note the blue water jugs next to the tree.  We use some of these in place of sand bags.  Filled with water, they're very heavy and we actually place them inside the tunnel and tuck the edges under them.  The water in them heats up during the day and provides additional heat for the tunnel through the cold nights.





















A few months after we planted in January, here's what we've got.
Peas-

 Carrots-

Lettuce mix and spinach-

With the exception of the peas, which we planted in 3 rows, we just randomly threw seeds on the ground then covered the seeds with mulch.  We gave it a good watering to begin with and really didn't do much with it after that.  The spaces where the lettuce didn't fill in thickly, we just add more seeds or plants to later.
It's important to put mulch down under the tunnels so you don't end up with a slug problem, as the tunnels stay very moist and warm through the winter.

In the picture below, you can see our warmer weather starts.  We started these seeds around the end of March, but would possible be possible to start them a little earlier.  We've had temperatures down to about 17 degrees F.  If the temperature drops below 20, I put a light fleece blanket over them just as a precaution.  They may be okay without it, but I'm afraid to take the chance.  We started cucumbers, basil, cabbage, celery and flowers. They all came up.  However, I did have to take our tomatoes and peppers back in the house under the light and on the heating pad to get them to germinate. The soil temperature must not have consistently stayed between 80-90 degrees outside.  

So at this point we're about ready to move plastic off of our tunnel that has the peas, carrots and lettuce.  We'll keep the hoops up and when it gets warmer we'll cover them with shade cloth so that they'll last longer into the summer.  We'll also plant our tomatoes, peppers, basil and cucumbers in the ground under 3 more tunnels to give them a head start.  In our area (zone 5), those plants are usually not safe to be out in the open until almost the end of May.

The very last thing I wanted to cover is soil preparation.  We recently watched a film called Back To Eden.  You'll want to watch it to fully understand what we're doing.  It's as long as a regular movie, so grab some popcorn and make it a movie night. We thought it was fascinating and when we travel up to Washington this summer, we're going to go meet this guy.
To give you a quick idea-, you'll never till your garden again, you'll just keep adding layers. It's organic. You'll always have a layer of mulch on top which helps keep the water in and the weeds back. No need to rotate crops. And many other benefits.
In the picture below you can see the layers we're putting in our garden, with wood chips on the top.  We've been getting all our wood chips for free through a local tree cutting company.  I know our city also offers it by the truck load for about $25.  Check around your local area, chances are you'll be able to get it for pretty inexpensive or even free. We're excited to try it and will have follow-up posts about how well it works.

Well that's about it.  For this post anyway.  We have many other things for many other posts.  But we'll save that for another day...

After many years of trying different trellising methods for tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes, I have found what I think is the most ideal way to trellis vegetables.

I use two 5 or 6 foot T Posts, available at any farm store for about $5-$6.  Setting these posts requires a post pounder.  These are about $20.  Then I get a cattle panel which are between $20-$22.  They are 16 feet long, so I have them cut when I purchase them.  They are always willing to do this.  I love these because they store flat, are so sturdy and will last for years, and the grids are plenty large to get my hand through.  I use them all over my yard.  I have my grapes growing on them, winter squash, and all my climbing vegetables.

These clips can be purchased on amazon or at Johnny's Seeds.  They are reusable, easy to use and gentle on the plants.

The soil in our area is pretty alkaline, meaning it has a high pH.  Most fruit trees and berry bushes don't appreciate this very much.  Although we have high amounts of iron in our soil, it is not available to plants at pH levels at much above a 7.  This make photosynthesis difficult, and plants turn yellow.  A quick, but temporary fix is to add chelated iron, but it is also expensive, especially year after year.  This year I am trying to change the pH of my soil by adding Epsom salts (Magnesium Sulfate) and soil sulfur.  I buy Epsom salts in bulk at Costco, and soil sulfur at IFA.  I have added 10 pounds of soil sulfur and 20 pounds of Epsom salts on dozens of plants in my yard.  This helps to acidify the soil.  It is not as immediate as just adding iron however.  So while I wait for it to take effect, here are some pictures from around my yard of classic iron deficiency.

A peach tree

Another peach tree

 Raspberry bushes

   A blueberry bush

My parents have been doing humanitarian work in the Caribbean and in South America, and one of the things they have done lots of is a food initiative that has included setting people up with chicken pens and chickens for meat.  They get 100 chicks at a time and they are ready to butcher in 6 weeks.   

