Our Garden Tomatoes

Amazingly, in this heat and drought, we have be able to get a few tomatoes out of our garden.

We planted heirloom varieties so they won't get as big as some of the hybrids but they sure are tasty.  You can't buy anything like this from the grocery store!  They are deep red and juicy inside.

Mr. Right is faithful to water them about every other day.  Otherwise, they probably would have scorched by now. 

If you don't normally plant a garden, I would encourage you to plant just a few tomato plants next year.  Homegrown produce is priceless!

Pretty Eggs

I really like how pretty brown eggs are and sometimes the girls make them extra special.  Like this one...

Our laying hens like to keep life interesting!

Growing Lettuce

I tried to grow lettuce last year but it didn't work out all that well.  This year, I started from seed just to see what would happen.  Check it out!

We have already harvested our first crop.  It tastes yummy!  A few nights ago, we had burgers with homegrown meat, homemade hamburger buns and our very own lettuce.  You just can't beat that!

Growing Beets

I planted some beet seeds in a pot several weeks ago.  I really don't like beets but I'm willing to tough it out because they're good for me.  They have actually grown really well!  I've had to protect them from a hard rain once because I knew they would get beat down but, other than that, they have been a pretty easy vegetable to grow.

I have never grown beets before.  I can't wait until they get big enough to pull up!

Blueberry Bushes

We have had so much rain lately.  Our backyard looks more like a mud hole than a yard but that's ok.  It will eventually dry up and we'll be praying for rain in the summer.  Although I have to put on water boots if I want to hang clothes out to dry, some members of the backyard are reallllly enjoying the wet weather.  Like, the blueberry bushes, for example.

We have 3 bushes all in pots.  (We plan on moving and having land someday and we're taking these guys with us!)  They have grown sooo many leaves so fast because of this rain.  Before you know it, we'll be getting fresh blueberries!

One of my favorite things to do in the summer is get fresh blueberries right off the bush in the mornings when I take care of the chickens.  Ah...not too much longer!

Egg Production is UP!

This is a beautiful sight...

We are getting tons of eggs now!  I think the chicken mower has been really good for the girls. 

Breakfast anyone?

Chicken Mower

We like to be as resourceful as possible and when the grass/weeds/clover started getting tall in the backyard, we started brainstorming ways to use it to our advantage. 

As a result, Mr. Right came up with this...

He used PVC pipe, chicken wire and zip ties to create a chicken mower!  Most afternoons, he loads the girls up in the mower then drags it to a new spot in the yard that needs mowing.  They have done a great job at keeping our yard looking good!

This also means that they eat less chicken feed which makes keeping them even cheaper.  Whoo! 

The mower has a laying box mounted in the corner in case someone forgot to lay their egg that morning.  We also give them shade by clothes pinning a towel on top when they are in the sun.

I don't know if this is a result of the mower and all the grass the girls are eating but we did get 6 eggs today.  That means everyone laid one! 

Collecting Rain Water

We went for our usual walk and happened upon this barrel on the side of the road.  It's a 55 gallon barrel that has been cut in half.  We asked the lady whose house it was in front of if we could have it and she said yes.  So, Mr. Right carried the thing about half a mile back to our house. 

A container this big would normally cost a lot of money so we were happy to get it for free! 

We decided to use it to collect rain water.  We collected a whole barrel full in one day!  We look forward to learning more about collecting rain water and hopefully watering our garden this way as much as possible.

We haven't watered anything with it yet because the ground is still so wet from the rain.  However, Ranger loves it and thinks it's so much better than the tap water we fill his bowl with.  Smart dog!

Bolting

It's always nice to learn something new and if it's about gardening...I really like to learn something new!  I have wondered for a year why I can't grow cilantro.  First, I learned that I planted it at the wrong time.  Second, I learned that when the weather warms up above 80 degrees for several days, mature plants like greens and such think their growing time is over so they grow a seed stalk.


That's exactly what my cilantro does.  It's a cool season crop so it hasn't done well when I plant it in the summer.  It grows a little then sends up that seed stalk.  That's called bolting. 

So, just a reminder to do a little research before you start putting seeds in the ground! 

80 degrees is your enemy with cool season plants!

Hanging Clothes out to Dry

I have decided that one of my favorite things to do is hang clothes out to dry.  Since the weather has been so nice, I decided it was time to string up the clothesline again. 

This is a great, natural, money saver.  Maybe my dryer has something wrong with it but when I timed it the other day, it took an hour for a load to dry.  An hour?!  What does that cost? 

I haven't used my dryer in days.  I wash clothes as soon as I get up then go hang them outside.  Usually by lunch, they are dry.  Of course, the more wind the better because it basically beats the wrinkles out of everything.  On calm days, the clothes just hang there and become stiff.  We don't mind though.  I just do a quick iron over our clothes and everything else stays stiff.  We call towels that were hung dry "exfoliating."  It sounds nicer than "stiff."  :)

I would encourage you to do this too.  Save money...save the planet.  Plus, it's extremely fulfilling to hang your clothes out!

Lasagna Gardening

Have you ever heard of Lasagna Gardening? 

