A Happy Garden is a Happy Hen

Figs coming in strong

The weather has finally gave North Georgia a Fall tease. As the summer is coming to a close, there are new things to grow and harvests are around the bend. After dropping my son off at preschool, it was my goal to throw some boots on and get my hands dirty. I had a plan and it all worked out perfectly as I got into every hand full of dirt I could! Literally...

I started off with setting a trap for the new chipmunk or chipmunk family for all I know and I hope to have one by tomorrow. Next, I took a large cutting from my fig tree and planted it after checking on my one surviving cutting that will hopefully grow much larger over the next few years. 

Then, it was off to the compost piles where I was delighted to find that the pine shavings and chicken poop I have finally decomposed after a year of waiting. It was earthy, crumbly, and felt great in my hands which is everything you hope for in a compost. My chickens have learned at least one thing about their owner. If I am holding a shovel, they eat like queens. If queens ate grubs that is. Not just a few grubs, but close to 100 of these little morsels of protein. The grubs that I run into are root grubs and of course feed on "roots" which aren't great candidates for the garden, so I take every hand full of dirt and check it for these free protein gummies for the girls. The first compost pile must of had roughly 60 of these bad boys and my chickens were eternally grateful. You have to take a moment and appreciate that I can throw 15 grubs in the chicken run and they are devoured in less than 5 seconds with nothing to spare. Pretty impressive! I almost feel bad for the grubs...not really.

So, a little backstory. Roughly a year ago, I happened upon some worms in the ground when digging up some plants and decided to put them in my compost pile that was relatively new at the time. I thought...well maybe they will like it there and make some babies, and with any luck I'll have top notch worm castings. Well these little worms get an A for hard work! With every shovel of dirt, worms would fall out and be squirming wildly on the ground below. So I threw some of the worms back in the dirt, fed them some mulched leaves, and merrily took my beautiful worm castings and priceless compost to the garden. One worm was longer than my hand from fingertip to wrist, which is amazing!

It is important to feed your garden routinely as plants take so many nutrients from the ground. Of course, use whatever resources are convenient to you given what is available. I layered both of my main garden beds with an inch or so of compost and made 2 inch deep rows for planting seeds. I chose to plant two different varieties of rutabagas and some smooth German kale. The smooth German kale seeds were from seeds I harvested which I highly recommend if you looking to be self sufficient and practice seed saving.

The gourds have grown rapidly and I'm thinking there are a total of 6 to 7 of these beauties. Can't wait for them to dry out so I can get their seeds and the natural sponges inside. 

Here is a photo tour of other things going on in the garden. Check it out! Good luck out there with your garden and happy growing!

Fall plants for me this year. The little bag
has my own smooth German kale seeds that
I saved.Bought from Seed Savers this past year
and my plants did really well. I recommend them!

Ginger has grown superbly!

I have about double the amount of the wood shown here and
I'm ready for winter!! Romantic fires are my favorite!

Beautiful Banana Spider??
My son asked me to take him outside to
see the spider 3 days in a row after I showed
it to him. 

Fig tree is bearing lots of fruit and expanding

These two beauties were volunteers and
they made my morning.

I started these lemon trees this spring and
one is already a foot tall from the base
 of the seedling.

Garden Envy

Yall, I don't know what to say, the garden is so beautiful and ripe. Mother nature has been watering like a rock star and the garden gives me eye-gasms. The garden is overdue for weeding, but the weeds don't grow as well when the plants create a canopy shading the ground below. I have installed two rain barrels and am pleasantly surprised as one of the 60 gallon barrels filled up after just two days of rain! I use the rain water to feed my potted plants and I have yet to run out of water. If you have ever thought about using rain barrels, just do it because you won't regret it. I made mine for roughly 35 dollars a piece including the spicket, fitting, and rain barrel from craigslist. Pests are at a minimum outside of a few slugs and I'm harvesting zucchini, squash, ground cherries, beets, Swiss chard, Kale, bell peppers, lettuce, and herbs every few days. Hope you enjoy the photos!

Eggplant

Almost ready to be eaten!

Every morning before work I step out to feed the chickens
and appreciate the gift of nature.

Rain Barrel - Cost $35 - free water!

Squash Blossom which the honeybees love every year.

Golden Zucchini

Cabbage

Sadly, I often want to leave them as they are and not eat them.

Look at how many of them there are! Yum!

Smooth German Kale Flowering

Personal Favorite - Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

Gourds

Ground Cheeries

Most of the plants have been staked for added support in the
case of high winds.

So far, there have been very few pests! A few slugs...

The corn towers at close to 11ft

Eggplant flower

Put tomato cages around the corn to
keep them upright 

speechless....

Leaks are doing well

Lavender showing its beautiful flowers

I love how they track the sun. Simply stunning and amazing.

Thyme

Happy Herb Garden

Loot - Buttercrunch Lettuce

Gargantuan Beets!

A Walk Through My Garden

This morning started as any other with a cup of coffee, rambunctious little boy, and some hungry chickens. Once my son had breakfast and some cartoons, I headed out to tend to my chickens. The garden seemed to be glowing in all its beauty.

There is something special about the feeling you get when you look out at your garden and feel a sense of pride and joy from helping nurture it into its existence. Each plant cell radiating a pretty color, whether it be purple, green, or yellow.
Of course with every garden there is work and it will be perfect in it's imperfections as we are too. I have resisted burnout on weeding by restricting how often and how much I weed. Even with your own rules, it is not easy because of life changes, the amount of ground you are tending, and the weather.

My bell pepper plants are flowering and producing, but my banana pepper plant is still small. The smooth German kale plants are colossal. I can't imagine how big they'll get as they become taller and wider. The red Russian kale plants possess such an earthy purple color, it is truly a plant to be admired. Marigolds are blooming as I planted a shorter variety of marigolds after my experiences the year prior with marigolds that were 3 and 4 feet high.

Smooth German kale in between two marigolds on left.
Red Russian Kale on the right.

 

Zucchini

The zucchini plant has the widest coverage in the garden, but it was expected. It should shade some of the Swiss chard in a few weeks. My tactic in how I planted was to provide fair amounts of each vegetable but broken up into different parts of the garden. I have read articles and books on how it can help confuse pests and bugs so we'll see how it works.

Speaking of  pests, I have caught two rats and two chipmunks which I have relocated to other areas far away from my home and garden. Shout out to my father for giving me traps to catch them. The preferred bait has been chicken scratch and chicken feed so I'll be sure to catch a few more.

Ginger

A couple of plants have peaked my interest lately and they are ginger, ground cherries, and leeks. The ginger I planted came from the grocery store and was simple to grow. Before I decided to plant ginger, I let it develop buds or sprouts by placing it under grow lights. Once it sprouted, I cut it up into pieces with buds on each 2 inch long slice and soaked it into a glass of water for 24 hours before planting it into a pot a couple inches below the surface. For roughly one month I saw no action. I watered it as I watered any other plants in my screened-in porch and eventually it began to sprout. Can't wait to see it as it grows.

The ground cheery plants have grown significantly and each plant has a handful of fruit on it with little green capes.. The flowers before fruit are yellow and purple. The stem of the plant has a stunning purple streaking.
There are not a lot of videos on Youtube regarding ground cherries. People's description of the taste vary so much that I have no idea what they are going to taste like. The leeks I planted aren't very big, but they are getting taller and stronger judging by appearance. I look forward to sauteing them with some butter and garlic.

Tomato plants grow like any other weed in my backyard. I explain it to people, but I don't think other people understand the depth of the tomato plant infestation. For example...

Tomato in cracked concrete

I have to say that it is the best problem to have. If only my wife liked tomatoes.