What did you do in the garden today?

[Sueby]

Perhaps on your next road trip you can stop by for a dozen fertilized eggs.

I would love that, DH would kill me, lol. I need a broody first, I have NO desire to raise chicks. But that is the plan - get a couple silkies next year & have them raise babies for me. So next year!!

Are you going to be selling fertilized eggs? I can see a huge market for that right now, around here everyone is sold out of everything.

& have you had a peek at your dahlia tubers? I opened mine up a few weeks ago & they were a little dried out. I spritzed them but don't have much hope they'll do much, I neglected them after the back injury. I had DH bring my fig tree down & it has so much new growth on it, it was just too warm this winter, it really never went dormant. It will be fine though. Lime tree lost all its leaves early due to neglect, grapefruit tree looks good. They'll all be fine too, starting to move them outside.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners and welcome to the thread @nao57. Most of us here have been gardening and raising our own food for years. I am planting a little extra this year so I will have enough to give away to those that can't garden. What a lucky break yesterday. The rain stopped early so I let the chickens out for about 1 1/2 hours. The ground was too soggy to do any planting or walking on the grass even. Good news, the string cartridges for my weed whacker arrived yesterday. So at least I can put the weed whacking on my list of things to do while the sun is shining. Did I mention my peas are finally coming up? It's supposed to get up near 70F today, but currently the wind is kicking up rather briskly. I'm hoping the ground near my garden steps has dried enough so I can haul some dirt up to two of the beds. I would like to get the tomatoes, asparagus, summer squash and some more lettuce planted either today or tomorrow. I did get more flower seeds planted yesterday, indoors of course. If the winds settle down long enough I need to spray my apple trees as well. The peach tree is looking good. I'll take a picture later. Those darling little chicks. OMG! Yesterday, late afternoon I heard peeping. Two of them had squeezed through the cage bars and were huddling on the floor. I put them back inside the brooder. Just a few minutes ago, another had made the escape. Good golly. They just need to gain a little more weight and they won't fit through the bars. I'm just so happy the weather has finally warmed up. My dahlia bulbs were pretty dry, but they have been plumping up slowly inside the ziploc bag with moist dirt. I'm waiting until they start putting out some roots before I plant them. I think I might put them on top of the refrigerator to warm them up. About my chicken eggs, I don't sell them as fertilized eggs, however, as long as I have a rooster mingling with the ladies, they are fertile. I bought an incubator, but I don't have room right now for more chickens. When these new ladies are ready for the big coop, then I can work on the meat birds. Have a great day everyone and get those hands dirty!

 

[WthrLady]

Morning all. Enjoying a cool and cloudy morning. I finished the tie-ups for the livestock chute yesterday, so I'm hoping to gather some pacas for a pedicure day. I LOATHE it, but it is overdue since January. (Screwed up my thumb. Which still isn't better, but the toenails cannot wait.)

I got my new mixer in the post yesterday, a week early. It's a NutriMill/Bosch. It was specifically made for whole grain bread. My giant professional KitchenAid is not handling my weekly bread sessions well. EVERYTIME I've had to use it, I have to take the whole head apart to tighten THREE stupid little screws that hold the whole head on. They wiggle loose when I knead bread. To get to them you have to remove the entire motor. Stupid design. The last time I did it, I put locktite on the screws, When I finally got the whole thing back together, I called KA to complain, and they basically said, "eh, what can ya do?" UM this is my THIRD $700 KA in 20 years. My great grandmothers lasted from her wedding until she died 65 years later.

What can I do?
Buy a different machine that isn't just relying on name recognition and has actually evolved beyond design only.

Also experimented with the 100% whole wheat sandwich loaf recipe I've tweaked over the decades now that we are grinding our own grain. It freezes and bakes up just fine. Not quite as high a rise, but expected as I didn't wet the top while it thawed or rose to allow for expansion. I just covered with plastic wrap.

Now I can mix up 4-6 loaves and freeze frozen uncooked loaves. Time saver.

Walking the orchard and checking the transplants in the seed house, that's about all I can think of today.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Morning all. Enjoying a cool and cloudy morning. I finished the tie-ups for the livestock chute yesterday, so I'm hoping to gather some pacas for a pedicure day. I LOATHE it, but it is overdue since January. (Screwed up my thumb. Which still isn't better, but the toenails cannot wait.)

