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.

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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!

Transplanting onions.

In November, we set up two 20 foot low tunnel gardens. In one 2' x 5' section I broadcast onion seeds. This was my first attempt at winter gardening.

All winter we watched as the plants slowly germinated. I knew I was late in planting, but better late than never. As the weeks passed I watched as the plants SLOOOWWLY germinated. In Februrary my onions looked like tiny wisps of green hair and I thought there was no hope. The onion tops were yellow and frankly they looked sick. As the weather warmed up, however, life zoomed into my tunnels at lightning speed. All of a sudden in March my onions had grown 4 inches.

Because I had broadcast the seed, the little green shoots were everywhere and far too close. Ivie told me how to transplant and that rather than hurting the onions, the disturbance actually stimulates them to develop into a bulb rather than just greens.

This is her formula:

First, water the soil so the plants pull out easily.

Second, gently pull them out. I used a trowel so I could lift a section at a time with dirt still on. I don't think this was necessary, but I will do it again next time as it worked so well.

The little onion looked so small and frail. Alison (my 12 yr old redhead) thought it was great entertainment to announce how much "hair" they had had on their head as she troweled them out of their home.

I had already prepared a spot of soil with mushroom compost, mulch from our local landfill, Ivie's chicken compost (we'll do another post on that later), and my rather flat and lifeless dirt. Hopefully this mixture will taste delicious to my little plantlings.

Then we replanted leaving about 2 - 3 inches between each green. 

It went quickly and now all I need to do is water. 

A rather exciting day for a newbie gardener. It is kind of hard to see, but the long thin section to the left of my glorious lettuce patch is my new onion row. In a few weeks I will let you know how the onions turned out. Today they are under about 4 inches of April snow. Errgh. If I only had put another tunnel over them.

This has been an amazing couple of months for gardening.  I will try to take pictures and write about them tomorrow.  Today however, as I was mixing up cinnamon roll dough and feeding my natural yeast starts, I decided I had to make a post.  I am constantly amazed at the miracle of my starts.  I have three.

The first one I sent away from from the authors of "The Art of Baking With Natural Yeast".  The second I got from a friend's sister-in-law.  My third and favorite, I started over a weekend on a visit to my sister in San Francisco.  It is a miracle.  I stirred up some flour and water, and in less than two days it would rise bread.  It is the most active start I have.  Amazing.  I use them all the time.  In my pancakes, waffles, muffins, sweet breads, and more.  I don't ever use yeast anymore.  I feel like I am really doing my family something good.  Several years ago, after reading in "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon, I knew I needed to soak my grains, but it was very overwhelming.  Now, it is so easy and I feel in touch with past generations.  I love baking this way.