GARDEN INVENTORY - PHOTO-LOG

by Robin

I read yesterday that people are gaining weight by eating so many preservatives in their daily diet.  There must be something to this because in the spring & summer, when my garden is heavily producing, I lose weight.  In the winter... like clock work, I gain about 4 lbs.


Anyhow, this is a photo-log of my Wall Garden.  These are in containers for easy picking right outside my door.







Swiss Chard (White)




Spinach did not come up.  So, I have some more lettuce and salad Kale to plant this weekend. (Make use of every inch!)

Here is my journey to Garden #1 from the Wall Garden.  I come across my little girls (pullets), Julia and Louisa.



And then, there is my personal sinkhole that has put me right on the ground last week.  I am going to fill it up with LOTS of dirt.  It is a serious 10" deep!



Ok, now we're over to Garden #1.  My original one.  As you can see, I did a horrible job of collecting beans without keeping the other ones safely in a jar.  I dribbled out half a row of beans along my walk.  So.... guess what I planted in here yesterday??  More of the same. Might as well join the others.  Broccoli were planted last Fall and just now really producing good.  All the tomatoes are volunteers from the chicken transportation "system".  Onions are from last year.



This is American Broccoli.  I know because it is putting out a nice "head" vs the Italian which just does sprouts.





Compari? Big Tasty Mater?



Ugly Ripe.  Must treat the garden immediately!



Zucchini


Squash


Sweet Potatoes  This should cover the ground between all the plants.



My girls follow me from one end of the garden to the next.  They're ravenous for broccoli leaves. They need their vitamins too!





Ok, we walked over to Garden #2 now.  I believe this is our 3rd spring gardening over here.

Okra  (giving birth from the seed.. LOL)






Kale    I prefer Red Russian because it is flatter and can be sauteed nicer.


Cabbage  Left over seeds from a year or two.  Still germinated!


Compari  (saved seeds on a napkin)



My biggest Compari baby.

Big
Tasty Maters      The original name of these was lost.  Possibly it was a store or farmer's market variety.  The Compari variety came right from Publix.



Big Mama Paste Tomatoes



Another unknown volunteer. Could be just a pretty varigated weed.  Looks lettuce-y.




Pepper row.  Not sure if this was the Bell pepper side or the Jalapeno side.  They take longer to germinate and prefer warmer ground.




Cucumbers are already coming in nicely... especially the sunny side of the garden.  I'll need to put a fence on these pretty soon.




Shady side... not so much.



Unirrigated Pineapple.  (I have about 5 irrigated pineapples in Garden #1 that are unpictured.)




Another volunteer thanks to having chickens.


Collecting eggs after leaving the garden. Yeah!! Doubles.




Silly looking egg. Who did that? Peaches... you look guilty down there.

Oh... and my poor pitiful pool.  We were going to replace it this year but instead had to buy a car for our son.  It is raining leaves every day.  It is a daily chores this week or two.



Happy Gardening.  Now is a great time to get your gardens going!

Robin

CANNING - knocking the dust off my recipes

by Robin

I am so inspired by having the garden set, that I visited the local farmer's market.  My husband requested some homemade spaghetti sauce.  So, thankfully, I recorded most of my recipe on my blog.  Here it is.  I would say that I used approx 1 Tbl of the spices mentioned since I left of that important bit of information.

I bought several pounds of tomatoes.  I took the skins off.




And then began the process of cooking it down.  I'm sorry I don't have a good picture of that process.  The link has a great photo though. I ended up with 2 quarts of sauce. LOT of work for 2 quarts but flavor makes it sooooo worth it.

Robin's Homemade Spaghetti Sauce


Since everything was already out and I had a nice massive pot of boiling water on the stove top, I went ahead and used the 2 of 3 pints of strawberries in the garage frig to make some strawberry jam. Everyone keeps Certo in the pantry, right??  LOL



I was super happy that I had several pounds of sugar leftover from Christmas and plenty of lids and rings in storage.



So, in all, 4 cups of strawberries made 3 pints and 2 small jelly jars worth of jam.  I'm going to give away a jar to a friend.  I love sharing with those who appreciate this lost art.

We had a near freeze last Thursday night and yet today, we reached 80 degrees and I've got all this heat going on in the kitchen.  I didn't think that one through.  Ha ha.

Have a blessed day!
Robin

FEATHER BABIES - growing up

by Robin

My little girls are now 2.5 months.



