Glorious Eggs

This weekend, I got to do a big sigh of relief.  Building the brooder, sweeping up feathers, building a coop, chasing chickens out of my garden for 4 months…it’s all been worth it.  Know why? Because this weekend, we found THIS!

Yayy!!

We’ve gone through approximately 200 lbs of feed, 3 rolls of chicken wire, dozens of lost tomatoes, and countless fights between the hens and the dog, but it was all worth it!  We’re now at about half a dozen, although we keep eating them, so I can’t prove that! It looks like just one hen is laying so far (the one we thought looked like a rooster!), but hopefully the other 5 aren’t far behind.  Look out friends! We’re about to have eggs!

A Day of Canning

Well, this post is only a week late, but I’m writing it! What can I say? It’s been a busy and distracting week.

Rain rain, go ahead and stay!

Last Sunday, we woke up to a nice, rainy morning.  Now, there will come a time later in the year where I do tend to complain about rain quite a bit.  But August in Southeast Texas is not one of those times.  We decided to put the rainy day to use, and got busy in the kitchen!

Pretty Cans

We knew when we planted our garden this year that we intended to can as much as possible.  We’d hoped for more tomatoes, so that we could can those, too, but those darn stink bugs (actually leaf footed beetles, but po-tay-toe po-ta-toe) so we ended up with just enough for a jar or two of salsa.  Those are still in the freezer until I decide to splurge at the grocery store for the rest of the ingredients.  So, our canning was put on hold a little this year, but now our okra are coming in like crazy, and my grandmother’s friend brought us this:

Bag of Figs

Not only could we not even think of eating all of those figs, but they were also already frozen.  sigh.  The only option left was to make fig preserves, which are the best thing ever on a buttered muffin. If you haven’t tried them, go ahead.  It’s almost impossible to be disappointed.

We figured since we were at it, we may as well harvest our jalepeno plants as well, and make some jalepeno jelly.  Some will go out as Christmas gifts (oops, spoiler for family and friends), some will be brought to social gatherings, and others will be enjoyed at midnight with a cube of cream cheese and a sleeve of crackers while I watch re-runs of Scrubs.  Don’t judge.

Canning fig preserves

So, we got to work.  8 hours, 3 big messes, 5 dirty pots, and 43 jars later, we were done.  And tired.  But our first day of canning for the season was a big success, and a lot of fun. We ended up with about 24 1-use sized jars of jalepeno jelly, 8 cans of okra, and 10 cans of figs.  Yes, I realize that adds up to 42 and not 43 jars, but believe it or not, one jar actually exploded in the canner!  That was definitely a first for us, but apparently it can happen if you’re re-using a jar, or the jar is too cold when you put it in the hot water.

All in all, it was a fun and productive day.  We’ll have to do it again really soon, too, since we’ve already got enough okra to go through it again! This time it will be on a much smaller scale.

Do you can produce from your garden? What are some of your favorite recipes? For those of you new to canning, stay tuned for a canning 1o1 post real soon!

DIY Garden Fence

This week, Cage Free Dad and I decided to get started on a garden fence.  We’ve known for awhile that we wanted to fence off the garden, but our struggle with birds and squirrels made us get started sooner than expected.  We don’t have a huge budget for these projects, having just moved in and having way too many projects to finish at once, so I wracked my brain for a simple, free idea.

Ta-da!

We constructed this fence from old wood pallets and recycled fence wood.  We didn’t spend a single penny on supplies, which is just great! I love the uneven, messy look.  Eventually, we’ll paint it, but it’s just not in the budget right now.

We designed the fence in a way that we’ll be able to expand it as our garden grows, without too much work.  Right now we just wanted something around our immediate garden so that we could drape the bird net right on the inside of it and fully protect the garden from those pesky birds.  An added bonus, our chickens can now roam the yard again!  They had a great time enjoying the yard after CFD mowed.  Hopefully, letting them out again will help with the bug problem we’ve been having.

I’m pretty proud of our little freebie project.  It sure did take a lot of labor time (we actually started 2 weeks ago pulling apart pallets and fences), but I think it’s worth it! We should have enough wood right now to fence our entire future plot, too.

