Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
Oh my, my list is long. Sweet corn, potatoes (red and white) radishes, onions, lettuce, peas, green beans, tomatoes, watermellon, winter squash, summer squash, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, green peppers, asparagus, cucumbers, and more. We are self reliant for about 50% of our own food, thanks to two big freezers. We have great customers. I grew up on what we used to call a "truck farm" meaning, you trucked to market twice a week. My dad was a greenhouse man extraordinaire and just about everything I know I learned from him. As per our short growing season, it is counter-balanced by the mid-night sun effect we get from May-July. We have extraordinarily looong days. Also, choosing the correct variety is simply not an option. Choose wrongly and you'll get skunked for sure.

 

[southerndesert]

Fred's Hens :

Is anyone else a gardener? Then you already know that if you live near the Canadian border that you cannot grow Bermuda or St Augustine grass for a lawn or plant southern Azaleas bushes, citrus trees, or grow some of the vegetables that southern gardeners grow. It wouldn't do any good for me to plant 140 days sweet corn, or peppers that need a certain heat to produce well. I accept where I live. We are professional, market selling, organic gardeners and I know which varieties I can grow well, which are risky, and which I should never even bother with, considering our 100-105 day growing zone.

I am not going to keep dainty chickens this far north. I'm not going to be running a heat lamp on them for pity's sake. If I bring home and try to raise certain breeds, shame on me. I would consider myself irresponsible. My grandparents kept chickens in this state in the late 1800's and their parents before them in the mid 1800's. No one could have imagined Thomas Edison's future invention of the light bulb, to say nothing of an electric heater of some kind.

I can whine, worry or fret about the climate in which I choose to farm and keep a flock, or I can accept it, gain some wisdom, practice a lot of common sense and succeed as our fore-parents did before us. This is a state of mind, for the most part, a world view and I've found it helpful over the years.

Central Arizona here Fred and yes we garden with the added bonus of year round growing. But takes some practice and many a disaster for an import from MI and Northern IL in the 70s....

Keeping chickens was also a whole lot different and heat can be a real killer, but as in most places ventilation is the key.

Folks that do not list their location in their online info really should list location when asking questions in any section of this forum so that answers can be better thought out by those offering help. I know from experience that issues faced and their solutions are much different in Charlevoix, MI than here in Morristown, AZ and often diognosing problems can be very geographically specific as are the solutions from disease and pest to predator.​

 

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
You got that right!!!! We normally have to go through two or three exchanges in trying to pry out of someone where they live, what's their climate, etc, before we can intelligently offer any guidance.

No question. The Southwest's heat is equally a challenge, perhaps greater, as the north country's cold. You have to learn to deal with it, 'cause it is what it is.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Thanks Fred, I'm always interested in what others are doing in different areas of the country. We grow about 70% of our food right now I'm guessing. We dry some, freeze some and my wife cans the rest. I'm always trying to be as self sufficiant as I can be. Some years I do better than others.
We raise almost all of our own vegetables and most of our fruits plus I gather wild foods from the forests and meadows around here. I hunt a little too when we need extra meat. We raise chickens, guineas, pigeons, rabbits, ducks, and a pig or two most years. Haven't raised a beef in a few years now, but planning to buy a couple in the spring.
Last year the garden here had; Green beans, Cherokee speckled beans, butterbeans, lonnie peas, purple hull peas, yellow squash, zuccini, waltham butternut squash, yellow onions, multiplying green onions, sweet potatos, shoe-peg field corn, several varieties of tomatos (Big boy, better boy, brandywine, roma, cherry), several kids of pepper (Bell, cayenne, sweet banana, hot banana, serrano), white and purple egg plant, several different spices, sunflowers, red and yellow meated watermelons, cantalope, honey dew melons, gourds, okra, and a few other things I can't remember.

The "truck garden" brought back memories too. We had two gardens, our "kitchen garden" which was everything we raised for ourselves and a "truck garden" which we raised to sell. Pa was what was known around here as a "peddler". Every couple of days Pa would load up the back of his old truck and would drive to town and very slowly drive up and down the streets. People would walk out and flag us down and buy produce from us. Watermelons, a dozen ears of sweet corn, a peck of apples, a bushel of peas, a bag of grapes, a basket of strawberries, just whatever was in season. Us kids would ride on the sideboards and keep an eye out for people waving at us to stop. Ma also sold home canned jellies and preserves off the truck and us kids would bring select customers fresh game or fish. When food stamps came out it killed the peddlers. Most of our customers were poor people and when food stamps came out they had to use them in the stores and people gradually stopped buying until it got to the point Pa said it just wasn't paying the gas, seed and fertilizer bill to keep doing it.

