Bountiful gardens

Ahhhh...it's little videos like this that make me a bit sad that I haven't had as much time to devote to my urban farm as I did before going back to school. I love this garden! It's practical and makes use of every inch of space!

As little time as I've spent in my veggie patch, I've spent even less time blogging about it. Sheesh! I'm just horrible. I had a lot of plans for the garden this summer, and most of them fell by the wayside. The good news is that, with Jeff's help (and he was a HUGE help before he got busy with projects like his summer class, painting the house, etc.) we did get a lot of seeds planted in the spring. Not everything we planned on, and we didn't do very well at planting succession crops (or seeds for a fall/winter garden, for that matter), but we ate well for much of the summer. Here's what we had lots of:

• Lettuce
• Kale and other dark leafy greens
• String beans
• Peas
• Summer squash (three kinds)
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Carrots and beets (in lesser amounts)

The big surprise of the season was the cucumbers. I've had trouble growing them some years, but this year the TWO plants that made it (only about 1 in 4 of the seeds I planted actually sprouted, and slugs nipped off a few of those when they were still seedlings) produced like gangbusters. It made up for the end-of-summer lack of lettuce, as I turned to making salads from a whole huge diced cucumber mixed with a large handful of halved cherry tomatoes, dressed with oil & vinegar, salt & pepper and a little crumbled feta cheese.

I also want to say this to anyone in Seattle who whines "you can't grow tomatoes in Seattle": That's a load of bull. We had one of the coldest spring-to-mid-summer periods on record, and I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. Not just cherry tomatoes, either...slicers! And let me tell you, my tomato plants were late to get started from seed, late to get planted out, and then they thrived on benign neglect. They did get regular water (thanks to the drip irrigation system Jeff put in this spring) and I did plant them where they get a full-day's sun (that's just common sense) and I do plant them inside Wall-O-Waters (it's always a good idea in this climate to do something to give the heat-loving babies a little extra of what they want (that can mean planting them near a south- or west-facing wall, putting cages with clear plastic or row cover fabric around them, surrounding them with milk jugs filled with water, etc.).

I've never had a problem getting ripe tomatoes, and I've gardened in the Seattle area for 12 years. Really, cucumbers are more heat-loving than tomatoes, which is why I was shocked that we have so many this year.

In the past, I've had time to grow vegetables more intensively. That's not in the cards now, or for the next few years while I'm in grad school AND working. I could feel all sad and guilty about this quite easily, but I've accepted that I can't do everything and do well at each thing. It's still very important to me to produce at least some of the food that my household of two eats. When I eventually have more time, I'd like to experiment with year-round vegetable gardening and see how much of what we eat can come from our own labor. I also refuse to obsess about not getting into the garden to pick everything. That's the great thing about having chickens...all sorts of things that would have gone to waste now go into the chicken coop. Figs, tomatoes, lettuce, carrot and beet tops...they LOVE them! And it makes for more nutritious eggs.

I will do a chicken update this weekend. I promise!

Beans and broodies

Look at our newly sprouted pole bean seeds!

Look at our first homegrown salad of the season from greens thinnings!

Look at our broody Bob chicken. Yes, again. And she's worse than the first time she went broody for a few days. We were actually getting a little worried, because she's sort of at the bottom of the pecking order (as far as we can tell), and when she started in with the weird vocalizations and feather fluffing that seems to follow getting booted off the nest, the other hens started going after her and preventing her from getting near the feeder.

I finally told the worried Chicken Daddy (that would be Jeff) that we can't stand there all day and hold their hands (OK, wings)...they're chickens, and they would just have to sort it out. And they did, with no lingering harm done. Just occasional screams that I liken to a little girl having her pigtails pulled. Truly, they do act like little girls.

In other farm news, things are looking good. With the slightly warmer temps and enough lingering rain, we're starting to get some serious growth on our seedlings.

Look...kale that looks like kale!

Beautiful baby spinach!

Peas are flowering!

Since the rain won't last forever (Northwest summers are actually pretty dry, with little rain in July, August and early September), Jeff put in a drip irrigation system! I'm so excited! We'd talked about doing it for years, but it's actually happening.

