Seed Selection

I think starting your own seeds is a very important part of gardening. There is, by far, a greater variety of seeds available than plants that have already been started. Between all the seed companies online, you are sure to find that one special variety you have been itching to test out in your garden. The most important thing is the greater availability of heirlooms seeds.

Most seed companies sell their special hybrid seeds, which is good for you because they can combine the best characteristics of two different strains of the same vegetable in hopes of a superior product. It is good for them too because if you want that same hybrid once the seed packet is empty you have to buy more from them, which is in turn bad for you. If you sprout seed from a hybrid fruit you aren't guaranteed to get the exact same plant as the original. There is often even variation in separate plants grown from seeds of the same hybrid. It is the nature of genetics.

If you grow plants from heirloom seeds, save them, and then sprout them the next year you will get an identical plant. That means you don't have to buy more seed, you just grow them.

As always, there is some 'fine print'. Some plants are a pain to let go to seed. I never plan to harvest seed from lettuce because they are just so small I don't think I have the patience. Also, we like growing a Mesclun mix of leaf lettuce, but to grow our own seed mix we would have to collect seeds from each type of plant.

Be wary of cross pollination. If you plant two types of heirloom tomatoes side by side and the wind blows just right (or a bee goes from one plant to the other) they will cross pollinate and then boom, you have your very own hybrid. That is not necessarily a bad thing, it is just unpredictable.

I don't want this to come across as a rant against commercial hybrids. I use them, most of the seeds and plants I am using this year are just that. They have their place. I am using them this year because I got off to a late start and didn't have time to sprout my own. I specifically went after the disease and heat tolerant hybrids since I have had a problem with each in the past.

I also save hybrid seeds to see what kind of plant the second generation is; not as a main crop that I depend on for food but as an experimental one. At my heart, I have a scientific nature and a good portion of my garden is experiments in progress. I suggest you do the same, carve out at least some space in a garden devoted to experiments. Try a new hybrid to see how it performs. Try a new growing method such as growing melons on a trellis or potatoes in a box of hay. Or, just sprout some seeds from your favorite hybrids from the last harvest. You won't necessarily get the exact same kind of plant, but you may end up with a superior one. If the experiment fails, you still have the rest of the garden full of reliable plants. If it succeeds, well then you have a new trick to add to your gardening know-how checklist and you have more tasty food to eat.

I buy heirlooms, when possible, because I like to have the option of saving seeds and like having a pretty good idea what I can expect from the plants grown from those seeds. I also prefer heirlooms because they are the old and tried-and-true strains that have been productive for generations.

A big part of homesteading for me is to carry on traditional practices that people used time and time again in the past but seems to have been mostly forgotten by the last two or three generations. Another big part is sustainability. Saving heirlooms seeds fulfills both of those. Saving your own seeds has one more important advantage because you can save seeds from your healthiest and most productive plants. By productive, I don't mean focus solely on the plant that made the most fruit but the one that produced the most of the fruit you wanted. If you buy a couple beefsteak heirlooms plants (like I did), even though they are the same strain, each plant won't have the exact same tomatoes. If one plant has mostly 1 lb. tomatoes but the one beside it produced smaller fruit that had a better taste, you have to make a conscious decision whether you want to help natural selection along with the goal of larger tomatoes or better tasting tomatoes. When saving seeds it is important to pick out your best fruit or vegetable from the healthiest plant to increase the chances for a successful harvest next year. If you continue to do that for a couple years you will have a strain that, through natural selection, has the best characteristics for your own little micro-climate, your own perfect strain, for free.

This started out as a post on how to make seed starting boxes but, as is a habit of mine, I just sort of hopped up on my soapbox and rambled away.

The box instructions will be in the next post...I hope...

Seed-starting Boxes

And because I feel guilty when I have a post without pictures of my dogs, here are some failed attempts of getting a nice picture of all three sitting together.

Murphy says, "Don't mind me. I'm just passing through."