 

[Yay Chicks!]

Fred's Hens :

Quote:
Oh my, my list is long. Sweet corn, potatoes (red and white) radishes, onions, lettuce, peas, green beans, tomatoes, watermellon, winter squash, summer squash, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, green peppers, asparagus, cucumbers, and more. We are self reliant for about 50% of our own food, thanks to two big freezers. We have great customers. I grew up on what we used to call a "truck farm" meaning, you trucked to market twice a week. My dad was a greenhouse man extraordinaire and just about everything I know I learned from him. As per our short growing season, it is counter-balanced by the mid-night sun effect we get from May-July. We have extraordinarily looong days. Also, choosing the correct variety is simply not an option. Choose wrongly and you'll get skunked for sure.

What kind of tomatoes do you find grow most successfully there? We call the Pacific NW the land of the $50 tomato when it comes to growing them in our backyard gardens.​

 

[Fred's Hens]

I have to keep cold hardy chickens here. No choice. Likewise, the tomatoes we grow are determinate. You cannot grow indeterminate here. We joke and say, "Go ahead and grow them, but the first frost will determine their end anyhow." We start them indoors, transplant twice into larger pots, and put into the garden soil on Memorial Day. We are picking by August 10th furiously. First frost is sometimes as early as Labor Day. Johnny's seeds has a great selection of determinate tomato seeds. I'm guessing the PNW is tough because of cool, damp weather. That is NOT good for 'maters. I don't know of a variety that would work there, but surely some local, old timer would know what might work.

 

[Yay Chicks!]

Fred's Hens :

I have to keep cold hardy chickens here. No choice. Likewise, the tomatoes we grow are determinate. You cannot grow indeterminate here. We joke and say, "Go ahead and grow them, but the first frost will determine their end anyhow." We start them indoors, transplant twice into larger pots, and put into the garden soil on Memorial Day. We are picking by August 10th furiously. First frost is sometimes as early as Labor Day. Johnny's seeds has a great selection of determinate tomato seeds. I'm guessing the PNW is tough because of cool, damp weather. That is NOT good for 'maters. I don't know of a variety that would work there, but surely some local, old timer would know what might work.

I will check out Johnny's seeds. We had awful cold wet springs the last two years. The Romas did best, they dried well and I'm reconstituting them now, but they are not my favorite eating tomato when fresh. Luckily I have friends who have an organic tomato farm and really have the system down. Yet, I still can't resist it

Thanks for the reply.​

 

[Mommy 2 Wee Ones]

My Nana told me about the Peddler, this was in the early 1930's, she would buy fruit & veggies from one, and then the meat peddler came by on another day. Their yard was not big in their first house in the city, once they moved out of town, they had a bigger yard and could plant a garden.

 

[Fred's Hens]

There is a variety called Manitoba Cold Set, aka known by other similar names. They too are not "awesome" in flavor, but they'll set in cool weather and will produce. I planted a hundred of them last year, along with a hundred Heinz (cannot remember the number) and a hundred yellows. When first frost came, and it came earlier than normal, we didn't care. We were done!!!! We sold bushels and bushels and put up enough for a small army.

There are also some of the "Boy" varieties that do well. Early Girl, Better Boy, etc. A bit "vine droopy" for my taste, but a fair taster. There are more stinkin' varieties than Carter has liver pills.

 

[Zanna]

Yay Chicks! :

Fred's Hens :

Quote:
Oh my, my list is long. Sweet corn, potatoes (red and white) radishes, onions, lettuce, peas, green beans, tomatoes, watermellon, winter squash, summer squash, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, green peppers, asparagus, cucumbers, and more. We are self reliant for about 50% of our own food, thanks to two big freezers. We have great customers. I grew up on what we used to call a "truck farm" meaning, you trucked to market twice a week. My dad was a greenhouse man extraordinaire and just about everything I know I learned from him. As per our short growing season, it is counter-balanced by the mid-night sun effect we get from May-July. We have extraordinarily looong days. Also, choosing the correct variety is simply not an option. Choose wrongly and you'll get skunked for sure.

What kind of tomatoes do you find grow most successfully there? We call the Pacific NW the land of the $50 tomato when it comes to growing them in our backyard gardens.

I have always had good luck with Willamettes and Oregon Spring here in the PNW. I think both were developed at Oregon State University, but don't quote me on that

State extensions are usually helpfull with info. about what varieties grow well in your area.​