MJ's little flock

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I bought some wildflower seeds at TSC today. I want to scatter some wildflowers along the edge of our woods. I guess I should give it another week or two before I start.
I am anxious to put my vegetable garden in too.
At home (in PA), I always had a nice veggie garden and nice flower beds.
Since moving to SC, my green thumb seems to have turned black. The soil where we live is so different. Very sandy for one thing and under that is some clay-like sticky dirt.
My vegetable garden literally died the first year we lived where we are now. I think I need topsoil. Ugh.

If you could mix the 2 together and and in some compost I think you might have something there

Our local gardening program (Gardening Australia) treats clay and sand in the same way. Dig through lots of compost and mulch your plants well. Also a raised garden bed if all else fails. (it will save your back too ) Earth worms will eventually invade and help spread the organic matter through the soil improving it as they go.

You should see how many earth worms live in my grass tyres in the chicken run when I take the wire off the top to let them dig through!

 

[Scrambles83]

Chicken tax after all the botany talk.

I don't know if I've shared this one before. This is Edwina being encouraged into the coop. Or perhaps I'm teaching her how to be a bird of prey?
View attachment 2545752

Gorgeous!

 

[Grammy60]

Good evening MJ and everyone

I have not had much success with seeds and the snails love my basil seedling. You are ahead of me there Grammy.

I have mine growing in milk jug inside, anything I try to grow outside dies . If we keep trying, maybe we will win the fight.

 

[rjohns39]

Good evening folks

 

[LozzyR]

I'm the same. I just can't keep up with everything without giving up sleep, so I focus on what's new and try not to think about what I've missed.

I should do that with Ribh's thread, I'm so far behind but I don't want to miss anything! I missed a massive chunk in the middle but I don't want to miss the last couple of months!

 

[Shadrach]

I've trying to think why she does it. Severe antenatal depression is my guess.

It's not about survival because there's plenty to eat.

What are your thoughts Shad?

I've seen a lot of mums peck at their chicks when the chicks get in front of them rather than under their wings or bum. With all those I've seen do this, I've slid my hand under mum fingers pointing up a bit and moved the chick back underneath her. That's been enough and mum settles back down.
What I think happens is Myth's chicks got in front of her and wouldn't go back underneath and just panic chirped which stresses the hen which stresses the chicks and so on.
On the other hand Myth could just be a killer.

 

[Shadrach]

Yup, where I live there is a lot of clay soil, we often add sand to it to help break it up, then compost/organic material.

I broke the clay here by deep digging; the clay doesn't start until hald a metre down. Then I dug in chicken coop straw with all the poop. I turned this over with a fork and slowly added compost from the heap.
I planted the entire veg garden with potatoes. Potatoes make great starter crops and you have to dig again to get them out.
The veg garden soil here is good soil now and will grow most of anything.

 

[RoyalChick]

Yup, where I live there is a lot of clay soil, we often add sand to it to help break it up, then compost/organic material.

I am on heavy red clay. You just have to keep adding organic material (aka chicken bedding) and the worms do the work of turning it all into nice soil. You can help out the worms by digging holes and putting the compost or chicken bedding down below the surface, but clay makes for heavy digging so I tend to let the worms do the job.
If you are planting a new plant it is best to give it a bigger hole than it needs and use compost to give it some space to grow strong roots before it tackles the clay. If you mulch it with compost/chicken bedding the worms will do their job by the time the roots get past the first hole.
Gotta love worms - they work really hard!

 

[Scrambles83]

I am on heavy red clay. You just have to keep adding organic material (aka chicken bedding) and the worms do the work of turning it all into nice soil. You can help out the worms by digging holes and putting the compost or chicken bedding down below the surface, but clay makes for heavy digging so I tend to let the worms do the job.
If you are planting a new plant it is best to give it a bigger hole than it needs and use compost to give it some space to grow strong roots before it tackles the clay. If you mulch it with compost/chicken bedding the worms will do their job by the time the roots get past the first hole.
Gotta love worms - they work really hard!

Our yard is clay after about half a foot. Surprisingly our apple and almond trees we planted are doing really well. Our banksia shrub wasn’t so lucky
The veggie gardens are raised beds so I got soil delivered, turned our compost through it a month or so prior to planting last spring. I moved them to a better position just before winter last year, a lot of shovelling! Removing 2 cubic metres and distributed elsewhere because it was full of cooch grass, then barrowing from out the front and shovelling in the new 2 cubic metres
Each year I learn something new about the garden. I’ve got a couple of years until I hit 40 so by then I’m hoping I’ll have a better grasp on things

 

[Shadrach]

Hurry.