What did you do in the garden today?

[pennyJo1960]

Seems I have 4 hatched. Now there is one blue peep now. Helped this was not stuck not sure why my humidity glued the other but went real bad ...
Am going to g to two Rooster if one of the 5 is nice boy keep it.

 

[NewBoots]

I need to get the mason bees out there soon since our Italian prune plum is getting ready to bloom.

I confess, I am a bad mason bee keeper. We started some last year and we should have brought them in and cleaned the box so it would be ready for this spring. Well DP came in with the lid and inside were cobwebs and chewed open bee cocoons with no living cocoons left. I was horrified that something had dragged my poor baby bees out of their safe tubes, piled them up in the top area and ate them all. I was truly getting tearful thinking about it (the older I get the squishier I get). So I opened all the tubes in the box (they have removable tops) and found we had lost at least half of the pupas but took out the rest and I'll clean the box and tubes (bleach and water), clean the pupas (clean sand) and then put everything back out for hatching. And that's when I remembered that we put the pupas in the top of the box so they can chew their way out of the cocoons and climb out the little hole. Leaving the empty cocoons behind just like last year... Now when I was panicking about my my poor baby bees being dragged out of the tube and stored in the top like kidnapped lambs for slaughter, I googled to see what terrible predator did such a nightmarish thing and found nothing. That was because I am a doofus and I was looking at last years spent cocoons.

 

[Elyrian1]

NewBoots I didn't know you could "keep" mason bees. That's news to me and I'll bee (punny) checking it out. Thanks!

 

[WthrLady]

We just put out places for them and put out clean in the summer. We let them go where they want, but straws and drilled lumber is around and about.

 

[igorsMistress]

Afternoon all. We tried out the clippers on the potato bush and they worked great. Also did a nice job on the rosemary although I’m not done with that yet. Here’s a few pics from the garden today. The armload of rosemary I brought in is in vases around the house and it smells wonderful!

 

[NewBoots]

@igorsMistress, lovely pictures, I can practically smell the rosemary and lavender! And I love your currant avatar.

 

[igorsMistress]

@igorsMistress, lovely pictures, I can practically smell the rosemary and lavender! And I love your currant avatar.

Thanks NewBoots, the avatar is my fur babies when they were babies. I love the smell of lavender and rosemary! I have some in a vase in my office. That and a lavender mint candle get me through the day.

 

[chickengr]

Supposed to be windy today, followed by a lot of rain this evening/overnight. Yesterday, my teen and I put up heavy duty deer fencing (so it’s still thin) around the low fence yesterday. We attached it to the underside of the run roof, and it goes to the ground. It will keep chickens in the run, and wild birds out. We secured it a couple feet from the ground with long, thin boards. Hopefully the wind doesn’t damage it. We will get the other half done later.

Mystery: out birds are hardly laying. We have mixed ages, 12 females. We do have 3 males, but will get rid of one in a few weeks. No fighting we can see between the males, nor any overmating. One of the males is a slow to mature breed, and doesn’t seem to be causing any problems. Sure, we have had winters with few eggs, but usually get some from the youngest. But we’ve had a fairly sunny winter, young chickens, and light in the coop (on a timer). By now we should see a definite uptick in laying, but we get 3 eggs a day….now, after quite set one time of no eggs.

Egg eating: yes, we would see evidence of some egg eating, but not for at least a month. And we are looking for any signs of egg eating, and are not seeing any.

So, we are going to have to decide who stays or goes as the new chicks come up into the flock. We have 4 from the original flock that get to stay….but all the rest should be worried!!

magpies around the coop? I thought my chickens didn't lay till one day I didn't collect the eggs when I saw them and by the time I went to close the coop all the eggs were gone.

 

[littledog]

What do you use to sterilize plastic pots that you want to reuse?

I just ran mine through the dishwasher, figure the heat during the dry cycle would sterilize them, but I could be wrong.

I think I should start more seeds inside. thinking about zucchini. they need about 2-2,5 months to harvest. still cold for gardening.

In my area, zucchini are pretty much impossible to fail at. People throw some seeds on the ground or in a pile of horse manure, and they produce. Probably in your area where it's much drier than here, you could start them outside in April, make sure they stay watered, and you'll get some. The nice thing about zucchini is, if you keep up with harvesting when they're 20-40 cm long, the plants will keep producing for several months.

another name for the red-tailed hawk?" and my butt has to pipe up loud enough for half the auditorium "Chicken hawk!" It was the right answer of course, but then the lady launches into how it's a misnomer as they don't actually prey on chickens. Cue me muttering "tell that to Papa after they flew off with some of his in broad daylight" Made DH almost burst out laughing, glad he got it reined in because his laugh is LOUD. I get trying to un-demonize the poor birds, but don't go making stuff up. Just teach people how to keep the birds out so it isn't an issue.

Learned something new, that red-tailed hawks and chicken hawks are the same! We've lost three hens over the years to red-tailed hawks airlifting them, once in broad daylight with Mr. Dog only a few yards away. Nothing against the hawks (baby hawks gotta eat too) and I love seeing them, but this is why we quit free-ranging our chickens and built them a safe run.

I finally found a local food pantry that accepts donations of backyard chicken eggs

I need to find one in my area too!

Stiil 3.80 for diesel
3.80 for non ethanol reg
3.40 for ethanol
4.20 for Premium non-ethanol

Yesterday Mr. Dog bought gas, 4.19 for ethanol reg. Today I figured I better fill up my truck before it went up, and today it was already up to 4.49. Diesel and premium were both 4.79!

maybe I'm being silly here, but I have to say I'd love to feel like we are neighbors, sharing our gardening.

Nope, not silly - that's pretty much why I enjoy it here so much, being part of a neighborhood spread all over the world, in all kinds of climates, with so much to learn and share with each other.

Mystery: out birds are hardly laying. We have mixed ages, 12 females. We do have 3 males, but will get rid of one in a few weeks. No fighting we can see between the males, nor any overmating.

We have 9 hens and 3 roosters (two of them youngsters) and our egg production went up dramatically three weeks ago when we built a new pen for the 3 roosters and separated them from the hens. There was no real fighting or overmating, but definitely too much drama, territorial behavior, etc. The hens became so much more relaxed with the roosters gone! Their egg production increased a lot, partly due to Spring I'm sure, but they were definitely happier with the roosters elsewhere.

 

[littledog]

Planted my first seeds of the year, on my new seed workbench:

So far, 5 San Marzano tomatoes, 5 Sungold tomatoes, 10 red ball cabbage, 5 leeks, 5 luffa. They're over a heat mat, and I'll turn on the grow lights as soon as they sprout. The hardware cloth screen is because our kitty Pumpkin was too interested in digging dirt out of the containers.
This weekend I'll plant lettuce and spinach in grow boxes in the greenhouse, and April 1 I'll plant potatoes, peas and pole beans outside.

Yesterday we went to Costco and got a membership, thanks to Mr. Dog's dad who gave us a gift card. OMG, that place is huge, and 50% of it is snack foods! We were there to buy a coffee maker which we found, and were proud of our discipline to only buy one snack, a huge bag of cheddar and caramel popcorn. Their garden area was small, but they had fruit trees for $16.99, and I couldn't help myself, I bought two apple trees. Northern Spy, which were my late Grandma's favorites for making pies.