The process was pretty simple, but I’ll break it down here.  First, we broke apart pallets.  Those were a PITA, though, so after a few, CFD moved on to fence wood, which was much easier.  He cut those boards in half, because we didn’t want a tall fence.  Then, I laid out all the pieces on the grass, staggering cross beams all the way across.  We didn’t measure a certain distance for the boards, just eyeballed it, since we weren’t looking for a perfect looking fence.

Fence posts that borders the garden previously, shown in photo.

Once all of the cross beams were screwed in, we lifted the fence and screwed them to the round fence posts that were already bordering our garden for extra support.  (see photo above)

Once that was done, we secured the corners by making wooden L’s to screw in.  Once that was done, the fence was complete! We still need to build a gate, but I’m hoping that such a small opening won’t be noticeable to the chickens and other critters in our yard.

Side view

Don’t you just love projects that turn out to be free? I know I do!

How to Fertilize an Organic Garden

I’ve put off a post about organic garden fertilizing for awhile, because I sometimes wonder “who am I to offer gardening advice?”  After all, I’ve made it very clear that I am also learning as I go. In fact, if you’ve been following my blog since the very beginning, you’ll know that my garden last year was abysmal.  It was my first attempt at organic gardening, and it was a huge learning experience for us.  However, I’ve had some questions about how I fertilize to help my plants thrive without resorting to commercial fertilizers.  I thought I’d go ahead and share my tips now, so hopefully I can encourage other gardeners to convert! After all, if you see something that works, it might help you make the switch to organic.  All of these tips are based on trial and error, and a lot of research on organic websites (see bottom of post for links).

My favorite fertilizers for my organic garden include:

• homemade compost (come back next week for a post on composting)
• Epsom salts
• used coffee grounds & banana peels
• egg shells
• natural garden mulch.

I feel that the combination of these in my garden has made a much bigger and healthier garden this year.  Now, I’ll break down the how and why of each item I use.

June 2013 Cage Free Mom Garden

First, and foremost, compost is the easiest and most essential addition you can make to your organic garden.  I let mine mature all year, and then add it to my garden bed and till it in once before planting.  It can make a world of difference! Not only does it add essential nutrients to your soil, it can also improve the drainage.  This means that if you have heavy clay soil like I did, you can make it better year after year by simply tilling in your compost each year.  Eventually, you won’t even be able to tell it was ever clay.  It will just be dark, rich, well drained soil.  If you aren’t adding compost to your garden yet, do it!

Compost Pile

Epsom salt is another favorite in my garden, but this one seems to be more plant specific.  Plants that really seem to benefit the most from the use of epsom salt are tomatoes and peppers, although I’ve also been advised to add it to my cucumbers as well.  Epsom salt adds sulfur and magnesium to your soil, which are both vital nutrients to these plants.  In addition, if it is added to your soil dry, it can help deter slugs, which are a really common garden pest.

To use epsom salt in your garden, there are a few ways you can do it.  A great way to get your plants off to a healthy start is to add about a tablespoon to the hole before you plant your pepper or tomato plant.  This gives your plants a great source of nutrients right at the beginning so they have the best start possible.  In addition to using this during your first planting, you can also add it occasionally during the growing season.  The best way to do this is to either apply it dry around the base of your plant, or mix 2 TBS of epsom salt into a gallon of water and use that to water your plants.  This is my personal favorite method, although I’ve added it dry on a few occasions when I was in a hurry.

My natural fertilizers ready to work.

Coffee grounds and banana peels are two other great natural sources of nutrients for your veggie plants.  Coffee grounds are a great source of nitrogen and banana peels are used to add potassium to the soil.  For both of these fertilizers, you can either add them to your compost bin, or put them directly in your bed.  I do a bit of both.  When I want to put the coffee grounds in my garden, I generally just sprinkle the used grounds around the base of the plant.  Not only does this fertilize the plant, but it also burns slugs, keeping them off of my valuable produce.  For banana peels, I generally take whatever peels we’ve produced in the last few days and puree them in a blender with a bit of water, then pour it around my plants.  You can add them whole, or broken into bits, but I feel that pureeing them first allows the break down of nutrients to occur much faster, giving you quicker nutrients for the plants.

