Colorado

[Ginger Assassin]

Gardening is making me weep.  I have minature plants this year. They just are not growing. They have blooms but are only 6 inches tall.    I think it has been too cool here at night.  I need a greenhouse.  Maybe I had best wait to spring that on DH until next spring. Chickens this year have been enough to make him think I am crazy. 

my fiber glass green house works like a charm.

 

[Denverchickee]

I'm having problems with most of my crops this year. Last year everything got wiped out by the hail, and I still got a ton of veggies without even trying. This year, I have odd (different from last year) microclimates ... and things are just not producing. Except for the volunteer lettuce and spinach. I had a lot of non-starters (carrots, "planned" lettuces, corn), and slow growing tomato plants.

I was also hoping to get enough to can again this year, but I don't see that happening, yet.

I'm super impressed with your harvest from last year! I can't claim anything near that. You'll need to tell me your secret.

One thing I have noticed is that things grow better in Aurora and Denver than they seem to in Parker. For me, at least. (I have a community garden plot in Aurora, and it's doing better than my garden in Parker.) Frustrating year, to say the least.

Sorry to hear about a hail wipeout. One of my biggest fears is that happening with no back up. ME TOO!!!! My seed germination was so low this year. i had to replant and replant with little success. I usually start in Jan/Feb we have a small greenhouse set up with a grow light and heater. I have approx 20 tomato plants around the yard and I am just beside myself, hoping for a recovery still got rest of this month and August, but they will start losing speed come Sept.... The greens struggled, it was like winter and then instant summer, feel like only got a few weeks of good greens. Luckily I joined a farm share this year and part of crop is 20# heirloom tomatoes. But if you can, you and I both know that doesn't go too far.
My secret is early start and food!!! Some people really doubt how much food a plant can take especially if you are feeding organic compost teas and organic foods/fertilizers. We try to feed 3x a week every other week with maybe a dose here and there of this and that. Seaplex, Bat Guano, bone meal ect ect.. mix it up on the "off week"

Okay sorry everyone for the garden talk, was just looking for feedback!! So just to keep it a lil' chicken.....do you feel like the weather has taken a tole on the birds as well? This is only my 18th month with chickens so still new!!

 

[lovincolorado]

Gardening is making me weep. I have minature plants this year. They just are not growing. They have blooms but are only 6 inches tall.

I think it has been too cool here at night. I need a greenhouse. Maybe I had best wait to spring that on DH until next spring. Chickens this year have been enough to make him think I am crazy.

Exactly my story too! I blame cold nights here in the mountains, but I see others are much more successful, and are growing outdoors. I have modified my soil, thinking i got that wrong, and add fertilizer regularly, hoping they will turn a corner. We will see! the seasons not over yet!! I have been planning a greenhouse for over a year now, and DH is supposed to build it when he gets back from Greenland. Once I have a greenhouse, I will need a different excuse for my failed attempts at gardening!!!

 

[Mtn Margie]

Exactly my story too! I blame cold nights here in the mountains, but I see others are much more successful, and are growing outdoors. I have modified my soil, thinking i got that wrong, and add fertilizer regularly, hoping they will turn a corner. We will see! the seasons not over yet!! I have been planning a greenhouse for over a year now, and DH is supposed to build it when he gets back from Greenland. Once I have a greenhouse, I will need a different excuse for my failed attempts at gardening!!!

You can try some black plastic in between the rows or quickie row covers with clear plastic over a shorter frame. They do work, but you have to mind the wind.....

 

[Minchi]

Welcome to everyone new!!!

As for the gardening talk I have a black thumb so lets see if I get anything in the short grow time I have.

 

[Pozees]

Welcome to all our new members! I have suffered garden woes for the last 4 years. 4 years ago I had the best garden I had ever had, and a June 13 hailstorm of the century wiped it out. I haven't had a good garden since. Flea beetles had my number three years running, this year some other kind of beetle and grasshoppers that we finally gave up and sprayed. My only saving grace has been peppers, I've had good harvests of those, and this year they look iffy at best. Pretty sure it's lack of honeybees as much as anything else, and of course an 11 degree night in May didn't help, that night killed trees that were already budding, ruined any chance of apples and halved the chokecherry production.

Chickens and meat spots in the eggs - I don't think there's much of anything you can do, some have them, some don't. I don't think it's stress, I don't think it is controllable at all. Best you can do is try to figure out whose eggs have them and keep them out of the sales cartons.

 

[wsmith]

Silly chicks....

They have been going into the brooder coop on their own, but last night...nooooo..

They decided to play king of the coop door... Posted a photo on the FB page, but this morning I can't upload photos onto this forum. Weird. Anyway, there are four three week old chicks on the brooder pen. One goes up the ramp and decides to hop/fly up onto the open brooder coop door. Then another joins him, then another. Mind you, this door is 7/16 inch thick. Pretty soon the last one, who is the smallest, is trying to get up the nerve to join them. He finally makes it, and they are all sitting proudly on the edge of the door... Then the small one decides that he doesn't like the spot he is in, and that he wants to be on the far right side. So he jumps onto the other chicks who are there. In the resulting mayhem, all of them end up on the ground. By now they are tired, and decide that they should just pile up on the ground and stay there for the night. NOT!
15 minutes later they are finally inside the coop and the door closed.

