Crusty McPottydoodle
Power Conserver
Well, it seeems that I have made the transition from urban chicken lady to urban quasifarmer having dedicated my front yard to food production. This being the case, I guess it was time to actually have a journal of my own.
I've never been much for gardening. Animals have always been my thing. While we never had animals growing up (the step-monster wouldn't go for it and my mother is a chameleon - basically likes and wants the same things as her partner), I spent most of my teen years on the farms of friends, so managed to get my need to be around animals met.
Once i moved out on my own, I had pets for more years than not, but never lived anywhere that I could keep livestock.
Last year, our city decided that it would allow backyard chickens (although it has taken more than a year for the bylaw to actually change and make them legal), so after a huge amount of research, and a supportive (read remarkably tolerant) partner (who built the temporary, and then later, the amazing permanent coop), I got a few hens.
A few weeks ago we made the decision to get rid of the lawn in our front yard entirely. It has been infested with European Chafer Beetle larvae, which feed on grass roots and then later torn up by crows in their search for those larvae. We had already replaced the lawn once and were not interested in doing it again.
So, we decided to turn it into a big productive garden.
After spending hours and hours turning the soil by hand (we've only got one side of the yard turned), we finally got to planting.
We have a barrel of potatoes (the extras went in the ground on the unturned part of the yard)
Then on Monday, we planted 4 rows of Quinoa. Each row is about 20 feet long, so based on the spacing of about 1 ft apart, hopefully, we should end up with about 80 plants. This is an experimental crop - if it works well, we will increase the size of it for next year as we eat a lot of Quinoa.
We have some tomato seedlings and we will be growing bush beans, bush peas, cucumbers, lettuce, parsnips, carrots, basil and pumpkins. We will be planting my containers of raspberries, rhubarb and blueberries from their containers into the unturned side of the yard along with the strawberry plants we picked up from the nursery this past weekend.
Our Australorp went broody a little more than a week ago and pushovers that we are, we took pity on her and got her some fertile eggs on Friday night and tucked them beneath her. We shall see whether she ends up with any chicks.
Now we are on the look out for a freezer for the stuff I don't can.
Once feller is done with post doctoral research and moves into the realm of the regularly employed, and I am finished my batchelor's degree and teaching diploma, we will make the shift to acreage somewhere and become more self sufficient.
In the meantime, I have chickens and a garden. It's a start.
I've never been much for gardening. Animals have always been my thing. While we never had animals growing up (the step-monster wouldn't go for it and my mother is a chameleon - basically likes and wants the same things as her partner), I spent most of my teen years on the farms of friends, so managed to get my need to be around animals met.
Once i moved out on my own, I had pets for more years than not, but never lived anywhere that I could keep livestock.
Last year, our city decided that it would allow backyard chickens (although it has taken more than a year for the bylaw to actually change and make them legal), so after a huge amount of research, and a supportive (read remarkably tolerant) partner (who built the temporary, and then later, the amazing permanent coop), I got a few hens.
A few weeks ago we made the decision to get rid of the lawn in our front yard entirely. It has been infested with European Chafer Beetle larvae, which feed on grass roots and then later torn up by crows in their search for those larvae. We had already replaced the lawn once and were not interested in doing it again.
So, we decided to turn it into a big productive garden.
After spending hours and hours turning the soil by hand (we've only got one side of the yard turned), we finally got to planting.
We have a barrel of potatoes (the extras went in the ground on the unturned part of the yard)
Then on Monday, we planted 4 rows of Quinoa. Each row is about 20 feet long, so based on the spacing of about 1 ft apart, hopefully, we should end up with about 80 plants. This is an experimental crop - if it works well, we will increase the size of it for next year as we eat a lot of Quinoa.
We have some tomato seedlings and we will be growing bush beans, bush peas, cucumbers, lettuce, parsnips, carrots, basil and pumpkins. We will be planting my containers of raspberries, rhubarb and blueberries from their containers into the unturned side of the yard along with the strawberry plants we picked up from the nursery this past weekend.
Our Australorp went broody a little more than a week ago and pushovers that we are, we took pity on her and got her some fertile eggs on Friday night and tucked them beneath her. We shall see whether she ends up with any chicks.
Now we are on the look out for a freezer for the stuff I don't can.
Once feller is done with post doctoral research and moves into the realm of the regularly employed, and I am finished my batchelor's degree and teaching diploma, we will make the shift to acreage somewhere and become more self sufficient.
In the meantime, I have chickens and a garden. It's a start.