No, we won't look at the camera no matter how many times you ask

The stick is calling to me!

*sniff sniff* You smell that?! Someone just put hotdogs on the grill 2.37 miles that way!

Farm Picture of the Day: Herding and Chickens

Two pictures today.

Beavis crowing

The rut that Brogan has made around the chicken coop from his "herding."

The adventures of a sick chicken

About three weeks ago, shortly after I posted about how healthy all the chickens were, I found a hen all but dead on the coop floor when I went out to water them. We were going out of town that day so I really didn't have much time to do anything with her. Just as damage control, I put her in the big brooder pen I have in the workshop. If she had something contagious, I didn't want to give her more time to infect the rest of the flock. I also didn't want the other chickens picking on her in her weakened state. She looked so bad, I probably would have put her out of her misery had we not been traveling that day.

When we got back that night, she looked a little better, which was encouraging so, we left her alone in the brooder for a while seeing if she would continue to get better. In time, she slowly improved. It is amazing how healing intense rest can be. I began taking her out each morning and putting her in a temporary pen during the day to let her get some fresh air, sun, and grass. At night we would put her back in the brooder for protection. I was hoping she would put on some weight since she was amazingly thin when we moved her out of the normal chicken run.

After a couple weeks of that routine she was strong enough to go back in with the other chickens...or so I thought. As soon as I put her back in the big pen, she was immediately attacked by the alpha hen and her cronies. They were vicious, the lead hen, Henrietta (no, not a very original name), would grab her by her comb and drag her all around the pen. The other hens picked on her so bad that she couldn't move, she would just go and stick her head out of the pen so that the hens couldn't peck at it. I thought that was quite dangerous because I could imagine some neighborhood dog (or other critter) coming by and chomping off this head sticking about 3 inches out of the fence so, I grabbed her and put her back in the brooder until I could figure out a next step.

I searched on the 'net for information regarding reintroducing a hen to a flock and, from the plethora of available advice, it seemed to be a common problem. The simplest solution was to remove the alpha hen, Henrietta, and put the sick hen back with the flock. There was a bit of tussling once we did that from the other hens close to the top of the pecking order but no where near as violent a beating as the sick hen was getting before. After a bit of pecking and the reintroduced hen running away, everything seemed to have been worked out.

I was putting Henrietta in the big brooder box during the night and in the temporary pen during the day. The only problem was that she was flying out of the five foot fencing of the temporary pen and trying to get back in the chicken run. I left her in the brooder box for a couple days since I wasn't ready to put her back with the other chickens.

Her attacks on the sick chicken wasn't the only reason I wanted to separate her. Why she has a name when the other hens do not is that she is easily identifiable by her huge comb, as big as the roosters. I was reading Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks by Dave Holderrad and he mentioned that large female ducks that showed some drake characteristics were usually androgynous. I began to wonder if that was the case with her and I was wasting food on a non-laying hen. She never laid in the brooder box, but I could chalk that up to a combination of stress and lack of light. The sick chick never laid an egg either, but they typically do not when sick.

Yesterday, we moved the mother hen back in with the rest of the flock and moved Henrietta to the small pen she was in. Henrietta has a week to lay an egg or else I think she will have to go to freezer camp.

Interestingly enough there was a bit of fighting when we put the mother hen back in with the flock but she did a good job of standing up for herself. Once again things seemed to have been smoothed over.

Speaking of naming chickens, I finally gave the sick hen a name, Penny. I was calling her henny, but changed it to Penny because of already having a Henrietta. I had dealt with her so much I can recognize her comb, but it also helps that when I go in the run she is constantly underfoot trying to get me to pick her up. She is the only chicken that lets me pick her up.

I intially gave the name of Big Mama to Henrietta, but Krystal vetoed it and went with Henrietta. Our roosters have also been named, as has been shown in pictures in a previous post. The white rooster is named Butthead since he likes to attack people. The darker rooster is named Beavis to go along with Butthead.

