Green thumb is itching, anyone else? - Page 9

Awesome! you can't beat home grown eggs and veggies! That sounds like a good restaurant ya'll got going on, where is it? I love Mom and Pop's type of places to eat

That's a beautiful picture. Do your peafowl bother the garden at all? I am definitely adding peafowl this year

It's catalog mayhem around here.  DH wants everything; so do I but I am the one that does the bulk of the work.  I'm stay-at-home to 3 other adults due to chronic health problems.  This week, I'm doing lots of couch time (flare-up) trying to plan the conversion to intensive and organic a la "biodynamic", an even more involved bit than square foot gardening.  Maybe the meds are making me hallucinate that I can pull this off!

We had pretty bad two last summers with heat, bugs, disease, and critters eating anything surviving the former. 

Google Maps has updated the aerials in our neighborhood to shots from mid October 2011.  I can tell from the high details of where things are in the garden.  Kinda spooky in the Big Brother way.   But if I could print this out, enlarge and trace it, I'd have a PERFECT scale base plan of my garden!  Sadly, I can see in this whole 30+ home neighborhood, only two other houses have even an attempt at a vegetable garden.  25% have swimming pools, something I didn't know.

I am such a scatter-brain; I'll blame the lack of oxygen to the brain right now and the meds. HOW do you choose what to do? Prioritize money and limited labor outlay?  Organic spray schedules? Buy the fences to surround the garden or pay some husky teens to double dig and haul stuff around?  argh. 

Ya'll are so distracting me with thoughts of bananas, and even more tomatoes, and greenhouses.  wo hoo!

It's actually a little italian place called IROC pizza(odd name, but there is a story behind it) in piney flats tn. Everything there tastes like it would taste at home and I was trained in cooking by a guy from Rome and the stuff we have there tastes authentic. You will find whole basil leafs and crushed tomatoes in the sauces. I actually left a well paying healthcare job to work for her for less money, it just makes me happy to cook good food and I am always happy to go to work.

I've got two F1 generation hens, there six months but old and no eggs yet they look healthy and are big hens! I can't wait to see their color!

Oops I meant for this post to be in Olive Eggers section...

I'm still trying to wake up

What we have too much this year I will take to the restaurant where I'm a cook at, it's a little 74 old lady that owns it and the food is all from scratch. I can only imagine how much better it will be with fresh garden veggies and homegrown eggs yummm!

Me too!   I bake at a place - we do everything from scratch, use everything so very little food waste - and am adding some ducks to my flock just to use the eggs at work.
We have a lovely kitchen garden there, but there are some things in my garden that will be for the chef & I as well.  I use a lot of our veggie scraps (and the occasional veal bone after the demi & remouillage) for the chickens and my compost. 

I'm always excited to "meet" other restaurant folk here on BYC.  I don't know why. 

Does anyone plant areas for their chickens specifically? 
I want to grow more bedding this year (don't have the ability to have a hay field or what have you), and would love suggestions from folks who have done this.  I have a about an acre I could dedicate just to bedding, but want it to include things that will be good forage and herbs like Lavender...

That sounds awesome! I like basil, garlic and tomatoes A LOT. Cool, glad you found a job your happy with, happiness is way more valuable than money...

That sounds awesome! I like basil, garlic and tomatoes A LOT. Cool, glad you found a job your happy with, happiness is way more valuable than money...

I have this catalog too.  PLEASE GET CATALOGS THROUGH THE MAIL. LETS KEEP THE PO GUYS IN WORK, OKAY?      

I order catalogs cuz I can sit and read at my leisure and have a cup of tea and Oreo balls. 

So far I've made out an order for two types of Rubarb.  I've a bunch of seeds from CM's clearance bucket for this year too.   

For tomatoes , i do like some of Burpee seeds.  Italian Ice is a good small type and good for salads.  I usually just can/freeze whatever is ripe at the time. That may include cherry or yellows in with the reds. DW uses them for Chili. 

DD is here going through my magazines on Chickens and catalogs for seeds.    They don't have chickens yet.   

I've about five beds of just garlic planted for this year. All different kinds I could get at the farmers market.  Some was starting to come up because it's been so warm.  It didn't get cold enough. I should have probably waited til the ground got cold before covering it with straw. 
I'll remember next year to wait.