Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

Your garden sounds amazing!!! My tomatoes are being annihilated by grasshoppers. I was hoping my chickens would help out in that area but haven't had much progress yet. I'm hoping to have enough tomatoes to can sauce but I'm a long way from that yet. I am getting lots of Cukes and my pumpkins couldn't be happier. I'll be picking green beans and peppers soon too. Do you plant any heritage sweet corn? I tried Country Gentlemen this year. Guess we'll see if we like it or not.

I haven't grown corn for several years. The last time I grew it, I devoted quite a lot of space to it at a time when I didn't have a lot of space for a garden. I tended it and watered it and watched it grow and finally each plant grew two ears of corn. Around the time they were mature enough to harvest, I went to the store and saw corn for 10/$1. 10c apiece. I couldn't believe it! No way can I grow it cheaper than that. Not to mention that once I've harvested those two ears, the plant is done and though I can pull it out, its almost too late to plant anything in its place. Since then I've restricted myself primarily to things that will continue to produce.

This year I am growing the many different tomatoes, several different peppers, 2 types of tomatillo, potatoes, green beans, 2 types of onions, 3 varieties of zucchini, 2 types of collards, 3 types of kale, 3 types of chard, 3 types of mustard, rutabagas, basil and bok choy. The bok choy is a single plant, though you can harvest it and it will regrow from the stalk for a second harvest. However all of mine died in the heat so I will be replanting them for a fall harvest. I lost all of my zukes to squash bugs after getting a few items per plant. But I replanted those and they are at the 6-leaf stage and looking good. I've heard that squash bugs are a bigger problem earlier in the season so I'm hoping they'll leave this second planting alone. I also had to pull out two varieties of mustard that had bolted and I've replanted them as well. They do better in cooler weather so I'm hoping to have timed it so they'll be maturing in the fall when it cools down.







The pics are from several different angles. What looks like bare patches is where I pulled stuff out and have replanted so the new stuff has not come up yet in the pics, though it is starting to now. You can't really tell in the pics but it is divided into 4' wide beds with 2' wide walking paths between each bed. This allows us to weed the bed from either side without having to walk on them much. Where you see flowers is marigolds and zinnias I planted as companion plants to encourage the pollinators to visit. The outside perimeter is heavy duty cardboard we laid down to keep grass from growing into the garden from outside of it. It is the second year with the cardboard so its looking a little ratty now and we're discussing what to do next year in its place. One fence of the garden is against the fence we share with our neighbor. We then fenced around the rest of it with t-posts and chicken wire to keep the free-ranging birds out of it. At each end, instead of chicken wire, we used a livestock panel that is only held in by zip-ties. This allows us to cut the zip ties and remove the livestock panel when it is time to get the tiller in, and then it only takes a moment to put the panels back with new zip ties. It works great!

Danz, that ceremony sounds great - glad you could go.

 

[Ralph Moyer]

My dogs think that a fence is something to dig under. That is how my goats usually get out; they follow the dogs. .My dogs usually spend most of the day sleeping near the house, because they are on the move most of the night. I do a lot of my building and repair work at night, when it is cooler, so I have observed the GP's working also. .One of the GP's will chase a coyote , while the other GP stays close to the stock. Usually another coyote will try to sneak in. It must be quite a surprise to the coyote when it comes face to face to a GP that is about 4 times its size. They usually just run away as fast as they can, yelping all the way.

 

[chicken danz]

HEChicken I use cardboard in my garden as well but I don't use heavy duty. I jst use any boxes or anything I have around here. if you put it on earlier in the year between rows it will disintegrate throughout the summer and then it can easily just be tilled in in the fall or the following spring. This year I didn't plant as much at first and failed to get any in until recently so I might just leave whatever is left until spring.
I was out watering, then had a half ton of feed to shovel off the truck. Let me tell you with 90% humidity and a temperature of 101 and doing heavy labor it is not conducive to making a person feel fresh and lively.

