My Gardens Failed This Year

Here we go again. I wrote in a post, years ago, that nothing grows in my garden. Someone replied with the comment that said they had an uncle who had the same problem. The uncle passed and was buried, and even things on top of his grave didn't grow.

  Yes, I can grow weeds. They are prolific. But, I cannot seem to grow tomatoes, or anything in the squash family. Either the weather is too hot and kills the plants (97+ degrees outside) or the weather is freezing. If only the plants could understand that there is a window of time where the weather is accommodating to letting them produce!

  So, I grow these tomato plants and they are prolific. They are nice and big. They look promising. But I put a Tulsi (Holy Basil) plant in with them thinking that was a good idea, until someone in a gardening forum informed me that the Tulsi would keep my tomatoes from producing tomatoes. So, I took the Tulsi plant out and put it in a big pot.

   Well, the Tulsi plant is doing great. We really need Tulsi to make tea with. It is supposed to help with sleeping well. The plant is doing well, even though it keeps flowering.

Tulsi (Holy Basil) Plant

You can even see some of the tomato plants in the background of the picture. Sadly, they turned black and most of the leaved died. There is some life on the tops of 2 of the plants that are left. 

    Then I grew something called 'Kiwano', which is in the squash family. The fruit tastes like cucumbers and watermelon. So, finally got some to grow nicely. I didn't realize that they were orange when they were ripe, so I picked a couple of green ones. They also have spikes on them, so I was surprised when big chunks were taken out of them by some animal. I do have one left and am waiting for it to ripen, hoping no other animal finds it first. When I do get a ripe one, I will put it in yogurt. 

I lost many papayas due to the weather and wind blowing. Some of them broke off in the upper parts of the trunk, but the roots were intact, so, I have bent over papaya plants. They definitely are not very strong. 

I have one healthy pepper plant that produces paprika peppers. But the new ones I planted seem to have disappeared or died. 

All these things I am writing about will hopefully help someone in the future. At present, I am experimenting with different ideas. One of those ideas is to use Epsom Salts with the tomatoes and peppers. Also, I got a safe fungicide to use when needed. Also, I read where someone had problems growing tomatoes, and finally got help when they took crushed (in the blender) eggs shells and used them with the tomatoes. I will try that too. 

  The TowerGarden has only peppermint growing in it now. It is too hot to grow anything else that grows in it. The peppermint plant took over the whole TowerGarden and the roots got in the way of everything, so we had to take the thing apart at the top and clean some of it out. 

  I'm using chicken manure from my chickens and adding it to the compost pile in the big garden in the back. I just have to make sure that the dog doesn't get into it, for that is one of his favorite places to go when we let him out in the back! 

   When the results come in, I will have to update this. I will let you all know what works and what didn't work, if anything. This is all a learning process for us all.

           

 

Gardening Updates and Lessons Learned

Here are some of the things that have been going on for the past year or so:

I actually planted Stevia seeds and got a couple of plants to grow. They did well until the weather turned cold. As soon as the temps got into the 30s and 40s, one of the plants would die. Finally, after one of the last cold spells, both plants died.

I planted some Holy Basil seeds (Tulsi) and they came up. I planted one in a 20 gallon pot, and it is doing great. Now I need to find how to use it!

Just planted one of asparagus plants I grew from seed. We'll see how it does in its new space outside. If it does well, I'll plant the others.

Another interesting seed I planted was one in the squash family called, Kiwano. It is also known as the African Horned Cucumber. The pulp inside the fruit resembles lime Jello, according to the description. Some of the reviewers were not impressed with the taste though. The plant is growing well, but no fruit on it yet. The other seeds I planted never germinated, but the plant that did is taking over a big part of the corner of our back yard!

I planted both lima beans and green beans in the spring. The temperatures here were so hot that I believe it killed both the plants. The lima bean plants lasted longer than the green bean plants, but I noticed today that they were no longer alive.

One of the Eucalyptus seeds germinated and is growing into a nice plant now. If you touch the leaves, the scent comes off on your fingers and it is strong.

I am pleased with the Lemon Balm seeds that I planted months ago. I got a couple of Lemon Balm plants that I replanted into the garden. As long as I keep it watered, it should be ok. I read where Lemon Balm, as good as it is, is invasive. I put it in a box garden and hope it stays there. I have a couple of pepper plants in there too, and one has little peppers on it! I can't remember what kind of pepper plant it is though! I guess we'll see when it is fully grown and turns the color it should be.

I planted Moringa seeds last week. They seem impossible to germinate, so, I will wait and see what happens with them.

The pomegranates are growing nicely. I have 3 of them growing and they will be planted in a 20 gallon fabric pot when ready.

The tomatoes are having problems though. The top leaves are fine, but all the underneath leaves turned brown and dried up. It seems to be something relative to the plants in that box, for I have different tomato varieties, yet, they are all affected by this.

Turmeric is growing well, and in one garden, a pineapple is growing nicely.

The avocado plant that I started about 4 years ago has grown into a large tree. But the Mango plant I planted is no longer there so I guess it died and I never noticed it until I looked one day for it.

