A Mini Farm and Garden Tour

Thought I would introduce you to part of the crew on our homestead, as well as some of our garden plots.

I was out in the herb garden two Wednesdays ago checking out the status of my plants. At that point the chives weren't even coming up. I sighed, bummed that it wasn't Spring YET and started tearing out the old growth and what did I find---Radicchio that had overwintered from my lettuce mix last year! Spring really is here!


Here is a pic of my herb garden. Not much is coming up that is visible on the pic yet. The chives are peeking out of the ground and if I could eat potatoes I would be cutting some of those chives already! Maybe on a salad instead...



I also found a few praying mantis egg sacs that I will leave for this year's natural bug-control. I will NOT bring them into the house. Please see Randy's blog for what happened last year!



Here is Mama Kitty looking cute for her pic:



And here is Sweet Pea out in the old shed taking his sunbath(can you see him?). Both kitties are pretty much banished to outside our living area due to my allergies. I've kept them around though, and rest assured they are fed and cared for and earn their keep on the farm catching varmints!




While I am at it, here is our veggie garden plot. It has yet to be tilled, as our soil is way too wet still. That box is a sort of raised bed that Randy built last year for potatoes. I think I am going to try sweet potatoes in it this year.
To the right and behind the plot is our chicken house and chicken yard. We let them out this time of year, but (try to) keep them within the confines of the fence when our garden is producing, or else we sacrifice a lot of plants and produce!


And here are our current chickens. We thought we had 3 hens and a rooster, but yet again we have more roosters than we need. The roosters are Americaunas, the brown and black is a suspected mix of Americauna and ?(We think she is laying brown eggs instead of the green/blue Americauna eggs, but not sure yet. She is supposed to be Americauna), and the black and white speckled one is a Silver Wyandotte. Last time we had a bunch of Americaunas, we had a rooster that developed months sooner than the other rooster. They hatched at the same time. We were sure we had just one rooster....until the other one started growing spurs and eventually crowing. It makes me wonder whether there is some hormone control or something in the species to allow for a dominant male without all the fighting or something. I will have to research that sometime.

So, our second Americauna "hen"...is a Henry. :)