last summer urge

[hangel]

i had a WEIRD thing this summer in my head. I thought i must have some independent source of food at home. Got bees and hens.
Bees live themselves with some maintenance obviously.
Hens need eat grains - not hard to come by locally, hens like grass too and other greens, some small leftovers and fruits fallen from the tree. i ve got cockerel - which i had get rid of :( because i have neighbours who cannot have cockerel next door.... :ban:

BUT for few days the cockerel did the job so i started learning how to hatch eggs and look after little chicks.
Its SOOO different to all i've done in my life and it brought me a lot of satisfaction that i can do it. :whoo:

This urge was just so strange. It was like my spirit said "get ready!"

[thunder24]

IT ISN'T hard at all is it...and the fruits of ur labor are so rewarding, it makes u wanna do more, and share what u have already done. Glad to hear that u listened to the voice, and r getting ready....

peace

[scanner]

Living the way it should be . Back to nature , I finished gathering the last of the blackberries today , yummy . Thanks for this thread .

[thunder24]

wow, our blackberries were gone about a month ago... I did get a greenhouse, not a real good one, but good enough to start seeds in and grow some greens and onions, got some cukes in there some peppers and cabbage. pineapple sage, basil and lemon basil, dwarf lavender and english lavender.

only problem is it keeps getting hot cold rainy sunny, to the point of mold then draught, if not on top of it... but thats the joys of learning as u go....

peace

wow eight guests on this thread

[spiritwind]

Ah yes, blackberries, chickens, bees and gardening. Right up my alley. Cool thing for me was I got several big bags of blackberries I was able to freeze and they were growing over my fence from my neighbors yard. I too got chickens for the first time this year, 3 barred rock hens, Ophelia, Cleopatra, and Isabelle. More fun than a barrel of monkeys and I get eggs too! Next, I want to get a couple goats for milk, yoghurt and cheese and my best friend is getting turkeys next year (she already has rabbits, chickens and goats). My garden attracted lots of honey bees this year as well as many birds and squirrels. Happy to share. The chicken poop with the straw I throw in the coop is going to be great for next years garden. Lately I have absolutely no interest in television and all I can think about is how I'm going to expand the garden next year. Love it!

[thunder24]

i understand that completly... always thinking of what else to grow or try, and where to expand. i had some chickens last year but something ate some of them, and then the others wondered down the creek to the neighbors house.

thinking bout trying mollasses and growing hopi blue corn for corn meal... got the seeed for corn, just gotta find a kind neighbor with some molasses to give me. Prefer local trading and crops to ordering, but sometimes u gotta do what you gotta do. Neighbor got a goat but don't like it, hes from florida...new to mountian living. lol...

[Caren]

I've been expanding my vegetable garden too and really enjoying it. I have an apple tree, plum trees, blackberries, raspberries, and currants. Wild strawberries and blueberries are abundant in this area. The soil here is fairly rich and I have been composting for a number of years now.
I would love to have some chickens and goats but I live in a subdivision, so no chickens etc. are allowed unfortunately.
Good luck everyone - gardening is very relaxing and rewarding.

[hangel]

Its so great to know that people are moving away from supermarket food. Even the smallest flower bed can be transferred to herb garden for kitchen.

I have a standard garden as for UKs houses and there is 1 apple tree (+1 baby apple tree), raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, goji berries, strawberries, red currants x3, plum tree overhanging from outside the fence - this one is our tho but when we put new fence it turned out to be right in the way. Next door allotment was keen to cut it but we said NO. It was on our side but it has got so big that it expanded. Strange enough the tree seems to 'know' about depute over it and bears plums only on branches overhanging our garden. I found it strange and surprising.

Other stuff was our veg patch. its in the shape of many triangles pointing one place with their longest sides - looking a bit like orange cut in half across the cells - shape is what was left over of old pond. So veg is taken by beans - runner, pumpkins, chard, kale, cabbage, my sons biggest turnip - size of large grapefruit, few herbs there and there cos im in to companion planting. Tomms in the greenhouse.
Seems a lot but all these things are in small quantities and kind of enough for a small family.
Now im thinking of getting the front lawn removed and have a small patch there for pumpkins as front garden is the sunniest.

[thunder24]

i pulled some radishes today...boy were they spicy and good. funny thing... i started them in the ground in a greenhouse, my girl and I decided to move them, so she set out transplanting them..... when i pulled them, a couple had grown normal, but then instead of the top being there, there was another normal sized radish on top of the first one, and then the head. it was like two thirds of a snow man.... pretty wild. wondering if any knows if this is from transplanting them or what. thanks...

peace

[spiritwind]

Its so great to know that people are moving away from supermarket food. Even the smallest flower bed can be transferred to herb garden for kitchen.

I have a standard garden as for UKs houses and there is 1 apple tree (+1 baby apple tree), raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, goji berries, strawberries, red currants x3, plum tree overhanging from outside the fence - this one is our tho but when we put new fence it turned out to be right in the way. Next door allotment was keen to cut it but we said NO. It was on our side but it has got so big that it expanded. Strange enough the tree seems to 'know' about depute over it and bears plums only on branches overhanging our garden. I found it strange and surprising.

Other stuff was our veg patch. its in the shape of many triangles pointing one place with their longest sides - looking a bit like orange cut in half across the cells - shape is what was left over of old pond. So veg is taken by beans - runner, pumpkins, chard, kale, cabbage, my sons biggest turnip - size of large grapefruit, few herbs there and there cos im in to companion planting. Tomms in the greenhouse.
Seems a lot but all these things are in small quantities and kind of enough for a small family.
Now im thinking of getting the front lawn removed and have a small patch there for pumpkins as front garden is the sunniest.

Hey, you reminded me of something. My friend that I mentioned in my previous post decided to experiment and planted several things in her garden in 2 places, one in a geometric shape like a triangle, square or even concentric circles or combinations of these and then planted the same thing in a traditional way with rows of one kind planted next to each other. The difference was quite dramatic and she didn't do anything else differently. The ones planted in specific geometric shapes, like a traingle in a circle in a square (for example) did noticebly better than their counterparts. Also, you probably won't believe me but I swear the neighbors blackberries that grew on our side of the fence were sweeter than the ones on the other side. Who says the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.