Out of all the strawberries I have tried to grow, only one or two survived and have grown and spread out to other parts of the garden.

Corn has always been a disaster, but we will keep trying until we get it right.

I planted Calendula and it came up and did well. Had lots of blossoms for a while. Not much happening with them right now though as it's too hot probably.

The paprika pepper plant has given a lot of peppers and I have made paprika from the peppers on the plant.

Homemade Paprika Powder

My Poor Chicken

I am writing this, hopefully, to encourage those of you who have chickens. As we know, chickens are a big asset to our gardening, and they produce their own kind of fruit; eggs.

I pray for my chickens to be productive, and to safely lay their eggs. Hens can become egg-bound, and that could be life threatening. Chickens go through a lot of strange things that I never knew about before I had them.

Over the summer, my chickens stopped laying eggs. All of them, except two. One barred rock and the other an Americauna. The Americauna did eventually stop laying, but only for a short time. But the barred rock kept faithfully laying an egg, almost every day, in spite of the fact that all the other girls stopped laying.

 The barred rock continued to lay eggs until about a month ago. Then something strange happened. This particular chicken was outgoing and always with the group, but now she goes off into the bushes everyday, and just stays under the bushes. When I come out with food, all the others come running. But Clocky doesn't care anymore.

 Clocky appeared to be sick. At first, I thought maybe she was egg-bound, so, I went to the Internet to see what to do to take care of an egg-bound chicken. I soaked her in warm epsom salts water, 2 days in a row. I never felt any egg in her, but I did get to learn more about the chicken's anatomy by doing this!

  I prayed for Clocky to get well. And she appeared to be well again. But this week, she is hiding under the bushes again, or just sitting in the coop. Maybe she wants to be away from the rooster?

  It's been almost a month now, and Clocky is still not laying eggs (although I had more eggs the other day than I do hens. Not sure what happened, and don't know if perhaps Clocky did lay an egg).

  Clocky's personality is one of being an extrovert. When I got my first 3 chickens, they all came from the same place, and those 3 ended up being very well bonded. Unfortunately, one of them was a rooster, and he really does think he is the one who rules the roost! But the trio is now only a duo, with Clocky missing from the group.

  But for now, Clocky has a different personality. She isn't gregarious at the moment. One time, she even attacked one of the other girls who also hides a lot in the bushes.

  There are 2 reasons I know she is molting. First, she isn't laying eggs right now. She needs to take a break for she has laid eggs for 18 months straight, which isn't what hens usually do. Also, I am finding her feathers here and there. I read somewhere that when chickens molt, it is painful, and feels like a toothache (I would be interested in learning where the author of that article figured out how a chicken feels when they are molting!). Also, it is very stressful for them.

  So, unless there is something else wrong with her, other than molting, she is going through a hard, rough molting period. None of the other girls went through it with this much difficulty. Hopefully, she will come out of it soon and feel better.

  So, if anyone is wondering why their hen is acting strange all of the sudden, perhaps she is molting.

  Here are a couple of articles on molting:
An In depth Look At Molting
What Happens When Chickens Molt

Can't find Clocky. But everyone else is
in this picture.

Update: The day after I wrote this article, we lost Clocky. She was found no longer alive in her nest box the next morning. We loved our little pajama girl and will greatly miss her.

Saffron in my Back Yard

Saffron Crocus - 2018

I planted the saffron crocus bulbs in the spring, and it got so hot in the summer, that I assumed the plants had died. This had been the third time I planted saffron. The first 2 times were not very successful, so I assumed this time could have been the same, especially since the summer was so hot.

But lo and behold, I looked out there one day and there were purple flowers. I knew the plants were still alive at this point. They were pretty and you could see the saffron filaments inside the flower! This was a good sign because that is how we get saffron.

In case you didn't know, saffron is quite expensive. I think it sells for something like $58 for a gram, or something like that. At a price that high, I think I can grow my own.

As the flowers blossomed, I managed to remove the filaments and put them on a lid to dry. I will use them to make rice look more colorful.

Saffron, a highly expensive spice

Maybe over time, I will order more saffron bulbs. Or better yet, maybe the saffron bulbs that are in the garden will multiply and I will end up with more than 1 gram of saffron next year.

My Newest Gardening Tools

Here is a picture of my newest gardening tools.

The girls playing in their yard, one December day in 2017

They are such good helpers and they produce a good amount of eggs, considering it is winter and the days are short.

Chickens need light to produce eggs. It's been cold out but the chickens seem to be surviving the change of temperature very well.

The egg production got so low a couple of days ago, and I attributed that to the lack of light during the day, but, I found their secret! I found a stash of eggs under the coop! They were dirty so I used them in making a cake.

A few of the girls insist on laying their eggs under the coop, which means I have to slide under the coop and get the eggs. But the Barred Rock girls, aka, my Pajama Gang, still lay eggs in the nest boxes.

Thanks Sage and Olive, for making me
have to slide under the coop to get
your eggs out.

Pretty soon I can take their excrement and put it into the gardens. If I put it in fresh, it will burn the plants.

