Arizona Chickens

Gallo! More sunken garden info Please! I'll bet Moringa seedlings would LOVE it!

A sunken garden
Begins and ends with a hole
What next for this void?







TT!'s sweet verses:

Once upon a time
This hole was more than a hole
It was a garden



there was another, but it would get me banned.
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Gallo! More sunken garden info Please! I'll bet Moringa seedlings would LOVE it!

A couple weeks ago I was at my monthly local subversive food production meeting and we had the guy in charge of education outreach at the Tucson Community Food Bank give a talk about what they were doing to help feed people in southern Arizona. They provide food for a giant portion of southern AZ, but they can't possibly provide enough. They've decided that they have to focus their efforts on teaching the people how to grow their own food. This presenter talked about a cool project they have going with four Title 1 elementary schools in the Tucson area. At each school they built chicken coops and are raising chickens. They also built compost bins and they teach about composting and made compost tea brewers for producing fertilizer. They're also making (sunken) gardens and aquaponics systems. The great thing is that the kids and their parents are the ones doing all of the work at building and maintaining these projects. The gardens were standard permaculture methods for arid environments. You start with a giant hole. They made trenches that were about 4' wide and 3-4' deep and very long. They filled the trenches with a mixture of mostly compost (which they made) and a little bit of the native soil. After it's planted you mulch like crazy (for most things) to prevent the soil from heating up and losing moisture. You also don't step into it--soil compaction is bad in this scenario. You make the garden so that rain run-off flows into it and the garden ends up acting like a giant sponge, storing the moisture down deep below. Structured in this way, the garden uses a lot less water than it might otherwise. The guy said the kids just love being involved with all of these things and from his pictures, it seemed that participation is high and the kids seemed eager to learn. Anyway, I thought it was cool that they were teaching kids to do this.
 
Hey, this is totally not chicken related but I wanted to spread the word...We did an estimate today to spray a lady's olive trees. Imagine her surprise when we told her one of her trees was a young Swan Hill, which does NOT produce olives. She had paid a tree company $75 to spray it last year. I got so mad when DH told me I just had to spread the word for any of you who have Swan Hills. They DO NOT need to be treated (unless they are old, then they might produce a FEW olives). I just hate it when I hear about companies taking advantage of people. Grrrrr....
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Ok, I'm done.
 
My Lockdown starts tonight! Out of the 18 eggs I got from Aurorarose only 4 were clear eggs. Might interest you Aurorarose that all 4 clear eggs said pen #2. Please wish my luck on my hatch everyone!
 


Okay Peepers.. You said to come back at you with more pictures as the peeper grws, and you might be able to answer if it is a pullet or not.. The small picture is the original 10 day old shot of the peeper in question.. The larger pictures are the 8 wee old shots of the same peeper.. Sooo, what's your guess now.?.. Will
 
Snuck on for a few minutes tonight...

I'm going tp put the young'uns in the tractor this weekend. (3-4 wk olds)

Maybe see if they get along with the slightly older young'uns (4 - 5 wk olds)

Kinda want to get em all outside but I think it is still too cold.

Gonna be in the low 40's tonight. Got a heat lamp but still a worried papa.

I've still got shirts for a bunch of peeps but have been busier than a one armed paper hanger latelyl

Night all!
 

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