We've been relying on a mix of soaker hoses, overhead sprinklers and overhead hand-watering, and it was just time-consuming, inefficient and not best for plant health (all that overhead water promotes fungal diseases).

We got the last of the tomato starts out last weekend, and our early greens plantings are far enough along that we are planting new crops without concern that they will catch up with the first crop (that's happened to me too many times to count...then you end up with a glut of something, instead of a nice progressive harvest).

Second thoughts

Hey, maybe I should rip out my garlic and peas and lettuce and kale (etcetera) and plant some soybeans and sorghum and tobacco. What do you think?

Sowing the seeds of summer

It was a good day around the "farm." We sowed the last of our warm-weather summer vegetable seeds (although we held off on planting out our tomato starts). I think this weekend was the first time this year that our veggie garden started to feel like it was amounting to something. This unnaturally cold spring has really been getting us down, in terms of our gardening schedule and just generally. However, I realize that we are freakishly lucky that we've only had to deal with depressingly cool weather here. When you factor in tornadoes, massive hailstorms, hurricanes and whatever other craziness has been going on around the country, we really don't have much to complain about. So I am counting my blessings!

Today did turn out lovely, after a chilly start, and we made good use of the mile-high stack of empty Costco lettuce tubs in our basement as cloches for heat loving seeds.

Pole beans.

Bush beans.

Summer squash.

After we took our our weed-infested strawberry bed earlier this spring, I thought we'd have to wait another year before replanting, but I couldn't resist the array of perfect little strawberry starts at a local nursery. What is summer without at least a few garden-fresh strawberries, I ask you? So five Quinault starts made it into my cart, and into a big pot in the garden. They're an everbearing variety, so I should get a smattering of delicious berries throughout the summer.

Pepper starts, too. My indoor-started seeds didn't germinate this year, so I sprung for two pony-packs of small, not-too-hot pepper varieties.

Speaking of seeds, things are progressing on that front, despite the cool weather.

Lettuce.

Spinach.

Peas.

And here's a gratuitous shot of The Biggest Rhubarb Plant Ever (T.B.R.P.E.). I haven't made use of it this year, because I'm trying to find rhubarb recipes that are low-ish in sugar. Not easy. Other than chutneys, which isn't what I had in mind. If I ever go missing, look for me under the rhubarb plant...that thing scares me a little.

Now you see it...now you don't

What a difference a day makes! I got home from my Saturday microbiology lab in time for lunch yesterday, and was able to enjoy it in the dappled sunshine of my patio, with Gwyneth's new cookbook, fresh from the library.

The ladies got to enjoy a sunny happy hour at their old waterer. They use the chicken nipples just fine, but they get so excited when they have the opportunity to drink out of a puddle or basin (do chickens get nostalgic?). Accordingly, I keep old waterer handy so they can imbibe a bit when I let them out of the coop.

Peas are looking perky. I was busy with microbio homework after lunch, so Jeff planted some seeds for kale and other greens for me. Our Seattle spring is still unseasonably cold, but I figure we can plant out our tomato starts and sow seeds for beans, cukes and squash (under cloches) Memorial Day weekend.

I don't feel so bad that I got a late start sowing tomato seeds indoors, seeing as I have to wait longer to safely plant them outside, anyway. We went to a nursery to buy a few herb plants (thyme, oregano and basil) and some petunias and such for our hanging baskets. Their tomato starts were huge and in BAD need of planting out, but our nighttime temps have not been reliably above the mid-40s yet, so good luck with that.

Ironically, the weather took a turn for the nasty while we were at the nursery, and has been that way all day today. Windy, constant rain, cool. Yuck! The ladies agree...about every other time I peek at them out the living room window, they're laying huddled together under the henhouse. I'm so glad we got our flock going last year...I would hate to be starting with chicks this year in this weather!

Four eggs, no brooding

Hooray, I think little Bob is cured of her fledgling brooding habit!

After the incident last Saturday, she was fine on Sunday...but the four ladies only laid two eggs among them, so I'm assuming the lack of brooding was because Bob was not one of the day's layers. Then Monday, she was back to brooding. I caught her trying to hatch her egg and Miss Buttons egg (Marmalade and Coco had laid their eggs in the other nest box). So I pushed her butt forward enough to grab the eggs from under her. Then, because I felt bad, I petted her for a minute while she softly clucked at me.