Our rooster, Ginger, should be grateful that he is part of our yard. Ginger attacks every once in a while. But I show him who the boss is, and he changes his mind. If you ever have a rooster who wants to take over, stare him down. Show him that you are the boss. If Ginger were in anyone else's house, he may have ended up on the dinner table!

"I'm the top dog around here. Nobody touches my girls or
they will be sorry!"

As for the rest of the gardens, they are taking a break. Hopefully, they will be back with good produce in the spring or summer.

Rudi Is Gone And Ginger Is A Rooster

Yesterday was a very interesting, yet also very sad day.

About 4 months ago, we set up a chicken coop and run in our yard. Over a period of several weeks, I tried to collect specific types of chickens. At two different feed stores, I had my name down for Americaunas and gold wyandottes.

All of the chickens I would get would have to be pullets, which means they would have to be females. Some people at the hatcheries where these chickens are hatched, are skilled in determining if a chicken is a female or male. But, there is a little bit of room for error.

The first three 'pullets' I got were a Rhode Island Red and two barred rocks. The Rhode Island Red was named 'Ginger'.

This is a picture of me holding 'Ginger'

The chickens were only a couple of days old when I got them. Ginger loved to come out of the tub. She was very selfish and would try to be first. 

Two weeks later, I got five more chickens. One was a New Hampshire Red, another was a black sex link. Then I got two Americaunas and one gold wyandotte. Hopefully, all these chickens would be pullets. But there is about an 8% chance that you could end up with a rooster.

Ginger seemed to be developing much faster than the other chickens were. She probably was the oldest, so I gave her some room for that. 

About two months later, Ginger had a nice red comb on the top of her head. Not too long after that, she started getting wattles, I think they are called. 

Around this time, a rooster ended up in our yard. After a couple of weeks of this rooster being here, we found out that someone had dumped him into the neighbor's yard, and their roosters chased him into our yard. He never left our yard, so we adopted him. We named him 'Rudi'.

We liked Rudi a lot because he was good protection from the hawks. As the girls got older, and used to their coop and run, we let them play outside more. Rudi didn't have a house to stay in though. He stayed in the bushes. Then he started roosting on the barn fence at night.

Yesterday morning Rudi never came for his morning feeding. I went out to look for him and found him. It was terrible. At first, I didn't recognize him. It looked like someone deflated him. I could tell it was him because the feet were sticking up. 

I am pretty sure a raccoon got him either early Sunday evening or Monday morning. It was very sad.

As my husband was burying him, the neighbor's peacocks came over and watched. It was like having a memorial service for him. He will be greatly missed, not only by us, but also by his peacock friends next door.

Meanwhile, as each day goes by, we are more and more convinced that Ginger really is a rooster. Yesterday, the final decision for that came about. 

As I let the chickens out to play, well, I noticed Ginger, let's say, he is now sexually mature and actively looking for a female chicken to be his partner. In this case, his selected partner was one of the barred rocks. He tried a couple of different times today, with the barred. 

We know now that Ginger is really a rooster. Or something is severely wrong with him. 

Ginger will be good at replacing Rudi for helping protect the girls from the hawks. We also have the peacocks to help as well as the neighbor's turkeys. 

I will keep the name 'Ginger' on him though. But that means we will get less eggs for the next six years. Glad I didn't count my chickens before they hatched!

I Didn't Expect This To Happen!

There must be some kind of learning curve for raising Chickens. Whatever it involves, I must be missing something.

I came up with the brilliant idea of training the chickens to go into the run where they will be secure, by coming out with a yellow cup filled with dried mealworms. My plan worked for a while.

Just when I thought the chickens would be all excited about the time of day when the worms would be offered, either they changed their minds or lost interest in the worms.

I managed the other day, to get 7 of the chickens back into the run using the worm bribe. But Esther had a mind of her own. She either doesn't care for dried meal worms, or was so absorbed in whatever it was she was doing that she didn't notice.

I thought I could outsmart her by putting the cup holding the dried worms under her beak. Nothing happened.

My next thought was to get her into the coop first. So, today I just picked her up from her dust bath and put her in the coop. Of course, I am hoping that all the others see the cup holding the worms and go into the run when I put the cup inside the run.

It didn't happen today. Since Esther was inside the run, I had to keep the door shut or else she would find her way back outside the run and I would have to figure out how to get her back in. Try getting 7 chickens back into the run with the door shut!

Usually Ginger is the first one to come in and eat the worms. She is a selfish chicken! But this time, I caught her and put her inside the run. And this is what happened to my arm after I got her put in.

I didn't realize anything had happened until I saw all this blood on my arm. I got out some melaleuca essential oil and put it on. Since I was in a hurry, I couldn't tend to it. 

It's not that the cuts were painful or anything like that. But some of them were puffy. When I got back home, I cleaned the cuts up and put coconut oil, more melaleuca oil, and oil of oregano on the cuts. 

Ginger. My favorite chicken. How could she do this to me????

Ginger is one of the first chickens I got. She is, at this time,
the biggest. The 2 Barred Rocks are about the same age,
and they are almost as big as Ginger. Ginger is the one with
the big red comb. And we all know that it is possible
that Ginger might really be...George.