Well, I wanted to have the experience raising chickens for meat, but our approach was a little more relaxed. We purchased 11 chicks.  I was DONE with having chicks in my house so I put them in the greenhouse with a brooder.  It got a little warm in the day so I put some shade cloth in just in case.  They devastated the lettuce growing there...and they got a few bugs there too.

My girls played with them constantly.  They are such docile birds, nothing like the egg laying variety.

Our chickens didn't grow as fast as they could have as they got lots of exercise running around the yard and lived  largely on sprouted wheat.  I throw in all the garden extras like lettuce gone to seed and they love it.

We started butchering them at about 8 weeks and actually still have four left to go.   We have learned that they cannot be left too long as they are more fragile than other chickens.  When butchered ours have been 6 1/2 pounds.  I was surprised at how humane it felt.  They had a great life, and death didn't seem traumatic.  Plucking was surprisingly easy and quick and while I wouldn't want to do 100 of them in a sitting, a few was no big deal. I would do it again.

We made a "killing cone" out of a 5 gallon bucket.  It worked really well.  Then we boiled water outside, dipped them in for 20 or 30 seconds and the feathers came right out.

Our chickens are very useful pets.  They provide chicken compost for my garden, eat all the food that my children waste, and provide eggs for us as a bonus!

I loose some eggs as my eager helpers are still in training, but that is part of the fun.

I clean their coop out four times a year.  I place fresh straw in the coop at the beginning of each season and then harvest it at the end and put it on my garden or berry bushes.  I also give them all my organic grass clippings and fallen leaves.  They love to dig through them and it makes a really nice garden compost.  The straw does send up some weeds, but they are easy to pick out.

We are in the process of building a chicken run.  This way I won't feel guilty about not always letting them out to run around the garden.  Sometimes I appreciate the bugs they eat in the garden.  This year, they ate all my newly planted lady bugs!  That makes for expensive chicken food!

There are at least three reasons to rotate crops.  

• To minimize pests
• To discourage Diseases
• To build soil fertility

To understand how to rotate, one must understand what families each plant belongs to.  Plants within families tend to have the same pests and use the same nutrients.  This is the best chart I have seen for identifying plant families at a glance.  It might not be easy to guess that peppers and potatoes are in the same family!

Family Name	Aliases	Members
		Crops	Ornamentals	Weeds
Solanaceae	solanaceous crops; potato, tomato or nightshade family	peppers (bell and chile), tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, tobacco, tomatillo	petunia, million bells	nightshade, jimsonweed, henbane, groundcherry, buffalobur, horsenettle
Brassicaceae	Cruciferae; brassicas; cole crops; cruciferous crops; mustard family	horseradish, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, kale, Brussels sprouts, turnips, Chinese cabbage, radish, rapeseed, mustard, collards, watercress, pak choi, bok choi, rutabaga	stock, alyssum, candytuft	shepherd's-purse, field pennycress, yellow rocket
Cucurbitaceae	cucurbits; cucumber family; squash family	cucumber, melons, watermelon, summer squash, pumpkin, gourds, winter squash
Rosaceae	rose family, rosaceous plants	apples, peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, pears, cherries		multiflora rose
Fabaceae	Leguminosae; leguminous crops; legumes; bean, pea or legume family	beans, peas, lentils, peanut, soybean, edamame, garbanzo bean, fava beans, hairy vetch, vetches, alfalfa, clovers, cowpea, birdsfoot trefoil, black medic		various vetches, clovers, black medic
Poaceae	Gramineae; grass family	corn, wheat, barley, oats, sorghum, rice, millet, rye, ryegrass, sorghum-sudangrass, fescue, timothy	ornamental grasses	brome, wild oats, crabgrass, orchardgrass, barnyardgrass, quackgrass, fall panicum, foxtail, Johnsongrass
Polygonaceae	Knotweed family	buckwheat, rhubarb		knotweed, smartweed
Liliaceae	lily family; alliums (for members of the Allium genera)	asparagus, onions, leeks, chives, garlic, shallot	tulips, daffodils, hosta, hyacinth, daylily	wild garlic and onions
Lamiaceae	Labiatae; mint family	lavender, basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme, mints, catnip	salvia, Molucella (bells-of-Ireland)	mints, catnip, henbit
Ericaceae	heather or blueberry family	blueberries, cranberries	rhododendrons, azalea, heather
Chenopodiaceae	goosefoot family	spinach, beets, chard, sugar beets		kochia, lambsquarters
Apiaceae	Umbelliferae; carrot family	carrots, parsnips, celery, dill, chervil, cilantro, parsley, caraway, fennel	Trachymeme, Buplerum	poison-hemlock, wild carrot
Asteraceae	sunflower family; aster family, Compositae	sunflowers, lettuce, endive, escarole, radicchio, dandelion, Jerusalem artichoke, artichoke, safflower, chicory, tarragon, chamomile, echinacea, sunflowers	marigold, mums, zinnia, aster, Calendula, cosmos, Rudbeckia, Tithonia, Centaurea, Helichrysum, yarrow, Leucanthemum, echinacea, sunflowers	dandelion, Jerusalem artichoke, chicory, echinacea, thistles, knapweeds, cocklebur, yarrow, ragweeds, goldenrod, groundsel, galinsoga, sunflowers