Egg shells are another great addition to your organic garden.  They provide calcium, and can also help deter slugs (are you noticing a pattern here?).  When planting my garden at the beginning of the season, I added a handful of blended egg shells to the holes during planting.  Then, throughout the growing season, I simply rinse my egg shells after breakfast and add them to a bag.  Every few weeks I toss them into a blender and then pour them directly around my plants to give them an extra dose of nutrients to keep them healthy.

Straw mulching the garden

Lastly, if done correctly, your garden mulch can also be a great source of fertilization for your plants and soil!  Many gardeners don’t consider this, since mulch is usually used to keep the soil moist and protect the plant roots from heat, but if you opt for a natural mulch rather than a bag of the rubbery mulch offered in stores, your plants will thank you.  Natural mulch includes hay, straw, dried yard clippings, shredded tree leaves, and tree branches sent through a chipper.  You will have to reapply your mulch more often this way, but that is because it breaks down so fast and goes right into the soil.  As an added bonus, at the end of the season you can just till in whatever is left and leave it for next year!

After careful research all winter long, I devised this system of fertilizing my veggie garden.  I’ve been using these natural fertilizers all season, and I’ve never had a garden look so good.  I feel that a combination of these natural fertilizers gives my plants everything they need to remain healthy all season long.  An added bonus is that you probably won’t have to spend much extra money by doing it this way.  If you do your own composting, that is a free soil amendment.  Bananas and coffee are already on my grocery list, and we eat eggs most mornings for breakfast.  This system simply uses our waste to help produce more veggies! The only things we had to buy to help fertilize our garden were straw and epsom salt, both of which have provided other uses as well.

My favorite gardening websites are MotherEarthNews.com , Organicgardening.com, & organicgardening.about.com

The Chickens are No Longer Chicks

I swear, now that the chicks I mean chickens, have left the brooder in the house, they are changing at a crazy fast rate.  Who knew chickens grew so fast?! (Okay, well, I guess I did, but still…)

We’ve officially started to let them free range fairly often.  I mean, we kind of had to. Once they had a taste for it, they quickly learned how to fly over the fence for their run and wander the yard on their own anyway.  I swear, it’s like keeping a toddler in their new bed.  It just won’t happen.

Free Range Chicks

Well, hey.  The only reason we really kept them in the run is to keep them away from Scout, our overly playful pup that seems to think they are toys.  But you know what? It turns out these chicks can really handle their own.  Scout is now afraid of getting pecked on the nose again, and all it takes is a cock-eyed look from one of the chicks to send her running in the other direction.  Mission: Accomplished!

They’ve also really gotten to know us! It’s so funny.  Every time they see one of us, the whole flock comes running (and if you’ve ever seen a chicken run, you know what I mean by funny).  In fact, it was incredibly hard to get this picture of them free ranging, because they kept running at me while I was trying to get in the best angle to get a picture!

In addition to running at us every time they see us, they really actually like to be held (well, most of them do, we’ve got 2 shy ones).  And Pistache loves holding them, too.  So it’s a win-win for everyone.

Friendly chicks.

Cage Free Dad enjoys holding them, too.  For some reason, they really like to roost on his arm and listen to him talk.  Or…maybe they just think he’s crazy for talking to a chicken? I sure do!

 

Chicken Talk

They also really love roosting on his shoulder, although I don’t think he’s quite as comfortable with that!

Did it poop on me?

The answer, of course, is no it didn’t poop on him.  I wouldn’t have been mean enough to snap a picture of that. But it was funny to see him get so nervous about it!

As far as growth updates, I’d say they are hitting puberty.  They go back and forth between peeping like chicks and clucking like chickens, which really reminds me of boys during that phase of life!

They’ve also finally started eating some table scraps.  These crazy birds really love cabbage! So funny.  I’ve tried a variety of things, and the only decent response has been to strawberry scraps and cabbage scraps.  They turn their noses up at everything else! Who knew chickens were picky?

All in all, our chickens are growing at an impressive rate.  I’m anxiously awaiting our first eggs, but I know it will be awhile before that starts up.  I’m hoping for August, though!