I am planning to replace Butthead in the near future. I am thinking about getting a different breed in hopes of having a bit of hybrid vigor in the offspring since we plan to continue hatching eggs from our own flock for meat birds. Right now I can't decide between getting a Buff Orpington, Cuckoo Maran, or a Colored Broiler from JM Hatchery. I would like to find a mature but young BO or Maran rooster so I don't have to wait for a chick to mature before I replaced Butthead. The Colored Broiler is a possibility because I would like to order a batch from JM to see how growth rate and feed conversion compare to our BR chickens. The problem is that I would prefer to order just 25, but that makes them $2.00 a piece. There are price drops when you order 50+ or 100+. It breaks down to where 25 chicks is $60, but for $30 I can double my order, and for another $30 I can get 100 chicks! That is a pretty good deal, but I would able but pressed to find room for 50 chicks, but no way have room for 100. So if someone in the Jacksonville area wants 50 colored broilers I would love to split an order. >.>

Since I really don't have any pictures to go along with the post, here are some random doggy/chick pics.


The laziest border collie in the world.


Another chick pic, notice the addition of shavings.


Brogan watching the chicks...again.


One of the chicks in Brogan's bowl.


Brogan seeing how close he can get to the chick before he gets yelled at.

-Matthew

Chicks!

Three weeks ago today, we put our broody hen on a nest of 11 green eggs and 3 brown eggs. Today, six of the eggs hatched (5 green and one brown). One brown egg shattered earlier this week. And, there are still 6 green and 1 brown eggs under the hen.

The six chicks all look like the little barred rock chicks we got in October.




We brought them inside and set them up in the kitchen under the heat lamp where they seem to be snoozing and doing well.

Brogan, of course, has resumed his old post from when we had the chicks in the house before.


-Krystal

So it has been some time...

since my last post, and a lot has happened. I will try to update more regularly since we are actually doing some 'homesteady' things now.

Last June we both lost our jobs within a week of each other. We saw that as an opportunity to move from the Raleigh area to where Krystal grew up (and I mean the exact house she grew up in). It didn't take her long to find a job, but I am having no such luck, I have been unemployed for about a year now. The bad news is that our income has been greatly reduced, the good news is that I have time to get a lot of things done around our new mini-farm.

Speaking of the mini-farm, we currently have:

Two crazy border-collies. I imagine I talk about them so much I might as well add in a pic when I can. I also would guess they will turn up in most pics of any outside endeavours; they usually aren't very far away from us when we are working outside. Brogan is on the left and Angus is on the right.


This picture was taken a couple seconds later. Already Brogan has decided he has been still long enough and must go back to herding the chicken pen.

A chicken coop and run with 17 hens, and 2 roosters. The bare spots surrounding the pen is the path Brogan has worn into the ground.

A small garden consisting of two beds, each measuring 4ft by 20ft. We have harvested a couple things, mostly greens and radishes for salads.

We are also adding a bed around the pear tree, mostly for strawberries. Krystal really wants some and we had a nice patch of wild strawberries already growing underneath the pear tree so I thought that would be a good place to put them. It also saves me from having to cut the grass around the tree.


The limb pictured below is out to get me, it is the exact height when sitting on my mower as to be out of my range of vision when looking at the ground to make sure I don't hit the tree with the mowing deck but low enough to slam the top of my head if I don't duck. Very shortly after making this discovery, I was seeing stars and had to bring the mower to a stop until the world stopped spinning. So not having to cut around the tree seemed like a good idea to me.


The plant in the picture above is a baby watermelon. I wanted to try growing vine plants in hanging baskets. If I ever get around to planting the cucumbers , zucchini, and eggplant I will most likely plant some of each in hanging baskets to keep the watermelon company, in addition to what I plant in the actual garden.

Now for a bit more detail.