Originally printed in Virginia Vegetable, Small Fruit and Specialty Crops – May-June 2005.

---

Virginia Cooperative Extension materials are available for public use, re-print, or citation without further permission, provided the use includes credit to the author and to Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State University.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia State University, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Alan L. Grant, Dean, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Edwin J. Jones, Director, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg; Jewel E. Hairston, Administrator, 1890 Extension Program, Virginia State, Petersburg.

August 17, 2009

http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/2906/2906-1393/2906-1393.html

Of all the trees I have planted, the prettiest one is a Fuji apple tree I planted four years ago.  We are adding a room onto the back of our house with a basement.  The dimensions are 20 by 32 feet.  Unfortunately, the tree is in the way.  There is a good chance it will not make it, but I want to try anyway.  

We dug a hole with a backhoe.  I threw some wood chips in to get the "hugelkultur" affect.  Then I put in some blood and bone meal and even a few tree stakes.

 Then we dug around the tree and wrapped it to preserve the root ball.  

We lifted it up up and moved it into the new hole.  Then we unwrapped it and buried it up.  

I have watered it well over the last twenty forty eight hours and it is looking a little wilty.  I trimmed it and added a tablespoon ( that was all that was left in my bottle) of rooting hormone.

It is now the middle of July and this is how the tree looks.  Very dead!

I have been reading about shock planting and Sep Holzer's method of transplanting trees.  This has given me hope that perhaps this tree will make it.  http://www.bookofkin.info/how-to/garden/sepp-holzer-permaculture-how-to-transplant-fruit-trees/

Only time will tell!

Today I decided to remove my tunnels from my tomatoes that have been in the ground for six weeks.  They were itty bitty when I put them in and now they are ready to be trellised.  They look so great.  I am anticipating tomatoes early this year!  I am a little worried about the blight that comes through, carried by small bugs in early summer.  I wanted to leave the tunnels up as long as possible to protect the tomato plants, but some of the plants were getting big enough that they really needed to be trellised.  So, all of my tomatoes are now uncovered and trellised.  I like to use small clips (available at Johnny's Seeds) to attach the plants to cattle panels that I attach to stakes driven into the ground.  This method is very sturdy, stores well and lasts forever.

After trellising them I gave them a little blood and bone meal.   This should provide them plenty of nitrogen iron, and calcium.  Then I covered them with straw mulched up in my chicken coop which will reduce the water necessary.  I have thirty tomato plants divided into four different rows.

Plant Edible Perrenials!

Fruit trees, berry bushes, and grape vines can provide abundantly year after year after year.  However, it takes a few to get them started, so plant right away.  

 This grape vine is loaded with itty bitty grapes for the first time since I planted it four years ago.  I am so excited!  It is a cutting I took from my Grandparents who have since passed on.  I am so glad to have it.  I don't even know what variety it is.  I took cuttings of two varieties, and two of the four cuttings survived.  It will be a surprise!

This pear tree was planted a year after we moved into the house and took three years to produce.  

This is an apple tree I planted two years ago, and sadly, it is not producing yet.  Maybe next year!

I planted blueberry bushes the year after we moved in.  This one has been moved twice!  It produced splendidly!  Two were run over while building a retaining wall last year.  I planted six more and will have to wait a few years for them!

The first spring in our house I planted a peach tree and a large raspberry patch.  Last year I picked three GALLONS of raspberries every week for EIGHT weeks!  What an investment!

This Fuji apple tree was planted three years ago.  We are adding on and it must be moved.  I have moved LOTS of things in my yard and MOST things make it.  I really hope this one does, but if not, well, I will plant another one!


I have nine fruit trees in my yard and all but three are producing (except when they freeze!)  I no longer buy fruit to bottle in the summer.  I preserve dozens and dozens of quarts of fruit from my own yard!