They have all their back and tail feathers now. They were plucked pretty good from their cell mates at the feed & seed.



For the most part, they get along well with the big hens.  Some slight picking-on but mostly, they've just learned to stay clear of Queen Mallory.



Since I last blogged, we lost Pearl last week to a mysterious illness.  We woke up one day and she was just dazed.  I went to pet her and the other hens (AKA mostly Peaches) attacked her.  So, we isolated her to a dog crate.  Then, we hand fed her, tried to rehydrate her and keep her quiet.  We noticed her stomach was hard and distended.  Not sure if she was egg bound since she wasn't laying anyhow or possible she had peritonitis, which happens when they lay internally and all the yoke builds up, causing an infection.  That would be where I put my money.



Anyhow, nobody else was affected and she died that night.  She looked very peaceful in her hay.  She will be missed.


And Miss Lulu is still the cutest thing going on the back porch.  I do think she gets to come in for the night since we'll be in the 30's.



Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

(I think my next photos will be of some handsome young men.  One is going to the dance.  The other just got a new car. )

Robin

VALENTINE BABIES!!!!

by Robin

Just a few of my seedling have begun to emerge during this cold week.

Cabbage  (My macro lens photography leaves a bit to be desired when trying to bend over and balance myself.)



Kale



Tomato  (blurry!)



Can't remember if this was tomato or kale.




Not sure



More Cabbage (in a container) cuddling up to a chicken feather.



Happy Valentine's Day!

Be sure to keep your babies warm.
Robin

AROUND THE GARDEN today

by Robin

Yesterday, I was so thankful I had my trap set.  Look what I caught hanging around the chicken coop!!



I saw some digging a couple of days ago and set it then.  I thought it was rather small, like a rat or mouse digging.  I was thankful that I reinforced the bottom of my coop the weekend before.  It could have been a different ending to this story if I hadn't been paying attention.

Anyhow, the stinker totally tore up the cage, can inside and managed to remove the handle of the cage and use it as a way of locking himself to the coop wire.  Every time I tried to release the cage from the coop entanglement, he tried to attack me.  There was no way to unhook it without risking injury, so unfortunately, I could not release this one in a different location.



The other day, I also pulled beans and they were drying in the garden.  Not very dry though..... that's why I have them drying further on this wire table.  Good air flow keeps them from molding.



Aren't they just beautiful!!  These are Black Valentine Beans.



Well, after you pick the beans off, you're left with a mess.  LOL. That's why we have brooms.

And Lulu,  she benefits each harvest season too.



Empty space!!!  Well, almost.  I still have some sweet potatoes and cherry tomatoes in there.



Time to think about planting there.



While I'm showing off this garden, I wanted to show you that my broccoli is bolting.



This is not good.  The heads were very small and now...flowers.



We did not have any freezes this year and it looks unlikely that we'll be very cold thru the remainder of February.  Maybe it is time to lay seed in the rest of the gardens.




 My cherry tomatoes (not shown) have been going all through the winter and a much slower pace than spring or summer. Less bugs though, so that is good for me. And then, my bigger tomatoes (above) are beginning to bloom too. I only have a couple of these winter voluntary ones. The chickens reseeded these. Ewwww. LOL.

My thyme is showing signs of new life too.  Greener, longer vines again.  I lost one variety (lemon) but still have the German Thyme.



Here is the bloom of a beautiful Thai Basil.  There's always something blooming and beautiful in the garden.



And I keep a couple azalea bushes around because they tell me when the cobia are migrating through our area.  My bushes are filled with them.  Should I go fishing??



Happy Gardening my friends!
Blessings,
Robin

LAURA from ZAMBIA

by Robin

I am so blessed to have stepped out on faith about 7 years ago and meet up with the lady that spoke at our church on being a missionary from Africa.  I brought my boys, who were little guys at the time, in hopes they would hear some incredible missions stories with a little bit of lions and giraffes mixed in.  

Well, Laura did not disappoint.  And from that day on, we kept in contact.  Every time she comes back to the states, she emails or calls me and we set up a lunch or dinner date.   We've had Mexican, Chinese and amazing salads shared as we went through story after story over the years.  

I love that she has chosen to call me friend and I am blessed to know her.  She is an amazing person doing some very amazing work for Christ.  Don't let her beauty fool you into thinking she is some delicate wallflower!!  She can work on trucks, drive trucks thru rivers, live out in the bush and speaks to witch doctors and tribal chiefs.  Again, I cannot emphasize enough my utmost respect for this woman.  She completely trusts God with her life on a daily basis.  When I grow up, I want to be like her.  Maybe one day I could even go visit her 'home'.  