 

More Coop Work

I don’t know about everyone else, but I feel like we’re constantly doing work to our chicken coop.  Every time I think, “Yay! We’re done with the coop! I can post the final update on the blog,” I find something that needs to be changed.  Sorry, guys.  You may never see a completed coop picture.

However, I can show you an updated picture of the run, because we’ve done some serious work, there!

Door added to the run

The most noticeable things we’ve changed about the run are that we fenced it higher up, making it more secure. We also added a door, since we can no longer climb over the fence.

New door to the run

The door was really simple to construct.  It’s just chicken wire and some old fence posts.  We don’t have it latched with anything right now, but it’s heavy enough to keep our dog out and chickens in, and we don’t have much of a predator problem right now so we’re not in a big hurry to change that.

In addition to those changes, we also made it more secure at the bottom, because we found where either our chickens or the dog had pulled up a bit of wire, creating a hole at the bottom of the fence.  We did this with some simple metal camping stakes, and it has held up pretty well so far.

Some of the changes I still want to make are:

1. Make the fence even higher, since the girls are still flying over it very easily.
2. Cover the top, because we keep forgetting to lock them up at night, and I’d feel better about that if I knew they couldn’t get out of the run.

Over all, some pretty simple changes are coming this weekend.  I *think* we’ll be done after that.  At least for a little while.

So far, the ladies seem to like it a lot in there.  They are constantly grazing, and come running up every time I walk by.  They love to hide out under the coop and enjoy the shade.  Now, if only I could find a way to make this entire run mobile, I’d be one happy chicken owner!

Enjoying their yard

Let the Harvesting Begin

I can’t believe the day finally came.  It always seems to take ages for the first harvest, but today, I picked the first ripe veggies from my garden (not counting the occasional green onion clipping).  It feels so good! I just can’t wait to put these goodies to use.

 

Today, I had a jalepeno pepper (or at least it’s supposed to be jalepeno…that’s a pretty light pepper!), 2 cherry tomatoes, a green onion clipping, a cucumber, and another handful of berries.

So far, the garden is doing better than we could have hoped.  As long as all the peppers and tomatoes hanging on our plants right now ripen, we’ll be doing loads better than our garden last year!  Hopefully, we’ll be harvesting more veggies in the next few weeks, but I’m so excited to already have ripe food straight from the garden.

A Day of Handmade Beauty

As most of you know by now, I am a big advocate for green beauty products.  Because your skin is the largest organ, it’s not only important to watch what you put in your body.  It’s just as important to watch what you put on your body. So, basically, you can eat organic produce and grass fed beef all you want, but unless you change your skin care routine, you’ll still be putting all sorts of unwanted carcinogens in your body daily.

Sunscreen, whipped body butters, lip balm, and chapstick with sunscreen.

On that note, this weekend, I biked (5 miles, whoot!) over to my cousin’s house and made all sorts of goodies for us to share.  The sunscreen and chapsticks are a new experiment for both of us this time, but I have been using her whipped body butter for a few months now.

In fact, until I switched my skin care routine a few months ago, I had horrible, horrible acne.  Like, the deep, painful, ones all over my face that left scars.  Now, I use an organic face cleanser from a local store called Down to Earth, a gentle astringent, and some of this whipped body butter twice a day.  Poof! No more cystic acne! Don’t get me wrong, I still get tiny white-heads due to hormonal changes, but it’s nothing like before.

The best part about all of these are, I know what every single ingredient is.  There isn’t a single ingredient hidden in my new skin care products that I didn’t put in there.

If you’re interested in making your own products, trust me, it’s not hard.  If you can cook by following a simple recipe, you can do this, too.  In fact, we followed the recipes over at Wellness Mamma to the “T.” We just added our own scent combos to make them more enticing.

So, this weekend, I encourage you to go out and try some recipes of your own.  You may surprise yourself by how much more you like the stuff you make! I mean, isn’t that how it always goes?

 

 

The Chickens Have Left the Building!

No worries.  I didn’t get rid of the girls.  I just finally got them out of my house and into their new home! Technically, this happened more than a week ago, but you know how life gets, especially with out of town guests and an impromptu beach vacation!

