Chicken Feed

Bought 50# organic scratch, a 10 gallon steel can, wood shavings and
2# crushed oyster shells.

We're at 5-1/2 months and still waiting for the first egg.

Rob

Fruit Trees

I got excited today shopping for bare root fruit trees and I brought
home seven.

Planted three semi dwarf apple:
- fugi
- ein S...
- golden Dorset

Still to plant are a four fruit pear, four fruit Asian pear, super
dwarf pear and a super dwarf Anna apple.

Rob

Peach Leaf Curl Prevention

Sprayed the peach trees with copper solution today to prevent peach leaf curl.

Room for more fruit trees

Another bed ready for bare root planting.

Chicken Chow

Now on the third bag of chick starter mash. The hens are over 3 months old.

Bag #1
Jul 26 to Sep 16, 25 pounds, 52 days. About 1/2 pound per day.

Bag #2
Sep 17 to Oct 17, 31 days. Nearly a pound per day plus table scraps.

Rob

Weather Update

The weather station has been relocated to the Western exposure, just outside the cave and elevated about 14 feet.  The station gets full exposure to the West and North from the canyon and Mission Valley.  Current conditions are 63.1 deg. F; 86%RH; Wind out of the West-Southwest at 2.2MPH.
Here is a look at the wind speed over the last 24 hours:

On Their Own

Today I removed the power supply to the brooder lamp in the chicken coop.  The chickens are 2 months old (~60 days) and fully feathered.  Overnight low temperatures remain above 60 degrees so they have nothing to complain about.  I'll watch temps and chicken behavior and health to make sure they are doing okay.

Roosting Hens

The hens have taken a liking to the roost. They are now 8 weeks old
and are fully feathered. They like their home and eat constantly.

Today I spotted a tree squirrel scrambling to escape the fenced run
when I approached. He had found an opening under the wire.

Ronnie Roosting

See Ronnie roosting in the photo below. We, along with all of SD
county and beyond, lost power today. The hens don't mind.

How's The Weather Up There?

Check out the new weather station! Current conditions in Kensington
are 71.4 deg F, 67% relative humidity, wind out of the Northwest at
1.6 mph and no rain in sight. Btw, the barometer is reading 29.4 and
is steady.
Yes, I am a geek.

Brownie

Welcome to the family, Brownie!

More Protection From Varmits

Ruby is skeptical.

Raspberry Harvest Continues

Chickens in the Run

Our baby hens are now 4+ weeks old and fully feathered.  Today they are going to stay outside until bedtime, their latest night yet.

Squash Fortress

Our first crop of squash suffered first from powdery mildew, then from a hungry vegetarian that ate all the leaves.  Yesterday we planted new zucchini and crookneck inside chicken wire fence.

New Red and Yellow Bell Peppers

Yesterday added two bell pepper plants, red and yellow.

Also revised the drip watering to run the vegies and strawberries off the same valve as the berry patch.  Now the veggies should water every 3 days instead of every 7 or 8.

No extra picture because it is too painful to show... The blueberries were not well enough watered this summer and suffered a scorching.  I'll post a pick of their recovery if the rerouted drip lines and mulch help the plants make a comeback.

Ripe Raspberries!

Chick Flick

Our four baby hens are getting pretty active at 2-1/2 weeks. Check out their new movie!

Free Range Chickens!

For their 2-week birthday the chicks got to free range for the first time. It's interesting to see them stick so close together even when they have the opportunity to stray.

They have grown nearly 2X in the last week!

Powdery Mildew

Treated pumpkin, watermellon, squash and cucumber with Organocide for powdery mildew.

Our First Blueberry!

Revised Irrigation Parameters

Put new soil sample tool to work today. Found penetrable depth to be 6" to 15" before hitting rock or very dense clay. Most soil is loam to sandy loam in top 6" turning clay at deeper depth except at fruit trees on canyon slope where sandy loam was deep.

New irrigation parameters reflect soil type, drip rate, root depth, sun exposure and plant type updates to drive increased irrigation.

Fertilized veggies and strawberries

Meet The Girls!

Samantha, Henrietta, Roberta and Ronnie. That is Rhode Island Red, Black Beauty, White Leghorn and Barred Plymouth Rock respectively. We expect our first eggs for Christmas.

Caged Coop

The chicken coop is now enclosed inside a 12'x4' run. Still need to add hardware cloth at ground level.

Planted seeds

Tonight, we planted zinnia, cucumber, carrot, beet and radish seeds to come up between some of our other veggies. Picked the first cucumber - it's perfect!

I sauteed a squash with mushrooms, garlic and scallions and it was delish!

First batch of pickles

I have ventured into pickles now. Nothing from our garden :(. However, I'm a bit worried I used much red pepper flakes. Time will tell.
S

PS - we tasted them today, and while they are kicky, they are yummy! Success!

Critter Control

Some critter keeps digging up my watermelon seedlings right when they pop out of the ground. These hardware cloth towers ought to keep the critters out! We will see.

First Batch of Compost

Zucchini Sprouts

Sharon's First Cucumber

Harvesting Tuscan Cantelope Seeds

Locally Sourced Coop

Over the course of the last three days, all materials were sourced from our leftovers from prior projects with a little poultry wire contributed by neighbor David. Design was the key to using what we had, vice buying what we 'need'. We now have a home for up to four little hens. Sammy and Henry painted it today with some leftover paint.