Then came Tuesday. One egg. I was convinced that little Bob was staging a mutiny: "OK, ladies, no more laying until she brings my babies back!"

Wednesday and Thursday...two eggs each day. What the heck? Very strange for this time of year.

Then came Friday. Four eggs...and no brooding! Ditto for Saturday! Although they put off all of their laying until the afternoon, maybe because they were distracted by Jeff finishing the path next to the coop (Lady Marmalade had been in the nest box a long time, and when I went out there, I found four eggs...clearly the other ladies had already hurried in there to do their business, and we hadn't noticed. Of course, I carried the eggs inside, said "Well, I know why Marmalade was in there so long...she was all backed up!" and showed him the eggs. I think he really believed me for several seconds...).

Speaking of the path...it's all done, except we need to get some more little groundcover starts to plant between the stones.

Things are coming along in the garden. The peas I planted two weeks ago are coming up strong, and the lettuce and spinach is slowly germinating and pushing through. If we get some decent breaks in the weather today, we plan to plant some beets, carrots, onions and more greens.

Rhymes with "corn"

As much as I wanted to use "Garden P--n" as a headline, I suspect that it would not be a good idea. This isn't that kind of blog, although this garden greens slide show from the Garden Design magazine website certainly qualifies. Not sure what kind of lettuces and other leafy green goodness to plant this year? You might get a few good ideas!

Easter eggs

Lady Marmalade was QUITE put out that I invaded her privacy while she was attending to her egg-laying business on the nest yesterday. I rarely open the nest box door when I know a hen is inside (usually when it happens I simply wasn't paying attention that all the chickens were not accounted for in the coop run), but it is pretty cute.

Meanwhile, the rest of the ladies enjoyed their Easter treat of a head of lettuce and cut up carrot tops. Tasty, and good fun!

We got a lot done outside on Saturday, seeing that it was such a glorious sunny day. Jeff made huge progress on the path from the patio to the chicken coop, and even put down pavers in front of the coop. (The ladies went NUTS as he was loosening up the soil, because of all the worms it stirred up. Worms that they couldn't get to. Oh, the chickenmanity!)

Some of our garden beds are still to cold and wet to plant in, but I was able to plant three kinds of peas (shelling, snap and snow) and small patches of lettuce and spinach. I covered up a few beds with clear plastic to help them dry out and warm up. The Zoo Doo we got was really wet and clumpy this year (side effect of our cold, wet weather), so the beds are a little tricky to work with right now.

It is quite fun working in the garden with chickens nearby. It's entertaining, and even a little soothing, to here them going about their business, making their little chicken noises. I especially like how they turn their attention on you with laser-like focus every time you pull up something green. Chickens love weeds! They had a really nice dust bath too, after we were inside (we were peeping at them out a back window). Little Bob was really in chicken ecstasy, with Marmalade next to her until Coco flopped down right between them (how they don't accidentally kick each other in the eye, I do not know). Miss Buttons remained upright the whole time, eating. That's her usual MO. If you've never seen a chicken dust bath, check out YouTube. There are quite a few there, some of them pretty cute.

Front: Miss Buttons. Back (from left to right): Little Bob (aka Babette), Coco and Lady Marmalade.

She's got high hopes!

Happy Earth Day! It's supposed to be 65 degrees tomorrow. Oh please, let it be so!

Our spring has been so cold, and I am so far behind in my seed sowing! Last weekend we picked up a truck load of Zoo Doo from Woodland Park Zoo and spread it around the front and back gardens.

Our garlic is going strong...

...and our asparagus is pushing through the Doo!

We are fighting morning glory coming up in the former weed-infested strawberry patch, so we're going to forgo replanting berries this year. It's a good, sunny, spot, so I'll do either tomatoes, pole beans or summer squash there. It will be easier to nip out weed problems in the bud than it would be if they were obscured by strawberry foliage.

Speaking of weeds, our rhubarb is doing great...

...and so is my pot of lemon balm. Never mind that I had to dig up 10 times that much from beds and paths where it did not belong!

Lil' black pot herb garden.