Gardening in layers is like making lasagna!

This is a neat method of gardening that Mr. Right and I heard about a year ago but we didn't look too far into it.  Well, since I have been reading Vegetable Gardening for Dummies, I have learned more about it.  We are going to give it a try this year.  Here's what it is...it's a no-till method of gardening.  Which means that you save money by not having to buy/borrow a tiller and gas for it PLUS it makes you "greener" because you aren't burning fossil fuels just to till.  Here is what the book says about it...

"It's like making lasagna.  The season before planting, lay down a 3-4 sheet thick layer of black and white newspaper over the garden area.  Water the paper to keep it in place.  Cover the newspaper with a 6-inch-thick layer of hay or straw.  Top that with a 1- to 2-inch-thick layer of compost.  By the next planting season, the layers will have killed the grass and most of the annual and perennial weeds in your garden."  from Vegetable Gardening for Dummies

 Pretty neat, huh?  We decided to try it this year because we just paid about $30 in manure for the garden today.  That's heartbreaking for frugal people like us.  With lasagna gardening, you enrich the soil by compost...not purchased manure.  I don't ever want to purchase manure again!

We're going to divide our garden plot up into four beds.  That way, we can lasagna garden the beds and not the whole garden.  There is no need for our pathways to have expensive manure spread on them.

I'll keep you posted on how that goes!

The Perfect Gift

Mr. Right always knows how to buy the perfect gifts.  Some husbands probably just buy their wife flowers or jewelry but Mr. Right can always hit the nail on the head.  The hard part for him is I’m not a typical wife…I guess.  Jewelry and expensive things do nothing for me. 

Yesterday he gave me the gift of the year; the gift that tops all gifts.  Curious yet?  He gave me the book Vegetable Gardening for Dummies.  Now, my husband doesn’t think I’m a dummy but he knows how badly I’ve been wanting to learn about gardening.  We have planted a garden for two years in a row and we haven’t been as successful as I would like to have been.  I didn’t know what to do.  I have tried to look up tips online, talk with Grandpa and I have even printed out charts but still felt like I knew nothing.  Well, let me tell you, Vegetable Gardening for Dummies  is an excellent book.  I can’t hardly put it down.  It discusses how to plant, care for, and harvest your vegetables, how to plot your garden and prepare the soil, composting, combating pests with environmentally friendly methods, money saving tips, when to plant, variety types, watering…you name it.  I was THRILLED to get this book…to say the least. 

My goal this year is to grow enough tomatoes to can LOTS.  We have scaled down the garden this year so we can focus on just a couple crops.  One thing we did wrong as newbies was plant too much.  We planted the entire produce aisle and didn’t get very far.  My plan is to slowly get better over the years by mastering just a few things each year then adding something to the garden the following year.

We will start tilling next weekend.  Well, Mr. Right will start tilling next weekend.  I don’t think my 31 week pregnant belly should be running a tiller.  But, I can’t wait to get in the dirt!  

I want to do more of this over the summer...

February Gardening

If you live in Arkansas, there are several things you can plant in February.  I know, it's kind of cold outside but you will be happy you planted something! 

Here's what you can plant:
Kale
Leaf lettuce
Mustard peas
Radish
Spinach
Turnips
Beets
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Collards
Onion
Irish Potatoes
Swiss Chard
Strawberries

So, if you have Spring Fever and you're tired of window farming, get out and plant something!

I think I'm going to start with leaf lettuce. A salad sounds so good!

My window farm

Hens Eating Berries

So, our neighbor does not keep her bushes trimmed back AT ALL.  Therefore, Mr. Right had to go outback and try to recapture part of our backyard again.  That's when he noticed that one of the bushes was loaded with some sort of wild berries.  Then the light bulb in our heads went off....  The hens would love this!  He tossed all the branches in their pen and they went crazy over them!  Berries, leaves...the whole kit and kaboodle.

The moral of the story is this...if you don't keep your yard from growing into our yard then we will use your bushes to feed our hens. 

Part of the guilty party.

Now, we have eggs with extra vitamins.  :)

Why Must Hens Molt?

Raising laying hens is interesting.  I grew up with dogs (inside dogs) not with hens.  So, now I'm learning a lot.  I started getting concerned several months ago when one of our hens looked like she had the mange.  After discussing it with Grandpa, I learned that she was molting.  Now, several of our hens are molting.

Apparently, this happens each year.  They lose their feathers, grow new ones, and usually stop laying during this time.  So, the definition of molting is:  ridiculous looking birds that produce no food.

This isn't our hen but you get the idea. backyardchickens.com

When will this be over?!  We're getting about one egg every couple days.  In fact, we actually went to the store and bought some organic, free range eggs to use in baking.  bummer.

I didn't know how good I had it this summer!

The Great Chicken Light Debate

As the winter months set in, laying hens usually don't lay as much.  I knew that but seeing it in your own backyard is devastating because, well, I reaaallly like eggs.  What to do?  Grandpa keeps a light on in his hen house 24/7.  Many people do that so the hens will keep laying.  Supposedly, laying hens need about 14 hours of sunlight or their bodies kind of go into winter mode.  Obviously, this is natural.  What isn't natural is that there are six laying hens living in my backyard that I am feeding and caring for so I want eggs!