My GPs have a certain area they patrol. My male used to roam quite a bit when he was younger but now he pretty much stays right here. I think it was a case of maturity having to kick in with him. The girls definitely started working much younger than he did. In fact he is the one that protects the area near the house. My oldest female protects the area outside of him and the youngest female protects the are out the furtherest. She has a spot she sits just out of the gate to the fenced in part and that is her vantage point to work. She can respond quickly back toward the house or out even further. We have one section under the barbwire the dogs will occasionally get out of when they think it's worth while to leave for. Usually that means someone coming by with a dog chasing after them. They DO NOT like strange dogs near their property. If the do run out that spot on the east side of the property they come back and sit at the gate waiting for me to open it and let them back in the yard. At some point I'd like to put up some other wire there to keep them from doing that but so far they just come right back. My only fear is that some jerk will intentionally hit them with a vehicle if they walk along the road to get back to the gate. I never shut up my dogs. They work best setting their own boundaries and the do most of their work at night when it is both cooler and the predators are more prevalent.
After DH had fed the birds right after I sprang my ankle, I asked him what happened to my pheasants.I knew I was missing two of them. He said he has no idea and that they hadn't gotten out. Well I put a couple more young ones out today and found them. I have a section of tin along the bottom of the pen to keep birds from picking at each other through the fence. Apparently both of these had gotten between the wire and the metal and gotten stuck. I had a shelter box pushed up next to the tin on one side and a tarp hanging against the wire on the other so they couldn't be seen. I could remove the tin now because it was there for different birds. And I could remove the tarp because it was there to block cold wind this past winter. But it will be winter again soon and I never know what birds I'll move where so I guess I'll just leave it. I took some wire and wired the tin tighter to the wire so hopefully they won't do that any more.

 

[HEChicken]

HEChicken I use cardboard in my garden as well but I don't use heavy duty. I jst use any boxes or anything I have around here. if you put it on earlier in the year between rows it will disintegrate throughout the summer and then it can easily just be tilled in in the fall or the following spring. This year I didn't plant as much at first and failed to get any in until recently so I might just leave whatever is left until spring.

That was my original plan but the problem I found was finding boxes the same dimensions, so it was hard to lay them out and get full coverage without a lot of overlap, but because of the size of the garden, I didn't want to overlap too much because I needed every bit I could scrounge up just to hope to cover it. Although we get tons of cardboard via deliveries here, every box is a different size and for the size of the garden, the few pieces I tried to start with, barely scratched the surface of what we were going to need. Plus, the lightweight pieces are too easily picked up and blown around by the wind. I had them held down by bricks and rocks at the corners but that was a pain. Then, we were fortunate to be donated a truckload of these heavy-duty cardboard cartons last summer. They were originally used to hold manufacturing equipment and each box was identical in size, plus about the thickness of 10 cardboard boxes so has enough heft to stay put when it is placed in position. Each piece, flattened is about 6' x4'. A truckload was delivered last year and it was enough to completely cover the entire garden area. We had it down from summer until spring and it killed off a lot of the grasses that had been growing there. That area was just lawn prior to our starting the garden there last spring so we had a LOT of grasses trying to grow up and battled them all of last spring and summer. After the cardboard went down, we left it until spring, then pulled up all of the center pieces when it was time to till again. We left the perimeter as a walking path and to discourage the grasses outside the garden from growing in. So far it has worked really well. The top layer is disintegrating a little now but it is holding up fairly well.

 

[HEChicken]

My GPs have a certain area they patrol. My male used to roam quite a bit when he was younger but now he pretty much stays right here. I think it was a case of maturity having to kick in with him.

I had the same experience with my black dog, Sammie. The other one has never roamed but Sammie would go for a daily patrol around the neighborhood when we first moved here. Everyone knew her and knew she wasn't there to hurt anything but still, I felt like it was my responsibility to keep her on our property and it bugged me that she was doing that. We spent a small fortune last year fencing our entire property, mostly to keep the sheep in but I thought a side benefit would be keeping the dog home. The only place not fenced is the driveway, except when we close the gate, but as it is a manual gate we don't want it closed all the time. So Sammie quickly learned that to continue her patrols, she had to go out the front gate. Three to four months ago, I watched as she ran up the driveway and it was really kind of funny because every 20' or so, she'd stop and look back at the house to see if anyone was watching, then continue on her way. As she crossed the threshold, I opened the door and screamed "Sammie - Get Home!!!" and she came tearing back. The next morning, same thing. She trotted up the driveway, checking to see if she was being watched, and was called home as soon as she actually passed the gate. Somehow, this instilled in her little pea brain that someone is ALWAYS watching and to my knowledge she hasn't left since. I asked a couple of neighbors and they haven't seen her since then either. When she was doing her patrols, occasionally I would want to go somewhere I could take the dogs and I'd step outside and call and only one would come. She missed out on several trips to my kids' school because she wasn't here when I was leaving. But since I caught her in the act, there hasn't been a single time that I've opened the door and called and she didn't come from right around the corner of the house. It may be maturity with her as well as she is going on four years old now. The neighbors recently got a puppy who will get bigger but is currently about the same size as Sammie. She is at the playful stage but when she comes to visit, Sammie really can't be bothered with those "puppy games". Its funny, I still think of her as a puppy herself but watching her with the new puppy has made me realize she is all grown up.