I got my new mixer in the post yesterday, a week early. It's a NutriMill/Bosch. It was specifically made for whole grain bread. My giant professional KitchenAid is not handling my weekly bread sessions well. EVERYTIME I've had to use it, I have to take the whole head apart to tighten THREE stupid little screws that hold the whole head on. They wiggle loose when I knead bread. To get to them you have to remove the entire motor. Stupid design. The last time I did it, I put locktite on the screws, When I finally got the whole thing back together, I called KA to complain, and they basically said, "eh, what can ya do?" UM this is my THIRD $700 KA in 20 years. My great grandmothers lasted from her wedding until she died 65 years later.

What can I do?
Buy a different machine that isn't just relying on name recognition and has actually evolved beyond design only.

Also experimented with the 100% whole wheat sandwich loaf recipe I've tweaked over the decades now that we are grinding our own grain. It freezes and bakes up just fine. Not quite as high a rise, but expected as I didn't wet the top while it thawed or rose to allow for expansion. I just covered with plastic wrap.

Now I can mix up 4-6 loaves and freeze frozen uncooked loaves. Time saver.

Walking the orchard and checking the transplants in the seed house, that's about all I can think of today.

Omg! @WthrLady. I’ve never thought to make the dough and freeze it before baking. Big Duh on my part. I freeze pizza dough all the time. So you freeze it after the first rise, correct?

 

[WthrLady]

yup. I shape it, double wrap it, freeze it. Then thaw and let it rise, and bake.

 

[igorsMistress]

Good morning gardeners. Got the bushes fertilized, transplanted the mint and oregano and threw out some grass seed. I got both patios swept and a few things put back in the shed and garage. There are at least a dozen Gladiolus sprouts now and I got the yard raked. I came in for water and a break, then headed out to vac the coop and wash feeders before I get some stuff done inside. It's only 0800 here and the a/c is already running. Have a great day all.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Ok. I think our 5yr old matriarch has gone broody for the first time since 2019. She wouldn't sleep with the others last night. She's sitting on 5 eggs right now; I usually let her set on 10-16. Her name is "Fanny" as she is a pain in the you know what. Here's a pic of missy fan fan giving me stink eye View attachment 2118150

You keep Sumatra too? They are wonderful fowl, but yeah, "you don't mess with the Zohan", erm broody.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Nothing new in my garden today. I did buy a dog last night my wife really wanted. It really has caused her so much emotional pain and distress seeing this sperm donor of a dog tied out 24x7 since Janurary 14. He is a Belgian Malloinois and his teeth say he is 1.5 years of age. He will be losing his balls soon. Initial vetting is set up for this coming Thursday.

@penny1960 I did buy a pineapple, but we ate it. I'm going to procrastinate a bit longer on my writeup. It was a green pineapple anyway @TropicalBabies knows you do not eat green pineapples. Unfortunately that is the only kind of pineapple you can buy in the lower 48.

 

[NewBoots]

Nothing new in my garden today. I did buy a dog last night my wife really wanted. It really has caused her so much emotional pain and distress seeing this sperm donor of a dog tied out 24x7 since Janurary 14. He is a Belgian Mallonois and his teeth say he is 1.5 years of age. He will be losing his balls soon. Initial vetting is set up for this coming Thursday.

Bless you and your wife both.

Blowing hard with a real downpour here right now. I'd opened the pop door before it started so I just went out and closed it again. Even closed the rabbit enclosure to keep the rain out. Chicks were all well and happy this morning in their better set up. If the weather calms down a bit I'll put them in the integration brooder again. The 3 week olds are more interested in the babies food than them and I think that's good. The babies think the older kids are the cool teenagers.

Supposed to rain for the next few days, it's so nasty right now I'm glad I didn't put any tomatoes or peppers outside. Yesterday, we did get a huge pallet moved in front of the greenhouse so I now have a much bigger deck area to set pots on. I should have put landscape fabric under it but still plenty of time.

 

[WthrLady]

Just walked the orchard.
I Lost a limb to a deer. I have one tree that I orange flagged before winter and it looks bad, so I'll replace that this weekend. I have a couple branches that didn't make it through winter, so those need to go. Other than that, looks good so far.

Bought some seeds from etsy. Sprouting rate is less than 5%, of all varieties They were NOT cheap, I am not happy.

Tomato re-pots are looking good. A few more squash plants are up. So slow and steady.

Lunch has been had. Bread is out of the oven (KitchenAid has been fired from bread duty.)
Time to do alpaca toes. UGH.........