Garden 05 Apr 2008 10:38 pm
Chicken and garden update
So! It’s taking a while to get everything together, probably because we’ve ordered some fairly obscure chicken breeds, but our chicks will be shipped to us on May 19. Hooray! Much as I wish they were coming in April, having them show up a little later may make it a bit easier. When they’re ready to move outside, it should be nice and warm for them.
I ordered seeds without looking at what seeds I had left over from last year and the year before. Uh, I guess I’ll be planting a lot of carrots this year. Fortunately, they’ve got a pretty good seed life, though I haven’t been storing them in anything like an ideal situation — just a box in the south bedroom.
Besides carrots, veggie plans for the year include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, Tom Thumb lettuce, chard, lacinato kale, cilantro, green beans, and a couple different varieties of basil — one for pesto, the other a giant-leaf variety that I hope to use for mieng kham wrappers at least once. We’ll also be harvesting the garlic and shallots I planted last year. And then there should be grapes, strawberries, blackcurrants, plums, and perhaps some blackberries.
This turns out to be the year I start to get the seed storage thing together. I’m using old glass half-gallon jars, each with a cloth bag containing about a cup of silica desiccant. It’s not clear to me that the jars are as airtight as I’d like, so in a couple of weeks I’ll try to remember to check the desiccant color. I might have to rework things a bit there. But meanwhile, I’m commandeering the vegetable crisper for the seed storage jars. No loss, that — vegetables go into those brown crisper drawers and usually come out as compost. Nearly opaque crisper drawers are not a great idea for this household. Really not. Not for vegetables, anyway.
Another promising thing in the fridge right now: shiitake spawn. I’ve got some decent garden spots for mycoculture. (Also known as “not good for anything else”: dark and damp and out of the way.) Unfortunately, the logs I originally had in mind are a little older than is ideal, but I can trade for some freshly-cut elm that should do just fine. Mushroom growing turns out to be fairly intriguing to me. Did you know that you can grow oyster mushrooms on coffee grounds?
Speaking of mushrooms, I don’t see any morels yet. Maybe they’re all out of go. Aww. I still have a bunch of dried ones in the freezer, though, so there’s something. It turns out I like them best when used almost as a sort of spice, dried and crumbled into a tomato-based soup or sauce, much as I’d use porcini.
Right now we’ve got 232 square feet of raised bed, not counting the herb garden, various berry beds, or paths. I’ve got plans for another 132 square feet for a total of nine beds. (After that we’ll have to tear up the driveway and/or do some terracing to get much more in the way of garden space.) Keeping records of all that could be pretty confusing, so I thought I might buy some dog tags or other bits of engravable metal and physically label each bed. My first thought was that I’d just call them plain old “A”, “B”, “C”, but on second thought, I’m tempted to name them, much as Cissa has named her beehives. (A is for Aldo… H is for Hayduke…) Just like a server farm, only more farm than server.
on 06 Apr 2008 at 9:17 am 1.wolffire said …
Just curious, what chicken breeds?
on 06 Apr 2008 at 10:08 am 2.Cam Sculpin said …
We’re going for a Delaware, a Buff Orpington, and a Welsummer. They’re all relatively hardy dual-purpose birds, and the Delaware and Orpington should be pretty good winter layers. None of them is likely to be super-spazzy, but they should still each have a distinct personality.
Buff Orpingtons aren’t obscure; they’re all over the place. Big fluffy yellow birds. And are they ever docile. The one that lived up the street was almost too docile — it seemed to have the personality of a couch cushion. That’ll probably seem like a fine thing, though, when I’m collecting eggs!
The Delaware isn’t a heritage breed, but it’s listed as “critical” on the American Livestock Breeding Conservancy. It looks like it might be a decent layer (though none of these birds is at all likely to be up to commercial egg-laying standards) and still be a good deal calmer than the notoriously flighty leghorns.
The Welsummer is neat because it’s been bred for super-dark eggs which have been described as “a rich deep flower-pot red brown, almost glowing.” (Photo.) They have a reputation for being friendly and energetic. Plus the chicks are adorable, with their chipmunky stripes and all.
on 06 Apr 2008 at 10:16 am 3.Cam Sculpin said …
I should say, those are the chickens we’ve ordered. Whether we actually keep them depends a lot on how good the hatchery’s chick sexers are.
on 06 Apr 2008 at 3:35 pm 4.cissa said …
Again, chicken envy.
The Welsummer sounds totally nifty- I’ll look forward to your posts about how she performs. The others too, of course! I’m not sure I want a hen with the personality of a couch cushion- hey, I keep bees and cats, I’m used to stroppy- but they do have great characteristics.
For myself, heavy laying is probably as much a potential problem as a benefit. We don’t eat that many eggs 9thugh I’m sure that could change), so getting inundated is not a priority. I know I have a lot of research to go, though.
We’ve never had much luck with the “grow your own shiitake” kits. I hope yours is better! I think innoculating a lof will probably be more effective than the bricks they sell. We just got a “make your own morel patch” kit, and are trying to figure out whether to do it now- when temps are still getting below freezing- or later. Maybe we should refrigerate it? Sigh.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about your garden and chickens! I’m very impressed by your raised beds!
on 06 Apr 2008 at 5:01 pm 5.Cam Sculpin said …
Well, I’ve got bee envy, so we’re even.
I know what you mean about the possibility of egg overproduction. We do, however, have some neighbors who are more than willing to take our extra eggs. (And one of those neighbors has a nice asparagus patch. Helloooooo friend!)
I’m curious about those shiitake kits. I understand that there are some weird things you can do to induce fruiting in logs; I wonder if you could do similar things with the sawdust bricks. Did you try soaking them?
I’d talk to the mushroom gurus at Fungi Perfecti about your morel spawn, but I suspect you want to hang on to it for a while. The directions on that site indicate that you should sow your morel patch after June 1 for a crop the next spring.
on 07 Apr 2008 at 8:24 am 6.Naomi said …
Wow, I did not know that you can grow morels. I thought they only grew “mysteriously” and one needed to spend hours hunting for them.
Also, can I come visit sometime? I’d love to see your little farm when you’ve got all the season’s stuff established.
on 07 Apr 2008 at 10:51 am 7.Cam Sculpin said …
Absolutely! I’d love to have you over.