Next step: site installation.

2 toms and 1 squash

Wow! Look at our harvest, will ya! This is our first harvest from our veggie garden. Bon appetit!
Sharon

Sunflowers and Watermelons

Yesterday I discovered some vermin had eaten the tender watermelon sprouts and the sunflowers either didn't come up or were eaten as well.

Today I planted more seeds.

Summer Squash

Squash seedlings we planted about a month ago are now entering the production mode.  Two zucchini and one yellow crookneck, so the label said.  So far, the two "zucchini" have nice fruit developing that look exactly like crookneck.  The one crookneck is flowering, but has not yet set fruit.  I expect zucchini.

Remedial action:  Planted one mound of zucchini seeds today at the end of the bed.

Eco Shredder

The eco shredder made 5 buckets of lavender, pine and hawthorne mulch today without a single jam.

Mango lime jam

My niece, Michelle, and I made mango lime jam yesterday. Yummy. While we don't grow mangos, we did use a lemon from our garden.

Fertilized

Spread organic balanced fertilizer at drip line on citrus, avocado, peach, berries, vegetables. This was the June fertilizing that is a month late for the fruit trees.

Broadcast sluggo on future tree slope where iceplant was removed.

Seeds a Poppin!

Sunflower and Jack-O pumpkin have started to pop in less than 6 days!

Meet Reed and Hass

Reed and Hass have joined our family of avocado trees next to Mr. Zutano.  R&H are 'A' type pollinators and Z is a "B" so we will have a happy love fest next spring in the avocado grove.  The new trees also extend our harvest season to provide yummy avocados all year long.  It will be a couple years before we harvest our first Reed or Hass.

3/25 update. Hass has dead shoot tips and no leaves  so I sent sample to SD County Ag for analysis. No pest identified, so they suggested look at roots. I am worried that a root disease will spread to Zutano and to Reed. Today provided a large sample of the root to the county for analysis. Waiting for result.

Finally Got It!

I had a breakthrough yesterday with the Irritrol Smart Dial sprinkler controller.  Using a multimeter, I checked each valve for voltage while the controller was on and found a couple problems to fix.  Also fixed two breaks in the drip line in the back yard.  It now works great!  Keep your fingers crossed.

Converted valve 9 (top tier of rear slope) to drip for trees.  Moved the hose timer to the new Pumpkin Patch to water the seeds.  Still need to separate vegetables from the tree line on V9 and move to V11.

Pumpkin Patch

Planted seeds today in the lower bed.

• Big Max Pumpkin120 days (just in time for Halloween harvest)
• Jack O'Lantern Pumpkin 100 days
• Sugar Baby Watermelon 78 days
• Giant Sunflower.

Berry Patch Complete

Here is our berry patch now complete with 2 blackberries, 2 raspberries and 3 blueberry bushes.  Here are the details:

Blackberries

• Triple Crown Thornless
• Zarzamora Marion

Raspberries

• Willamette
• Heritage

Blueberries

• Bountiful Blue
• Southmoon
• Misty

Blueberry jam and Yukon potatoes

Sharon's update - Potatoes and Blueberry Lemon Jam

This week I harvested the potato cylinders.  One was a bust - no pots; the second produced about 8 Yukon potatoes of med to small size.  The smaller cylinder was a bust - may have had too much air circulating since I didn't compact the soil at all.  Live and learn.

In place, I planted one swiss chard and one arugula and a 6-pack of green onions.  The zucs are finally growing, as well, the surprise tomatoes and melon (of some sort) are on fire.  We used the potato soil/compost/hay to mulch the veggies and the smaller fruit trees.

I made blueberry lemon marmalade today with Dawn.  $16 worth of blues and $3 of Meyer lemons (only one from our garden) from the Little Italy farmers market and all we ended up with was 2-1/2 half pint jars :-/  While the jam is yummy, the yield was low.  Next time I'll try something that will yield more.  Time to try peaches and nectarines :-))

Drip Irrigation Upgrade and Irritrol-itating!

Improved fruit tree drip lines. Replaced avocado line to ready for additional trees.

Added vegetable garden drip as leg of tree line.

Added berry drip on zone 11. Shut down ivy spray heads on same zone. Requested Saul begin removal of ivy in future grape planter.

Installed new Irritrol Smart Dial control unit. This last week had several calls to the service line due to valves showing NC on the valve test. Researched and set all new programming for 10 valves. Then tried manual water

ing. All but valve 6 showed "NOW ON" on the controller, but did not activate at valve and no water came out. Valve 6 did activate and watered accordingly. This matches the results of the Help System valve test that showed all vales NC except 6 was OK. Plan to call and get advice on Monday.

Why a Garden Blog?

This inaugural post is the beginning of an attempt to find a better way to log garden notes in one place. Over the years, we have used myriad modes of record keeping including calendars, spreadsheets, book notes and memory to keep track of plantings, pest control, feeding and the like. None have passed the test of time.

So here is the latest and greatest attempt. Our garden blog. In this space we will record plantings and harvest, post pictures and log notes. We hope it will be a lasting log of our garden at the Palisades house in Kensington.

We hope you enjoy following along. If not, that's okay too. After all, the purpose of the blog is to record garden notes for our use. It may bore you to death!