What did you do in the garden today?

[igorsMistress]

So I ventured out of the garden thread (shocking, I know) & posted on it & Dobie posted that this is how she does it & has no issues. It’s not supposed to be super cold so I think they might add just enough warm to keep them from freezing, but we’ll see. I use excelsior material in my boxes so they can’t really get to the seed pads to peck at them…hopefully. I finally have eggs coming & I don’t want them freezing & cracking & ending up with egg eaters so I feel like I have to try something.

Cool! I bet it’ll work great then, DL is in NY and it gets darn cold there!

 

[BReeder!]

I have had that happen once! Pulled a jar off the shelf & the lid almost just fell off, popper was down. Now I always pull on them before putting them away. I’m glad I ran out of Ball jars! Not only annoying but super dangerous too.

I opened a jar of broth the other day that was sealed tight but had some black (my instant thought was black mold, but I don’t really think it was) all over the inside of the lid. I threw it out. Ever seen that? Made me question home canning, lol.

So has anyone ever heated nest boxes? Were finally getting snow so I can’t get out there to collect eggs, I was thinking of putting my heated seed mat to good use in the nest box. Any thoughts on why that wouldn’t be a good idea?

I bet heat mats would work well in a best box. Judging from the amount of warmth in my grow tent just from 5 heat mats running, they put off enough to keep things comfortable in a small enclosed space. They key though would be enclosing the best box - be sure to put curtains on it.

 

[Badchickenpun]

These are the tomato varieties I've decided on for this season -

Olena Ukrainian

Amish Paste

Backa

Paisano Hybrid

Skyway

I'm pulling back this year (on varieties) Just one variety of Roma, but more of it. A friend gave me some seeds that there family has grown fro generations, they save them every year... Pretty much an heirloom variety by this point! So lucky to have them.

 

[CNJ]

My hen that made a nest in the bushes abandoned her dozen eggs yesterday, so I checked them with a light and they were all duds, so I put them in a plastic bag and put them in the trash bin.

I broke down the pile of mango branches and leaves where the nest was made and the hen that abandoned her eggs jumped out from a different spot, she was sitting on a lone egg in a new nest. I threw that egg away, and put fresh ones in an incubator. I have 4 older hens that bully 4 younger ones, and one of the younger ones is too fat to perch, so she sleeps and poops in my breeding nest box on the ground.

I will process the 4 older ones and the fat younger one before the incubator eggs hatch. My chickens are a cross between a Breese rooster and a Cornish Cross hen. The problem with this cross is they eat too much to be economical egg layers, but they make excellent fryers and roasters at 3 months old and the older birds make good stewing birds.

The other day I was staring at a firm mound swirl of chicken poop and I was thinking to myself, that looks kind of like dog poop.

 

[jerryse]

Rain and wind early. Just cloudy and 50s now. Might hit 60. Spent a lot of time outside yesterday.

 

[WthrLady]

My 8.5 year old hen had a seed warming mat under her bit of faux grass carpet in her private pen to keep her feet warm. I had a piece of tile on top of it, then the mat and then the grass mat. So I basically made her underfloor heating for her coop....HA!

 

[Paz]

Younger brother is on vacation from the military, older brother will also have three days vacation from Thursday, so I will go Wednesday to buy fish, although my younger brother wants sheep, and Ramadan is next month, so the prices will go up, but we don’t have enough place in the freezer, so older brother wins .

My snow peas are growing nice, but it’s been warm these couple of days, and the weather guy said it’s going to be around 30 degrees Celsius on Saturday, so hopefully they’ll survive.
The Longan looks really bad, so I will spray it again with copper when I have the time. I gave it some iron, because it usually helps, but so far nothing got better.
Most of my seeds didn’t sprout, my father says it has to do with the cold nights at the time they were sown. The ones that did grow look ok however.

 

[Paz]

My hen that made a nest in the bushes abandoned her dozen eggs yesterday, so I checked them with a light and they were all duds, so I put them in a plastic bag and put them in the trash bin.

I broke down the pile of mango branches and leaves where the nest was made and the hen that abandoned her eggs jumped out from a different spot, she was sitting on a lone egg in a new nest. I threw that egg away, and put fresh ones in an incubator. I have 4 older hens that bully 4 younger ones, and one of the younger ones is too fat to perch, so she sleeps and poops in my breeding nest box on the ground.

That’s why I don’t grow meat birds, it’s too sad to look at them. Unless you call turkeys meat birds… they’re not sad to watch.

 

[Badchickenpun]

That’s why I don’t grow meat birds, it’s too sad to look at them. Unless you call turkeys meat birds… they’re not sad to watch.

I think I would feel more comfortable with meat animals if you could do them all free range, and then just hunt them when it's time to eat them... IDK, but for some reason that feels better. Have them live off the land, no interaction with people...

 

[TJAnonymous]

I'm pulling back this year (on varieties) Just one variety of Roma, but more of it. A friend gave me some seeds that there family has grown fro generations, they save them every year... Pretty much an heirloom variety by this point! So lucky to have them.

I'm still trying to figure out what varieties work best for my family. In the past we've only really used tomatoes as slicers for raw eating or BLTs or whatever. So beefsteaks are a must. We also make salsa every year. I like cherry tomatoes occasionally for salads but I always end up with buckets of them and I might eat only a couple of salads all summer (something I'm trying to improve!). The rest just go to waste as my chickens aren't really fans. I *really* want to make and can my own tomato sauce. But I never seem to get enough tomatoes at the right time to do it. Last year I was saving tomatoes in the fridge but by the time I had enough to try to make sauce, many were moldy. I ended up losing the whole harvest.

Anyway, the point being that I'm experimenting with different varieties to see what I like the best. I've done these varieties in the past few years -

Better boy, Celebrity, Brandywine, Super Sweet 100, Sart Roloise, Black Strawberry, Roma, San Marzano, Purple Cherokee, Blue Cream, Prairie Fire

Of all those, I probably like the Celebrity the best followed by the Purple Cherokee.

Anyway, we'll see how these new varieties fare this year.