First day in the run, checking out their first offering of scraps

They seem to really enjoy roaming around in their chicken yard, and we’re trying to get them interested in kitchen scraps.  They still seem to enjoy the food, more, so I don’t know if we just haven’t found a food they like or what.  We’ll keep trying, though!

Enjoying some shade under the coop

They really seem to enjoy the area under their coop, and run under there whenever they hear a loud noise. However, as of yesterday, they have started going back into their coop on their own at night, which has made our bed time routine much easier! Before, they went under there at night and we had to crawl in and move them into the coop.  Not fun.

We’d eventually love to give them a chance to free range in our yard, but our puppy, Scout, has got to learn first that they are not toys.  As you can see, she’s very, very interested!

First day in the run, Scout wants in, too!

Scout still wants in, today! But she’s happy just watching.

Until then, they can enjoy the grass in their separate yards. We also hope to make a second, mobile run soon, so that we can put all of their pecking and scratching to use for us in our future (and current) garden beds.

And…one more picture of the ladies doing their typical activities in the run, just for your enjoyment!

They still don’t care for the scraps. Hmm…

DIY Cucumber Trellis

In my last post, I discussed the benefits of using bamboo in the garden.  The cut and dried stalks make great garden stakes for your plants that require a little extra support.  Plus, if you know someone that grows bamboo, it’s a much more cost effective way of staking your garden without buying commercial cages and stakes, that often don’t offer enough support as your plants continue growing.

Today, I thought you’d like to see another way I’ve used bamboo in the garden, because it solved another common garden problem.

Cucumber trellis made from bamboo

{Disclaimer: please ignore that awful, awful fence.  It’s our neighbors, and the house is currently in contract to sell, so we’re patiently waiting!}

I personally don’t like growing my cucumbers on the ground.  They get dirty, the cucumbers remain hidden, and they are more susceptible to different plant illnesses.  Growing cucumbers on a trellis also takes a lot less room, so it’s a great alternative for gardeners without much space.

The photo above shows my DIY cucumber trellis, that Cage Free Dad and I made using 5 bamboo stakes and some baling wire. The total cost for the project was about half the cost of a spool of baling wire, so it was very budget friendly.

When we planted our cucumbers, we didn’t actually have this trellis design in mind, but it really worked out.  We have 2 rows of 4 plants each, so when it came time to make a trellis, we simply constructed this triangle shaped trellis right in between the 2 rows of plants, so that they’ll climb along the outside of the trellis (if you have the plants grow on the inside it’ll be harder to reach the cucumbers when the plants are fully grown).

How We Did It

First, we cut our bamboo stakes to about 3′ long (I didn’t measure, just eye-balled it).  Then, we pushed the stakes into the ground a couple of inches to make them more sturdy.  Our soil always stays a bit moist, so it was easy to push the stakes in where they needed to go.  We put them right on the outside of the last plants in the rows.  If you have longer rows, you may want to consider having another stake to go in the middle of the row to support the wires, but this design worked well for us.

Once we had all 4 stakes where we wanted them, we used some baling wire to connect the tops of the stakes, so it makes a sort of tent design.  Then we added the 5th stake across the top and secured it with more baling wire.  This made the construction really sturdy.  In fact, it withstood a pretty good thunderstorm last night with no signs of wear and tear.

After we had the skeleton of the frame put together, we simply strung several lengths of wire across the stakes, making sure to pull them tight.  This is the first part that really needed 2 people, so that we could get the wire tight and secure.  The rest of it I was able to construct myself while Cage Free Dad worked on the chicken coop.

Finally, we were done and just had to gently start training our plants to grow along the wire instead of the ground.  As you can see in the photo, a few of the plants have grown considerably, and are already able to trellis to the second wire!  If you’re really on top of your game, I suggest having the trellis in place before planting your plants, because they grow fast, and it’s easier to train them from the beginning.

There are plenty of other options for trellising your cucumber plants (and other vining plants), but for us, creating our own was the best option.  We were able to use materials we had on hand and saved a bunch of money.  If you decide to use this trellis idea for your own garden, please feel free to add a photo of it to my Facebook page!