 

[chicken danz]

HEChicken I am sure most dogs are a lot smarter than we ever give them credit for. I've seen the same kind of behavior around here. They're pretty funny when they are sneaking to do something they know better. I'm not a very good dog Mom because I tend to laugh at them when they do things like that and they know they can get away with it. I like the hold their head down and look up with their eyes and then dart them back down if you are watching. It looks like they are saying in example, "I am ashamed of what I did, but maybe if I don't look her in the eyes she won't notice I have an egg in my mouth."
I've been thinking lately about having a litter of puppies again. I sure hate all that work involved but it's been a couple years since we had any here. Maybe I'll see if Brit comes into heat in early spring and I can get her bred then....or not. I've had lots of people ask me about pups but I am not ready to take on all that work with all these birds to care for too.
By the way HEChicken it's so great to see you posting more often again.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Ahhhh, speaking of dogs coming into maturity. One of my GPs is 2 yrs old now and I have not seen her left the property since winter (she went to the field north of us and dragged a deer carcass home as her Christmas dinner ). I just thought she was just getting used to being "at home". Come to think of it, maybe it is a fade of her being more mature now.

Hechicken, that sure is a lovely veggie garden you got there. I thought about putting cardboards down and like you said, the light weight ones just get picked up by the wind too easily.

Danz, don't know how you did it but I only took 2loads of laundry down from the lines and I was drenched! Sorry about your pheasants. I hope you don't lose more.

Only in the 90s tomorrow. Fall can't come soon enough.

 

[Prairie Fleur]

IT is because they are drinking a lot of water due to the heat.  It will pass. (pun intended)

Thanks bunches!!! Looks like we're heading for a much cooler week this week. My chickens should be Much happier!!!

 

[Prairie Fleur]

I haven't grown corn for several years. The last time I grew it, I devoted quite a lot of space to it at a time when I didn't have a lot of space for a garden. I tended it and watered it and watched it grow and finally each plant grew two ears of corn. Around the time they were mature enough to harvest, I went to the store and saw corn for 10/$1. 10c apiece. I couldn't believe it! No way can I grow it cheaper than that. Not to mention that once I've harvested those two ears, the plant is done and though I can pull it out, its almost too late to plant anything in its place. Since then I've restricted myself primarily to things that will continue to produce. This year I am growing the many different tomatoes, several different peppers, 2 types of tomatillo, potatoes, green beans, 2 types of onions, 3 varieties of zucchini, 2 types of collards, 3 types of kale, 3 types of chard, 3 types of mustard, rutabagas, basil and bok choy. The bok choy is a single plant, though you can harvest it and it will regrow from the stalk for a second harvest. However all of mine died in the heat so I will be replanting them for a fall harvest. I lost all of my zukes to squash bugs after getting a few items per plant. But I replanted those and they are at the 6-leaf stage and looking good. I've heard that squash bugs are a bigger problem earlier in the season so I'm hoping they'll leave this second planting alone. I also had to pull out two varieties of mustard that had bolted and I've replanted them as well. They do better in cooler weather so I'm hoping to have timed it so they'll be maturing in the fall when it cools down. The pics are from several different angles. What looks like bare patches is where I pulled stuff out and have replanted so the new stuff has not come up yet in the pics, though it is starting to now. You can't really tell in the pics but it is divided into 4' wide beds with 2' wide walking paths between each bed. This allows us to weed the bed from either side without having to walk on them much. Where you see flowers is marigolds and zinnias I planted as companion plants to encourage the pollinators to visit. The outside perimeter is heavy duty cardboard we laid down to keep grass from growing into the garden from outside of it. It is the second year with the cardboard so its looking a little ratty now and we're discussing what to do next year in its place. One fence of the garden is against the fence we share with our neighbor. We then fenced around the rest of it with t-posts and chicken wire to keep the free-ranging birds out of it. At each end, instead of chicken wire, we used a livestock panel that is only held in by zip-ties. This allows us to cut the zip ties and remove the livestock panel when it is time to get the tiller in, and then it only takes a moment to put the panels back with new zip ties. It works great! Danz, that ceremony sounds great - glad you could go.

Wow!! Your garden is amazing!!! Mine is much over grown with weeds right now. Maybe I'll get a chance to work on it next week when it's cooler. Altho my cousin's wedding is mid August and I have lots to do to get ready for that.

 

[Prairie Fleur]

I'm really enjoying everyone's LGD stories. I think it would be a good idea for me to get a couple before we have any major losses to our livestock. So far it looks like pretty much everyone has Great Pyrs.