What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

@Wee Farmer Sarah It's just a loose leaf lettuce blend, it's my fave cuz it has a good variety & is so tender.

@Acre4Me how horrible! I agree with @penny1960 once you see what it is you'll be able to better plan what to do. But that's so stressful knowing something is out there & probably coming back.

@NewBoots no worries, they sure are cute but there is usually a reason someone raises them, LOL! My neighbor gets SOOO upset that my other neighbor eats her chickens, she told me she hoped I wasn't going to be that cruel with mine. Uhhh, ok, you go buy yours from the grocery store & believe it came on that styrofoam tray from nature. Don't think twice about how it was raised or anything. Whatever. I think I might try a shade cloth for the beans, if they aren't too far gone. Thanks!

I feel sick when I see the giant open semi trucks full of open crammed full chicken and turkey cages that are headed from farms to processing. Makes me sad.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I feel sick when I see the giant open semi trucks full of open crammed full chicken and turkey cages that are headed from farms to processing. Makes me sad.

I imagine I would but have never been so unlucky to see such a thing

 

[NewBoots]

I know the reality of the chicken I let myself have once in a while from KFC or Popeyes, but I avoid thinking about it. And since I do know, I figure it makes me more responsible. I eat Taco Bell too from time to time. We used to live near New Seasons, they at least sold only humanly raised meats. I miss them.

 

[Acre4Me]

Alright - anyone with predator knowledge can view my thread on impending predator visit. Help me ID what I am up against!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/id-the-predator.1389135/

 

[karenerwin]

@karenerwin love how the greenhouse looks what do you have to do with it ?
or is good as it sits?

Those pictures are at my friend's house. I brought home the glass panes. So we will need to build the frame to hold the glass and put in a door. I'm also getting the exhaust fan that was in the greenhouse and at least 1 of the potting tables. I think the 2nd table is too long for me to even get it home! There are still more glass panels for us to take down. We only got the first section of it taken apart. The 2nd section only has glass panels on the "walls". The roof of this section appears to be plexiglass or something that I think will be too weathered to be useful to me.

 

[littledog]

Just starting dinner scalloped potato and ham

I'd love your recipe for scalloped potatoes. I love them, but haven't had them for years. Just today I was staring at my potatoes and trying to think of a different way to fix them besides mashed, baked or fried.

 

[littledog]

We got so much done this weekend, makes me so happy!

Yesterday we mowed and weed-whacked everything in front, and then around the garden and other places that aren't visible to the neighbors.

Some of my baby trees were looking a little yellow, so today I got out my soil tester and found out the PH is fine everywhere, the containers need a little more fertilizer, the garden is on the low end of acceptable for nitrogen, and the baby trees' area is really low on nitrogen.
I put fertilizer around each of the baby trees, then watered, then mulched. It's so helpful that they're in plastic tubes, it makes it easy to fertilize and mulch in a way that drives the nutrients down to the roots without burning the plants.

Mr. Dog got out the brush cutter and machete, and cleared the other side of the shed of blackberries and fake bamboo. Amazing all the useful things he found, that we'd forgotten we had: some good lumber, a gate with hardware, a rotten post with good gate hardware in it, a bunch of T-posts and roofing panels, a metal thing that can be turned into a fire pit, lots of cinder blocks...also lots of junk.

I helped him move some of the stuff, then mini-tillered the whole garden and FINALLY got my buckwheat cover-crop planted (while it was almost getting dark - gotta love these solstice days!)

It makes me wish we had more days off - I intended to plant my basil and cabbages and loofah (at least I cleared and prepped the loofah area) but we made good headway, and maybe I'll have some time before work this week to do some of that.

 

[Sueby]

I know the reality of the chicken I let myself have once in a while from KFC or Popeyes, but I avoid thinking about it. And since I do know, I figure it makes me more responsible. I eat Taco Bell too from time to time. We used to live near New Seasons, they at least sold only humanly raised meats. I miss them.

I eat chicken from the grocery store, I don't have the room, knowledge or time to raise meat birds. It's all good, I don't think any less of people who do - I just have a hard time with someone (my neighbor) looking down on someone who DOES raise their own to eat! It just makes no sense to me, it's backwards if you think about it!

& I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make anyone feel bad thinking about where chicken comes from, lol. We all know & we do our part to help, as little or as big as our part is, in making the lives of at least a few chickens better!

 

[Acre4Me]

So, we think raccoons are the culprit. My neighbor had the rest of his chickens taken last night - 4 of them. He lent us his game camera and we caught raccoons at 11:45pm and then again at 4:50am investigating our area. There are two of them in one of the pictures.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. Another hot day going on. We have a very slight chance of pop-up thunderstorms for the next day or so but no substantial rain in the forecast. I'll be checking the soil before I water today. I would like to hold off until tomorrow, but we'll see. The shade cloth on the cabbage and lettuce is working really well. I plan on tasting the lettuce to make sure it's not going bitter. I still have endive growing and am trying to hold off on picking that just yet. I'm trying to take it a little easy today, doing as little as possible outside. I do plan on moving two more buckets of dirt and dead heading the roses, but that's about it for the outside. Thank you for clarifying the greenhouse thing @karenerwin. I was getting confused because I thought you were just getting the glass and some other items, I'm looking forward to seeing your finished product. In defense of store bought chicken: if we honestly thought long and hard about where our meat came from we might all turn into vegetarians. But honestly that would be really tough. I was consuming more plant based meals for a while but I had to start eating more meat when I was having physical issues with not getting enough protein. That is especially important when you get older. Since we can't all raise our own meat the best thing we can do is to try to purchase meat that is humanely raised as possible. On that note, I was extremely delighted when I went hunting for sausage in my big freezer and came across a very nice 1/2 pound NY Strip Steak. Yum! I bought that beauty before the prices soared. I'm glad you discovered the culprits @Acre4Me. Hopefully you can prevent them from getting your chickens. You've worked so hard to care for them, I wish you the best of luck. I believe most of the posters on this thread are women, but I do want to send a "Happy Father's Day" to any Dads who are on this thread. Have a great day everyone.