Gardening, compost, spring cleaning

DH read in the Bible that winter is the time to be working the ground—I tried to find the passage so I could post it but I guess I'm just going to have to ask him. So that's what we've been doing! Well actually he is the official ground worker and I just plant the seeds and water it. :) Digging up the ground is a lot of work! But the rains have softened this rock hard ground some so that is good.

The end of January is the time to plant beets, carrots, lettuce, kale, and eggplant in the low desert of AZ (where we live)—I got this amazing chart from "The Urban Farm" (http://www.yourguidetogreen.com/TheUrbanFarm/)

The chart shows when to plant and when to harvest just about everything—and so you can do it year round! This is great because most charts aren't specific or they are suited for colder climate:

http://www.yourguidetogreen.com/TheUrbanFarm/wp-content/uploads/Planting_Calendar.pdf

We have taken care of the rabbit/ground squirrel problem with our expensive fencing but that still leaves the wild quail we've caught flying in and eating our little plant shoots—so we took care of that by buying some bird netting. I can't believe it took us so long to think of that simple solution (thanks to a library book for the inspiration!) All we could come up with on our own was really expensive ideas…for once the best thing was the simplest and cheapest!

The newest thing we've done is mulch all over—I've always read to mulch where you walk but to mulch the beds is new to me…we saw in the Homesteading for Beginners video we bought from http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/ and it made a lot of sense—it keeps moisture in and when it rains the rain doesn't beat hard down on the soil, the straw takes the beating and then the rain gently dribbles down on the soil keeping the soil super soft all year long.

We are watering with a hose so the straw idea made sense there and keeping moisture in is huge in the desert so that made sense too. Will give it a try! I sure will miss seeing the first teeny tiny shoots poke through the soil though—won't be seeing anything until it is an inch or two tall, although I still find myself looking every day!

And then with our goats gone it was high time to clean out their pen. Their pen is quite large for just 2 goats—most goat herders would put 20-30 goats in a pen that size! I think their hooves are a testament to the ample space they have to run and play—we haven't trimmed their hooves in 6 months and when we did they barely needed it. I was glad for that.

You can see how simple it is to make a goat pen--the only expensive thing is the chain link fence---but little did we know how blessed we were that there was LOTS of chain link on the property when we bought it! The boards on top and bottom keep the goats from climbing out (betcha didn't know goats climb a 6 foot high fence, huh?! There is a saying and it is only a slight exaggeration: "If your pen doesn't hold water it won't hold your goats.")

So back to cleaning, instead of throwing away all the leftover straw and goat manure we decided to compost it. Unlike the common perception of goats—they are actually quite picky eaters—they eat only the leaves out of the alfalfa and leave the straw—they'll nibble on anything to see if it tastes good—a tin can, clothes, whatever—but they don't actually eat it—I think that is what makes people think they'll eat anything. Goat manure is not what you think either—it's not foul smelling and is just like deer manure—compact little balls—not that gross—I can deal with goat poop—I leave the dog and chicken poop for DH to deal with. :)

We recently spent about $20 in composted manure from Home Depot to add to our garden and we thought—what a waste of money, not to mention who knows what's in it or what they were feeding the cows…and we can make so much more compost for FREE!

Last year when I tried compost the chickens scratched my pile to the ground. It was quite disappointing. But I'm not giving up! Again, a super simple idea we found in a library book—we modified it to be even simpler—as you can see in the picture it is just a 2x4, nails up and down, and chicken wire hooked on the nails, held tight by tension the weight the compost has created. Chicken proof!

The recipe:

• a layer of straw (a huge bail of straw is only $7 and is great for compost because it creates air in there—otherwise it gets way too compacted. The straw from the alfalfa or even Bermuda hay is too dense and will get too compacted—really needs to just be plain straw—we used about a 1/3 bale)
  
• a layer of manure (which also had the alfalfa mixed in)
  
• a layer of dirt (this is key because it contains a lot of the bacteria and organisms that will help "digest" everything
  
• a layer of food waste scraps from the kitchen (we'd been collecting this for weeks—DH had a hole where he'd been burying the kitchen scraps and so the layer of dirt was actually dirt and kitchen scraps combined—it was so cool to see how pretty much all the kitchen scraps had already been decomposed!)
  

Water between all the layers and then just keep it wet as the days progress—that speeds up the process. Turning it once a month can further speed up the progress.

Simple as that! The library book says it will take 2-3 months—I've read it can take a year so we'll see I guess.

Since this picture it has already compacted and I can see the straw is thoroughly wet all over which is key in decomposing the straw so things are going very well very quickly!

Funny news on the funny farm—the teeniest of the baby chicks—the bantam frizzle---decided to start crowing—she's a he! Goodness! What are we going to do with a bantam frizzle rooster!!!??? He's worthless for breeding! I don't want any bantam babies, not to mention frizzles are ornamental birds anyway (think purposeless—just for fun to look at!)

Moving the chicks into the "big chicken coop"—it's time for them to start laying so we are doing the process of teaching them where their "new home" is—every night we have to go grab them one by one and put them in the new pen until they finally decide the new pen is "home." You're supposed to lock them in their new home for a couple days but since the older chickens need to get in and out to lay eggs that is not feasible. This way will work too—it just takes longer. I remember last time it was like a "Eureka" moment—one of the production reds decided to finally walk into the new coop at night! And from then on the others followed.

Well that's about it—going to lay down and enjoy the sound of the rain—weather's finally acting like winter around here!