Backyard Vegetable Gardening & Livestock Raising & Sustainable Living

[Pander Bear]

The local expensive / boutique garden center had a 50 percent off sale today for 5 hours so we drove off into the thick fog today to see what could be had. We got:

2 celeste fig trees that should start yeilding fruit by their second year

2 confederate jasmine vines that should start stinking up the place quite nicely in 2 years

a frostproof gardenia that should produce an aroma so intense as to be described as "cloying"

3 free rosemary plants that seem better suited to the yard than the kitchen, but whatever

a Styphnolobium japonicum which has really cool new bark, and will grow to be an excellent flowering shade tree some day.

and some ornamental conifers for container gardening on the full-sun deck

Still need blueberries/blackberries/rasberries, as well as foundational shrubs for the front, but its fun to load up on plants, especially the figs. The ones nearby us produce with such abundance that passers by are invited to pick all they want.

 

[Samadhi]

What a wonderful assortment of plants, Pander! I have lovely memories of growing up with a wonderful variety of fruit growing in my backyard - mango, custard apple, persimon, figs, sugar bananas, mulberries An edible garden is the best, and as a child pretty much ensured that i was never hungry when i was playing

 

[Pander Bear]

I really wish I had your kind of climate. We can grow bananas, but not any edible variety. Mango is a distant dream, as is any citrus.

There are native persimmons we could grow, as well as New World fruits like paw paws that do well here. Plus, and this is definitely the most interesting to me, there are several varieties of Kiwifruit that are hearty enough for my climate


If I ever move to South Florida, New Orleans, or California, I'll be an olive and citrus growing freak.

 

[Samadhi]

Oh we had paw paw too! My mum would make a paw paw, mango and banana fruit salad when they were in season. We'd also have a beautiful bunch of ripe bananas () hanging under our house which we could pick and eat as we wished (no deadly black tarantulas though ). I love kiwi fruit.

We had a lilly-pilly tree (tart berry like fruit, great for jam), the neighbours also grew cumquat (again, tart, but good jam). My nonna also grew grapes that she'd make chewy mostarda straps from it. She also had grendadillas, mandarins and other citrus. My family have property about 3 hours north of Brisbane and my cousin has planted a huge mango orchard - there are about 25 varieties of mango, as well as lychees, citrus and a whole heap of veges (he has a PhD in Ag. Science and mangoes and cashews were the subject of his thesis).

For reference, all this fruit was in Queensland, Australia :D

 

[addictivepersona]

^ SO. JEALOUS.

Fuck WNY. >_<

 

[Pander Bear]

ya Samadhi, that's a vivid picture. I'd never want to leave.

 

[Kenickie]

well our chickens come in soon!

#excited

 

[AmorRoark]

Yay! How many? Who gets to pick naming?

 

[Kenickie]

probably 6, and i have no idea what we are going to call them. probably old lady names. like henrietta.

 

[AmorRoark]

Love it. My great grandma's name was Nellie Gray. I always liked that name. :D

edit: wtf? I read that someone else named Nellie Gray was a famous pro-life activist. Thanks a lot Nellie! Spoiled the name!

 

[Kenickie]

THEY ARE HERE! i lost the post-it note of what they were and kind of wish that Pander was with me picking them out, but whatever, he had to work and i didn't (and then i supposedly got called in but whatever), but i got close to one of each, and made sure and got one easter egg layer.

they are too young to be outside, for at least another two weeks. it's a straight run, so we don't have to worry about accidental roosters.

welcome to KenickerBear Farms, chickadees~!

 

[Pander Bear]

straight run means unsexed, farmer Keni.

 

[Kenickie]

WHATEVER!!!

:d

 

[Pander Bear]

it begins

 

[AmorRoark]

Holy hell how fast do they start laying eggs?

 

[Kenickie]

it should be noted that we do have two full grown hens that our neighbor gave us, the egg didn't just appear out of nowhere

Edith and I

so in total we're going to have 8 chickens! that's a lot of eggs.

also, taking care of 6 chicks is kind of a pain. lots of cheep cheep cheep as i pick them up and rub their necks to see if they are gritty (it means they are eating) and checking everyone's butts to make sure there isn't chicken poop blocking their chicken poop hole.


safe to say i'm totally ready to be a mom now

 

[AmorRoark]

I knew there was no way those amazingly adorable chickies magically laid those eggs already. :D That's really cool. Are the hens easy to take care of?

 

[Kenickie]

I knew there was no way those amazingly adorable chickies magically laid those eggs already. :D That's really cool. Are the hens easy to take care of?

just make sure they have food and water, so yeah, way easy.

 

[Pander Bear]

fun fact: chickens LOVE old yogurt

 

[ChickenScratch]

so, i get to post in this thread now. i have a very smelly neighbor that loves him some permaculture.

he's teaching me all about this shit, as i'm a total n00b. we're a little late to the game, but we finally got everything in the ground on saturday. we're doing hugel beds. essentially we dug two rows and buried a bunch of rotting wood, leaves, compost, etc and raised our beds. the idea is that the wood acts like a sponge, so you don't have to water your garden nearly as much.

http://www.primalseeds.org/hugel.htm

we also broke up a spent mushroom log to use as our retaining wall. covered that in sand and mulch. it rained like hell yesterday, and everything held up just fine. there is a chance that retaining wall may sprout oyster mushrooms, kind of an experiment. in the garden we have 3 kinds of peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, basil, arugala and parsley.

here's the beds lined by spent mushrooms before we planted and covered it in mulch:

finished product: