What did you do in the garden today?

[Acre4Me]

Planted 7 varieties of carrots, planted a patch of spinach, and some small quick growing salad turnips.

Fly predators started to hatch! Sprinkled them around the compost, goat pen, and around the outside of the chicken pen.

I added predatory nematodes to the soil right before heavy rain a week or so ago… today I found Asparagus beetles and their annoying eggs…only a few, plucked the egged stalks and tossed them into the fire and will order another batch of nematodes for later May to get a good treatment in before everything goes into the ground.


Due to all the rain one peach tree drowned (may have already mentioned this). More rain…and it is basically dead with one tuft of green at the top. It’s a really small tree, it’s up to my chest…maybe. So, we will remove it.

Chicks. Ugh. We’ve had to humanely dispatch more than ever before. A couple were early losses, one chick wasn’t really growing and it became clear it was going downhill. One had severe crossbeam (first time seeing that from this hatchery), two all of a sudden were injured and I suspect the head rooster may have been blinded by desire and tried mounting these ones, but maybe injured a different way. We tried to nurse them back to health but there must have been internal injuries. That rooster is a smaller breed, so he wasn’t huge or heavy. He’s now in a different pen with several hens. Hopefully all remaining chicks (20-22) have no more issues!

 

[WthrLady]

Chicks. Ugh. We’ve had to humanely dispatch more than ever before. A couple were early losses, one chick wasn’t really growing and it became clear it was going downhill. One had severe crossbeam (first time seeing that from this hatchery), two all of a sudden were injured and I suspect the head rooster may have been blinded by desire and tried mounting these ones, but maybe injured a different way. We tried to nurse them back to health but there must have been internal injuries. That rooster is a smaller breed, so he wasn’t huge or heavy. He’s now in a different pen with several hens. Hopefully all remaining chicks (20-22) have no more issues!

OH MY!
All from a hatchery?

 

[Acre4Me]

OH MY!
All from a hatchery?

Yes, across a few breeds. Having 1-2 pass out of 30 isn’t surprising…and injuries happen (also leading to loss) …but we’ve had to dispatch more than typical.

We’ve never had an obvious genetic issue from there either, so the crossbeak was unexpected. And, we’ve bought a particular “exhibition line” from them, but the last two years (after a 2 year break of not buying g lid exhibition line) there is clearly a decline in quality -still many nice attributes but not as good as a few years ago). So, not sure what is going on behind the scenes - the older (70s?) couple that were running it for a long time seems to be passing the reigns to the younger gen (mid 30s+), so maybe that’s contributing. They also have their breeding stock on different farms and fit this “exhibition line” they changed their farm and I recall him saying the new farm was on a steep learning curve with this breed (so why they used this farm?) and those problems may also be showing up. Too bad bc the earlier ones we raised from chicks were outstanding in many ways.

But, now that all future purchases of chickens will have nothing to do with 4H (kid’s last year this year) and the various rules , we can buy whatever floats our boat! Hopefully Ohio Dept of Agriculture ok’s chicken shows for the summer -waiting to hear the decision around mid-May.

 

[dirkandlorie]

does anyone do sweet potatoes?

Can't imagine A garden without my sweet potatoes. They grow well here with our hot summers.

 

[WthrLady]

Yes, across a few breeds. Having 1-2 pass out of 30 isn’t surprising…and injuries happen (also leading to loss) …but we’ve had to dispatch more than typical.

We’ve never had an obvious genetic issue from there either, so the crossbeak was unexpected. And, we’ve bought a particular “exhibition line” from them, but the last two years (after a 2 year break of not buying g lid exhibition line) there is clearly a decline in quality -still many nice attributes but not as good as a few years ago). So, not sure what is going on behind the scenes - the older (70s?) couple that were running it for a long time seems to be passing the reigns to the younger gen (mid 30s+), so maybe that’s contributing. They also have their breeding stock on different farms and fit this “exhibition line” they changed their farm and I recall him saying the new farm was on a steep learning curve with this breed (so why they used this farm?) and those problems may also be showing up. Too bad bc the earlier ones we raised from chicks were outstanding in many ways.

But, now that all future purchases of chickens will have nothing to do with 4H (kid’s last year this year) and the various rules , we can buy whatever floats our boat! Hopefully Ohio Dept of Agriculture ok’s chicken shows for the summer -waiting to hear the decision around mid-May.

What hatchery was it?

 

[PopoMyers]

I am disappointed more then 2 romaine has not sprouted, I may have to resort to picking up starts.

Maybe old seeds?

 

[PopoMyers]

View attachment 4112717

Run!

I've never seen that before. Kinda cool and strange at the same time.

 

[PopoMyers]

Weeding and watering day. That's all I had time for. Will be going strong after tomorrow, no pressing commitments. Have to do another round of bed weeding. Masses of baby ones sprouting. Time to get the onions mulched.

 

[chickengr]

Didn’t have a flood wash out our new plantings but I did find a bunch of the newly planted beans had pushed themselves out of the soil as they were germinating. Every year it seems like it JUST has to be something.

I add more soil when that happens.

 

[Minanora]

Shelf cloud - but always one of my favorites.
Could you PLEASE share the rain?!

We don't get a lot of clouds here but on Thursday there was a big band of low pressure moving through. It was so pretty.

We're in LA for the weekend to go to Disneyland for"May the 4th". I decided to be the driver. My shoulders are so angry. I hate LA traffic. We sat in traffic for way too long.

I got all of the pumpkins planted!