Next week, if any of the 8 eggs in the incubator hatch, the older ones will move to the other pen without the heat lamp, and the new ones will move into the heated brooder coop/pen. Then the incubator will be put away for the season.

 

[P-Funk]

(Reuters) - The farming and ranching town of Deer Trail, Colorado, which boasts that it held the world's first rodeo in 1869, is now considering starting a 21st century tradition - paying bounties to anyone who shoots down an unmanned drone.
Next month, trustees of the town of 600 that lies on the high plains 55 miles east of Denver will debate an ordinance that would allow residents to purchase a $25 hunting license to shoot down "unmanned aerial vehicles."
Similar to the bounties governments once paid to hunters who killed animals that preyed on livestock, but only after they produced the ears, the town would pay $100 to anyone who can produce the fuselage and tail of a downed drone.
"Either the nose or tail may be damaged, but not both," the proposal notes.
The measure was crafted by resident Phillip Steel, a 48-year-old Army veteran with a master's degree in business administration, who acknowledges the whimsical nature of his proposal.
But the expansion of drones for commercial and government use is alarming, he said.
"We don't want to become a surveillance society," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
He said he has not seen any drones, but that "some local ranchers" outside the town limits have seen them.
Under the proposal, hunters could legally shoot down a drone flying under 1,000 feet with a 12-gauge or smaller shotgun.
The town also would be required to establish a drone "recognition program" for shooters to properly identify the targeted aircraft.
"In no case shall a citizen engage an obviously manned aerial vehicle," the draft proposal reads.
Steel said that if the town trustees don't vote to adopt the ordinance, it will go before voters in a special election.
"Yes, it is tongue-in-cheek, but I'm going to vote for it," said Dorothy Pisel, one of the town's trustees. "It could benefit the town with all the publicity."
Steel acknowledges his idea is symbolic but he hopes it will curtail the use of drones over the 1.1-square mile burg.
"If you don't want your drone to go down, don't fly it in town," he said.
The Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately have a comment.
(Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Phil Berlowitz)

 

[wsmith]

(Reuters) - The farming and ranching town of Deer Trail, Colorado, which boasts that it held the world's first rodeo in 1869, is now considering starting a 21st century tradition - paying bounties to anyone who shoots down an unmanned drone.
Next month, trustees of the town of 600 that lies on the high plains 55 miles east of Denver will debate an ordinance that would allow residents to purchase a $25 hunting license to shoot down "unmanned aerial vehicles."
Similar to the bounties governments once paid to hunters who killed animals that preyed on livestock, but only after they produced the ears, the town would pay $100 to anyone who can produce the fuselage and tail of a downed drone.
"Either the nose or tail may be damaged, but not both," the proposal notes.
The measure was crafted by resident Phillip Steel, a 48-year-old Army veteran with a master's degree in business administration, who acknowledges the whimsical nature of his proposal.
But the expansion of drones for commercial and government use is alarming, he said.
"We don't want to become a surveillance society," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
He said he has not seen any drones, but that "some local ranchers" outside the town limits have seen them.
Under the proposal, hunters could legally shoot down a drone flying under 1,000 feet with a 12-gauge or smaller shotgun.
The town also would be required to establish a drone "recognition program" for shooters to properly identify the targeted aircraft.
"In no case shall a citizen engage an obviously manned aerial vehicle," the draft proposal reads.
Steel said that if the town trustees don't vote to adopt the ordinance, it will go before voters in a special election.
"Yes, it is tongue-in-cheek, but I'm going to vote for it," said Dorothy Pisel, one of the town's trustees. "It could benefit the town with all the publicity."
Steel acknowledges his idea is symbolic but he hopes it will curtail the use of drones over the 1.1-square mile burg.
"If you don't want your drone to go down, don't fly it in town," he said.
The Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately have a comment.
(Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Phil Berlowitz)

Thats hilarious. So much flies over my place it's silly. The unmanned stuff is supposed to stay on Post, but...... My oldest daughters boyfriend is a surveilance craft operator with the Army.....

 

[wsmith]

Welcome to all our new members! I have suffered garden woes for the last 4 years. 4 years ago I had the best garden I had ever had, and a June 13 hailstorm of the century wiped it out. I haven't had a good garden since. Flea beetles had my number three years running, this year some other kind of beetle and grasshoppers that we finally gave up and sprayed. My only saving grace has been peppers, I've had good harvests of those, and this year they look iffy at best. Pretty sure it's lack of honeybees as much as anything else, and of course an 11 degree night in May didn't help, that night killed trees that were already budding, ruined any chance of apples and halved the chokecherry production.

Chickens and meat spots in the eggs - I don't think there's much of anything you can do, some have them, some don't. I don't think it's stress, I don't think it is controllable at all. Best you can do is try to figure out whose eggs have them and keep them out of the sales cartons.

We had tons of blossoms on our pear tree and apple tree. But then we had that freeze. Nothing now. The trees are gowing nicely though.....