Opa's place -Where an old rooster visits with friends

[Opa]

CCMH, there aren't any weeds in the garden but it isn't because they don't want to grow. I used Preen on the ground between the plants and then I spend 20-30 minutes every day using a weeding hoe.

 

[chickflick]

I can't use Preen cuz the chickens free range in my flower garden. There sure are alot of weeds out there, but they will not get pulled until this weather breaks.

 

[chickencrazymamahen]

Your garden sure looks amazing, I don't recall ever seeing one that neat and tidy! The size of ours keeps us from taking great care of all of it. We do work out the tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, beans, squash, cucumbers, okra, strawberries, peppers and cantaloupe, but can't seem to get them all! We cultivate with the tractor on the bigger patches of corn, potatoes and pumpkins until the plants get too big and they always look like a jungle by this time of the year. But it seems that the weeds work as trap crops for the bugs and we sprinkle ashes, handpick/squish or spray soap water on things to help keep them down. Regardless we do share a lot of produce with critters of one kind or another. The coons have been in the corn and we have skunks in our woodpile...lol.

Just dispatched a rooster that I was hoping to keep for breeding, he decided this morning he was going to try and kill his other 3 housemates sooo, he is chillin' his heels in the sink! Not a job we relish on a Sunday, but was necessary.

Hope we are all blessed with some cooler weather and rain soon! Have a good afternoon!
Blessings, CCMH

 

[Opa]

My garden is only 36x36' so it doesn't take to much time if I don't let the weeds get to far ahead. I'm constantly teasing my oldest son about his garden. With his work schedule I'm surprized that he even finds time to put on in and of course the weeds always take over. He lives in Southwest Missouri in a area the call Top of the Ozarks. His ground is very rocky and difficult to work but he still get an incredible amount from it. Each year when I rototill it brings up rocks. I will spend an hour or two pick up anything larger than a dime and I may get half a bucket full. I been know to email him complaining about the number of rocks I've had to pick up and include a picture of the pile I have. In his garden if you started today and only picked up rocks larger than your fist you might get done by Xmas................2025.

 

[chickencrazymamahen]

Quote:
I bet he loves getting that email!!

If we picked up rocks for an hour or two we would need a pickup bed or two...sounds like your son has the same kind of "soil" we have. I am always looking for our kids/relatives to help pick rocks...

Don't get very many takers though. When we first had the garden dozed out we had him drop the rippers straight down and go back and forth over the garden to loosen and bring up as many rocks as we could. Have been picking them up ever since. Testimony to that are the large rock piles in the low part of the field where they have been dumped to slow the wet weather creek when it goes thru! My chicken fences are lined with rocks inside and out, flower beds lined with rocks, rocks put around bushes and roses to keep hens from digging them up, rocks, rocks, rocks!! Yep we got em! Amazingly though things do grow well in amongst them and we do get a lot from the garden.

We have started getting okra finally in large enough quantities for some fried okra tonight and had our first bacon tomato sandwiches today. In a normal year we have tomatoes near the 4th of July but everything is running late this year.

Guess I better get to work and wash up todays eggs! Have a good afternoon..

 

[Opa]

My garden is just starting to produce and we are picking zuchinni, summer squash, and sugar snap peas. Radishes have been done for a while and I will plant more as well as more lettuce towards the end of Augutst.

My two Missouri sons and the wives weren't too far from CCNH this past weekend. They went to Elephant Rock and Johnson's Shut-in and had a ball. That sure is some pretty country.

 

[HarlansHollowFarms]

Quote:
I am glad you made it home safely. I heard about the rental car thing, not a good time there, but I also heard the feasco at the restaurant was caused by an 'over zealous' Highlander with a deadly weapon! Ya, know the fork can cause many a fatal injury!

I am truely sorry I missed you in FL. but I will get my chance.....we are changing our holiday to April, so I will see you then!

*conjuring up a heatwave for Scotland*

ETA: can't find the spell check on this new computer....sorry for the very poor grammer and elementary spelling!

 

[ranchhand]

"Opa-wan Chickenobi"


Fan of Star Wars, am I.

 

[Opa]

The title change was suggested by some of the folks on the Michigan thread after I had answered several questions and made suggestions for a solution to their problems. With the title change I feel I must now try much harder to be a better mentor to all.

I'm sure all of you have dealt with the difficulties of trying to master chicken math.I recently realized that it also includes fractions. My bantam birds are so much smaller than my large fowl that I need to count each one as 1/8th. By counting them thusly the size of my entire flock doesn't seem quite as large and my chicken mania is not so excessive.

I've been working on repairing a 30 year old home that a combination of being poorly built and a lack of maintenance by the previous owner had allowed a lot of rot to set in. Yesterday I finished removing all of the rotted joists and studs and reframing everything and now today I will hopefully get all of the wall resheeted. I never ceased to be amazed at the number of houses that were built by individuals who had no business building a house in the first place.

I've been starting work at 7am and have been able to avoid the worst of the heat but I sure will be glad to see this heat wave end. I would be more than willing to send some of it to Scotland if the Thistle could come up with a method to do so. Have a great day folks.

 

[EweSheep]

I got weeds up to the wazoo in my garden but the majority of it was covered by the vines of my watermelons. My cantelope vine is puney, short and one fruit for the entire vine. What a waste! However the watermelon, I might have four to six of them out of a vine. If I have to chop a vine to feed that other vine to get bigger melons, I can do that. I have only so much space in that location and the lawnmower will get any vine tht creeps out of the boundaries of the garden. I can tell you one thing, I won't be planting watermelons next year, they require alot of watering. however my roma tomatoes are doing very good!

Hubby built me a pen to put the brooding hen and expected chicks from Ideal coming in Friday. Going to be fun I am sure!