On Halloween last year, we got our first chickens. We ordered 20 Barred Rock chicks straight run, and 5 Easter-egger pullets from Whelp hatchery. I had wanted fewer Barred Rocks in lieu of some Cornish Rock broilers, but was told the broilers ship from another facility and, as such, I could increase my order to 25 broilers and 25 other chicks, or they could keep my current order and add in 'packing peanut chicks'.(Most hatcheries have a box they ship chicks in that holds about 25 peepers. If you order less than 25, they add in extra chicks they have a surplus of so that the body heat from the chicks keep them warm enough during shipment). Either way, I would be getting 50 chicks instead of 25 and I just didn't have room for that many, so the order was changed to the above selection.

I don't want to give the impression that I was unhappy with the turn of events, far from it. The customer service person at Whelp was very helpful and the whole transaction was purely positive. They actually ended up shipping 26 Barred Rocks and 5 Easter-eggers. One little BR didn't make it, one had spraddle leg which we were able to correct, and the other 29 were amazingly healthy. I have had no problem at all raising the chicks, all survived and thrived except for the one noted before. It has been a surprisingly easy and rewarding experience so far.

We currently have 14 Barred Rock hens, 2 Barred Rock roosters, and 3 Easter-egger hens. I have pics of the peepers when they arrived that I plan to use in another update post to cover what we have already done. The posts about what we have done will be good for days when I am not currently 'doing' anything interesting. We are getting a lot more eggs than we can use, but so far I haven't had any luck selling them. I posted on Craigslist and a local site, though I admit I could have done a much better job selling them on the posts than I did. I still need to do a sign for the front yard, but as with any kind of homestead, the list of to-dos far exceeds the amount of time I have to do them.

As for the garden, this is my second try at a decent garden. Tried it once in Clayton but, with us working such long days, I really didn't have the drive or energy to do a good job of it. As I said before, we now have two beds, mostly of greens. We only have the two small beds because I made them by hand with shovel and hoe, and well established centipede sod is a bear to break up. The root system easily reaches 8 inches down and creates a thick mat both above and below ground.

For the first bed I used a shovel to just turn chunks of sod upside down, assuming that a shovel deep clump of dirt would smother the grass. I was wrong, the stuff still grew upside down. The next bed I just cut up with a hoe, breaking 3 hoes in the process and giving me some nice blisters and sore shoulders. Then I let the smaller chunks of sod dry for a day or two. After that came the exhausting part of picking each dried sod chunk up and shaking out the dirt, leaving a mass of dead grass and roots, which were then given to the chickens.

Krystal's grandmother has a small garden which had a number of tomato plants eaten by deer one night. That tells me I need to fence in my garden to keep the deer out, not to mention dogs and chickens. Once I fence in what I plan to be the garden area, I may just rent a tiller and not bother with the raised beds. The ground is fertile enough, though I need to mix some compost when I till it.

The advantages to not doing raised beds are that I don't have to spend the money on boards for the bed and I can more easily keep grass out of the garden since I can plow the walkways. It will also give me more flexibility as to how I plant stuff. With the raised beds, I have no choice but to work with 4 foot blocks. With just a plowed area for a garden, I can just plant a single row of something if I think that is the best way to do it, which would most likely be the case for tomatoes and other large plants. I am re-reading The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward Smith before I make my final decision regarding raised beds since he is a strong believer in them.

Once the garden is fenced in, I then plan to fence in the majority of the back yard, leaving at least a 3 foot gap between that fence and the garden one so that the chickens have access to the full perimeter of the garden. That will greatly cut down on the number of bugs in my garden. We had a heavy infestation of junebugs for a couple days. I say only a couple days because I let a few chickens out in the evenings while I was outside working and they were very vigilant about running all across the yard chasing the bugs on wing. The junebugs didn't have a chance, and I got tons of chuckles from watching it.

I am also reading Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks. Those will most likely be the next animals added to our place. The plan is to raise the ducks for roasters and use the chickens as fryers. So if anyone has any beginner advice on raising ducks, just let me know.

Now off to work on a small pen on the end of the chicken run to place a broody hen.

Matthew