So, here's the debate....should we put a light in their coop so they might keep laying or let them have their down time?  Decisions, decisions....

Oh, how I miss you all.

"Automatic" Egg Collector

We like having animals but we also like to travel.  When we first got the chickens and we left for a weekend, I would just cross my fingers and hope they didn't crack their eggs as they laid them in the nesting box all weekend.  With chickens, you could put a nesting box for each one of them in the coop but they will still use the same box even if it's already full of eggs.
Then I got this bright idea....

An "automatic" egg collector!

Now, they lay their eggs in the box and it rolls down into the plastic container!  No broken eggs at our house!  I lined the nexting box and the container with straw so the eggs roll softly.  That container will hold two dozen eggs and not one of them will get stepped on and broken by a chicken. 

Here is another view from inside the nesting box.  If you were an egg, this is what you would see...

You can tell in that photo how I cut the back of the crate out and the side of the container so the egg would have a path to travel.

The chickens don't mind that the box is elevated and slightly tilted.  At least, I don't think they mind.  They haven't formed a union and petitioned for better laying conditions yet.  So until they do, this is the way the eggs will be collected while we're gone!

Washing Eggs

Aren't they pretty?

One of my favorite things is laying eggs out to dry that I've washed.  I feel rich when I have a dish cloth full of fresh eggs!  The ladies aren't laying as much as they did during the summer but I'll take what I can get. 

Good job, ladies.  Thanks for the eggs.  :)

Can Goats Travel?

This is just a rant...
It would be really nice to have fresh milk.  However, our backyard is too small for a cow (I'm not sure the city would allow that anyway!) and that's A LOT of milk.  But a goat....a goat would be perfect.  We could get a little goat.  There's a problem though.  We like to travel.  When we go see Hubby's family we load the dog up in his crate and he rides in the back of the SUV.  Guess we could get a goat crate?  If we went camping, we could take the goat.  It could go for walks with us like Ranger does.
But...what about when we go places where pets aren't allowed?  Ranger has an automatic feeder so he's good for a weekend or so but someone would have to milk the goat.  Maybe we could train the goat to operate an automatic milker.  I'm sure with Ranger's help, they could figure it out.  OK...not really.
I guess I've found my answer.  Goats can't travel or stay alone and we would need a REALLY good friend to milk twice a day.  That's too much of a burden.
Eh... no goat for me.

Do any of you have goats?  What do you do if you want to leave town for a few days?

Looks yummy!

Eggs and Cholesterol

Many people seem to not eat eggs because they are "high in cholesterol" and "bad for you."  Well, I'm convinced eggs got a bad wrap several years ago so lets do a little myth busting.

Here's what Harvard Health has to say about the situation (highlighting is mine):

Fact: Eggs are a good source of nutrients. One egg contains 6 grams of protein and some healthful unsaturated fats. Eggs are also a good source of choline, which has been linked with preserving memory, and lutein and zeaxanthin, which may protect against vision loss.
Fact: Eggs have a lot of cholesterol. The average large egg contains 212 milligrams of cholesterol. As foods go, that’s quite a bit, rivaled only by single servings of liver, shrimp, and duck meat.

Myth: All that cholesterol goes straight to your bloodstream and then into your arteries. Not so. For most people, only a small amount of the cholesterol in food passes into the blood. Saturated and trans fats have much bigger effects on blood cholesterol levels.
Myth: Eating eggs is bad for your heart. The only large study to look at the impact of egg consumption on heart disease—not on cholesterol levels or other intermediaries—found no connection between the two. In people with diabetes, though, egg-a-day eaters were a bit more likely to have developed heart disease than those who rarely ate eggs.
If you like eggs, eating one a day should be okay, especially if you cut back on saturated and trans fats. 

When I researched the Mayo Clinic site I found this:

How much the cholesterol in your diet can increase your blood cholesterol varies from person to person.
When deciding whether to include eggs in your diet, consider the recommended daily limits on cholesterol in your food:

• If you are healthy, it's recommended that you limit your dietary cholesterol intake to less than 300 milligrams (mg) a day.
• If you have cardiovascular disease, diabetes or a high low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad") blood cholesterol level, you should limit your dietary cholesterol intake to less than 200 mg a day.

One large egg has about 213 mg of cholesterol — all of which is found in the yolk. Therefore, if you eat an egg on a given day, it's important to limit other sources of cholesterol for the rest of that day. Consider substituting servings of vegetables for servings of meat, or avoid high-fat dairy products for that day.

Mother Earth News compared small farmer’s eggs with commercial store-bought eggs and found differences in everything from cholesterol amount, ratio of omega 3 to 6 fats, and vitamin content.  Go home grown eggs!

Here's my conclusion, it's not that eggs are evil it's just that most Americans have so much fat and cholesterol in their diet that they start to point fingers at eggs.  We know that eggs contain LOTS of good nutrients so why don't we point fingers at chips, fast food burgers, processed food, etc?
Don't blame eggs for high cholesterol!