This weekend we hope to plant our onion starts and sow seeds of peas, carrots, beets, lettuce and some other greens. We even have a packet of "chicken lettuce" to plant for the ladies!

Lunch!

Miss Buttons, Little Bob and Coco did a great job of attacking this lettuce head today. As always...don't let them mistake YOUR head for a head of iceberg. Where's Lady Marmalade? She was on the nest, laying the first of the day's FOUR eggs!

Today was the second day in a row that each hen laid an egg. We've had a lot of three-egg days the last few weeks, but this is a record. I think they maybe had one four-egg day last summer. I guess it makes a difference that they're a year old now.

So, in spite of the fact that the Seattle weather has been cool, wet and a touch dreary, our little garden managed to provide me with some significant lunch ingredients. Eggs, naturally, and some of these mustard greens that overwintered nicely.

I'm planning to start my tomato seedlings indoors this weekend. But other than peas, I don't plan to direct seed anything outside just yet. I've learned, in my five springs in this house, and this garden, that it just doesn't pay to rush even cool-weather crops into the ground until we've had a little more sun and a slight warming. Crops planted a month later germinate better and end up catching up to their early-bird siblings, anyway.

Eat local...walk outside

One bowl of snacked-upon grapes...this is only part of the harvest!

Eating local doesn't get any more local when you're dining out of your backyard. Here's what my lil' urban farm brought to my table yesterday:

• Two eggs
• An apple
• A mass of cherry tomatoes
• A purple bell pepper
• Gorgeous, juicy, jewel-like plums
• A glut of grapes

I'm serious about that last part. Our two grapevines are taking over. One has bonded intimately with our large Japanese maple, and the other is taking over our doghouse-turned-backdoor woodshed and garden shoe shelter (after the dog would only deign to sleep in it under duress). That's OK, because the grapes (the variety escapes me) are no ordinary grapes. They have distinct citrus-like notes to them that are di-vine. (See what I did there...I made a little grape pun.)

Tastee delights!

We left the ladies in the caring hands of our neighbor while we were camping last week. She got fresh eggs  (and two bottles of wine) as a thank you.

The girls had much to tell us when we got home (they are very chatty, and had a week's worth of news). They made good headway on their excavation-to-China project, and left us two perfect eggs, one in each nest box. We got two more today (since we know three of the four chickens are laying, I want to know who the slacker hen is!).

It's quite nice to have them for (chatty) company while working in the vegetable garden. They were rewarded amply, with greens and calendula blossoms and their first ever tomatoes (we had a few that had split while we were gone). Now that's good eating!

A day of firsts

It was hot as the dickens here in Seattle today, so I wiled away the pleasant morning hours puttering around the garden, doing my best to tame the jungle with strategic snips of my pruning shears and flicks of my weeder.

Roughly every half hour, the ladies would raise the worst racket for about 3, 4, 5 minutes. Of course, it felt like they were at it for five HOURS because they were so…very…LOUD.

Buttons and Marmalade were the worst. I would go over and try to play Chicken Whisperer, but they would just carry on while looking me straight in the eye. I had to remind myself very, very hard that endured the barking and whining of a neighbor dog for three years (before they got rid of the poor neglected thing), and that really, a little chicken noise mid-morning on a weekend was no big deal.

Still, I was mortified.

Oddly, the ladies kept going in and out of the hen house, which they never do. They go in to sleep, then come out in the morning. End of subject. Jeff asked me if I thought some attempted egg-laying was afoot. I had read that chickens can raise quite a commotion when they are laying, and had in fact already considered that possibility. So every time they reached 100 decibels, I checked the nests. Nothing.

After a while, they became the boy who cried wolf. I decided to just ignore them. They had food, they had water, they had leafy greens, they had fresh straw in the coop and fresh pine shavings in the henhouse to rearrange. They were fine. Noisy, but fine.

Still, they were especially quiet after the last kerfuffle…and guess why?

Ta da!

The ladies’ first egg. Small, but perfect in every way! I think Coco gets the credit, but I’m not sure. Whoever it was, she laid it right in the nest box, like a seasoned professional. We couldn’t be more proud.

Of course, the egg stole the thunder from the tomato plants, which finally offered up the first ripe fruit late this afternoon:

14 carrots

Well, 17, technically. All organic, all delicious.