May God bless her exceedingly abundantly as she continues to raise funds to return to Zambia in a couple months.  

Blessings,
Robin

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!!!

by Robin

Today, we donated our kid slide (yellow) to the local farm/ market.  It will go from furless kids to furry kids.



I think we have found a great new home for it.  Besides, I need the space in my shed.

But, all the goats were curious at first.  Then, it fell and nobody cared any more.  I think they'll be much more interested once it is set up and ready to be used.



While I was there, I ran into a former homeschool student that I taught in Biology dissections.  She's all grown up now and contributing to the Green Market.



But, after we were done chatting, I took my camera out and enjoyed taking pictures of all the beautiful birds on the grounds.



I think there had to be at least 7 roosters hanging around.  This guy was my favorite.



I took some photos of some of them.  The one above needs a 'caption me'.



This one below did not seem to like me around his harem and studied my red camera.  Maybe he saw "us" as a threat.  I quickly slid out past him and went to friendlier roosters.



I have heard nasty stories about those spurs.



I got a couple photos of them crowing.  Oh my!!



The whole farm was a crowing choir!!  ha ha.



Hope you enjoyed the photos today.



Have a blessed weekend.  We have relatives coming into town.

Robin

TIKI vs PEACHES SMACKDOWN

by Robin

So, I snapped this picture a few days ago, but it appears that I missed the bigger picture that was brewing between these two.  They have deemed each other as mortal enemies.

And this morning, they decided to have The Smackdown!!



So, in the morning, we do a bit of shuffling because of the 6-7 wks old babies. Yet, there is a good flow to our new routine and it goes like this:

Get dogs, let dogs out, say hello to Lulu on the way out.  Dogs go pee while I let hens out of coop.  I stand there looking at the garden, waiting for hens to come out, dogs go potty.  I head back to the coop once I see the little girls finally get to the ground and put them into their own separate pen while the big hens are distracted with grass and bugs.

Well, Tiki followed me into the coop area because he loves baby chicks.
Fascinated by their peeps.

I'm done with babies and ask him to leave.  He steps out toward the entire crowd of hens and Captain (chihuahua) who are waiting for us to come out and shut the big door.  I step out, and no sooner shut the door when out of the corner of my eye, I see Peaches come from behind me, wings spread like an eagle and sink both talons into Tiki's back.  He hits the ground, face planting.  At this point, I'm gasping for air for a big scream.  Tiki rolls back to his feet and body slams right back into Peaches, rolling her onto her back, wings a'flappin'.  I think my cheek muscles wanted to begin a smile when I see Tiki open his mouth and go to take a big bite at Peaches' throat.  Funny feeling gone.  My scream finally made its way out my mouth and Tiki released from her neck and backed off about 2 ft.

I thought for sure she was a goner, and had gotten what she deserved for attacking first.  But no, she did get back on her feet and dusted herself off.  I quickly grabbed up Tiki whose heart was racing.  I checked him over for puncture marks.  Thankfully, it was only dirt.  Peaches walked off unremorseful getting high-5's from her feathered friends.

I took several moments to relive the series of events.  Wow.  My 8 lb Buff Orpington tried to take down my 7 lb chihuahua and nearly didn't live.  

I do hope she will rethink her actions before she does something like that when I am not around to call him off of her.  Sheesh, and I can't think of what my 17 lb chihuahua (Yes, he's a giant) would do to her if she picked on him.  He loves to grab and shake snakes.

So, that's the play-by-play of the dog vs chicken smackdown.

Robin

LULU

by Robin


I absolutely LOVE THIS GIRL!!!!





I try to pretend like she's not mine and force my son to do his "bunny chores", but the truth is that I love spoiling her with fresh veggies and herbs.  I absolutely love having her run around my house.



As you can see, her coat is impeccable and she will be a healthy 2 yo very soon.  I even love her little whiskers and turkey neck, which has been half cut out of this picture.



Did I mention how much I love this girl??   Who knew that having a bunny would be so rewarding? When I was a little girl, we had a white bunny..... for about a month.  She bit me.  She went to the "zoo" after that.  I really think she went to my Uncle's house for dinner... but that's just my opinion.

As for Lulu, she has a home with us until she grows very old.