State of May 2016

I like to do a post beginning of every May to give a sense of what kind of summer we are heading into. We had a storm system come in yesterday and drop a nice amount of rain with thunder and lightening.  No fires started as far as I know.  

The rain made the chick pen kind of a mess.  Although it is in the courtyard, I had expanded their area and it got rained on.  A soggy mess to clean up.  They seemed to enjoy the rain though.

I have seen the dreaded grasshopper babies already.  Historically if we have a bad year (which we did last year) then the next year is still bad just not as bad.  If no one else is happy about the grasshoppers this summer, hopefully the chickens will be.  

We are getting the chicken coop ready for them and digging a trench to connect the goat electric fence to theirs.  This will make for a very powerful deterrent to predators.  It will have three wires, low medium and high.  This requires me to cut back and move some planting along the garden fence, but I am ready to do it.

Right now the sweet pea, roses, honeysuckle, red hot poker and bottlebrush are blooming.  I have seen several more honey bees so that is encouraging.

I have decided to wait until 2017 to get honey bees.  I tend to take on too much and right now chickens are the priority.  

This last photo is looking from the back of the chicken pen.  The trees here have gotten a lot bigger since we had chickens.  They will provide way more shade for them.  In various areas I am more and more excited about shade and soil building.  I also noticed that the goats are eating a ton of mulberries and not that interested in hay or the cuttings I bring them.

These last two pics are at the bottom of the south swale under the acacia canopy.  They have nitrogen rich leaves and shed them all the time.  Here I found not only crumbly soil but a big fat earthworm just doing its thing. Yay!  And a lot of leaf mulch.  Remember how this area was just huge clods of clay I had to break apart with my rake?  Progress!

Kathy at Goodins had a volunteer Lapins cherry growing by her potting area.  It was full of cherries last week.  I asked her about it.  She said it is self-fertile.  And that my friends is the cherry tree for me.  Self-fertile.  

The pond has a decent amount of water.  Not great but good.  I made a new garden bed in front of the chicken pen, well kind of.  It is getting there!  I am going to use a technique I heard from Horizon Herbs for making them.  They call them "turtle beds."  This area has been "under advisement" for years.  Finally I decided I am just going to plant herbs for making herbal infusions for me, and green manure for the compost.  So, comfrey, nettles, red clover and oat straw.  I am placing two compost areas in the chicken pen which will make it easier for me to dump their manure in there when I clean out the coop.  (Is this post too long?)

And this last photo is my bamboo guild to the left of the front door.  It is made up of yellow bamboo (which looks green when it first comes out), and mule fat as the upper story, bottlebrush on the side taking the wind blast, San Pedro cactus (1), horsetail and blackberry as secondary layers and spearmint at the bottom.  It kind of formed on its own.  And they are tough I will give them that.

Ok one more!  I started this tomato plant by laying a slice of tomato on top of a pot of compost and then putting a thin layer over that.  I just wanted to see if it would work.  And it does!  Now I wonder if it will have tomatoes that are good to eat?  

Here is hoping that the end of your Spring is filled with gentle rain and lots of growing!  

Until next time.

:)