July in the Garden

Happy Fourth of July! I hope everyone has a safe and fun celebration this weekend. My family and I went to watch our town's fireworks display and ended up finding the perfect spot right underneath the show. It was spectacular, albeit very loud. What better way to celebrate our country than a beautiful light show?

Anyway, we've reached the middle of the season. The garden has slowed down now that everything is planted. There's quite a bit of weeding to do if it will stay dry long enough, which you shall see in the images, but the rush to get things in the ground is over. This spring's kids are almost old enough to go their new homes, and the fall birthing season is still a couple of months away. The garden isn't ready for harvest just yet. All in all, things have hit their stride and will be much lower maintenance for a few weeks...at least in theory. :)

Our poor little bottle tree is sparse looking! We'll have it fleshed out soon, though.

We've had some trouble with our tomatoes. We lost a few plants to Southern Blight/white mold, and have been picking leaves off of others as they get affected with blight. The warm wet weather we've had is what fuels fungus such as blight. Milk washes, baking soda drenches, and apple cider vinegar water have helped some but it's an ongoing battle. We also lost our first, biggest tomato to a renegade hen who jumped the fence. They're making again, though, so I'm hopeful we'll at least end up with enough for one batch of salsa!

He was going to be a pretty one, but alas. The chicken beat us to it.

Can you believe this puny plant, which has really struggled with blight, has a tomato?

The lettuce has bolted, so its season is over until the fall. So pretty, though, isn't it? It could practically be an ornamental.

The bush peas are doing the best, as always. Peas are pretty fool-proof. We've never had a failed crop with them. They're blooming and vining and making tiny pea pods. We'll be having fresh peas for supper in no time!

Our bush lima beans are doing well, too. Lima beans are my favorite legume.

We planted a later crop of pole beans and peas, and they are coming up well...but so are the weeds!

Our cantaloupe is blooming. The first blossoms won't make fruit, but it's a sign that my favorite melons are on the way!

I planted a few sweet potato plants, which is a first for us. They haven't bloomed yet but are doing well, aside from the weeds that are over taking them! Yikes!

Okra is growing like a weed, too...but it also needs to be weeded, as you can see.

Can you spy the volunteer watermelon?

Our watermelon got planted late, but it's coming on. Our garden retains moisture well, but sometimes in a rainy season that means complications in planting and weeding!

We also planted an Arkansas Black Apple tree this year. It won't produce for a few years. We may not even be living on this land by the time it's in full swing, but it's never a bad investment to plant a tree.

Our pumpkin patch, which I don't have pictures of, is doing really well. However, it is the worst for the weeds. Right after we planted the rains came and didn't let up for a while, and the weeds just took off. We'll be tackling it this weekend, and working on weeding and mulching the rest throughout the weed.

We also have some new life here at Tiramar. Our broody hen just hatched several (I just realized I haven't even counted them! Whoops!) pheasant eggs and one chicken egg. (I put a chicken egg under her with the pheasant eggs just in case, so that she wouldn't reject the smaller eggs.) One hatched out weak and has had to spend a lot of time indoors. I'm not sure he will make it. I tried returning him to mama, but he just wasn't strong enough yet and I had to remove him again. A second chick had a really rough hatch and spent the first 24 hours indoors, but I have since returned him. He is doing so well that I can't even tell which one he is at this point. These guys will stay with our hen in the off-ground brooder for a while and then be transferred to a tractor, where they will finish growing out. I'm hoping a couple might be butchering age in time for Christmas dinner. Hopefully the chicken chick, which came from our RIR rooster and a Black Copper Maran egg, will be a hen!

Yes, they are in a modified laundry basket. Their wooden nest box ended
up not being big enough, so we had to improvise!

You can somewhat tell in this image how much bigger the chicken chick is.

Is this one giving me the stink eye?

Clever camouflage, but I can still see you.

Now we weed, and then we wait for the harvest and for the time to start planting our fall crops. Fall goat kids should be on the way, too. We won't be in a lull for long!

Cheers!

Babies, Babies Everywhere!

I am only slightly exaggerating! Moma Hen's final chick count was six chicks out of nine eggs. (I originally thought I had ten eggs, but apparently I can't count.) Of course I would have loved for all nine to be successful, but I am certainly not complaining. Not one bit.

The best part is that all the chicks are thriving. In the past when I've had hens set, it usually turns out that at least one chick out of the bunch hatches but doesn't make it. Sometimes they have trouble hatching, and sometimes there seems to be no obvious reason other than that it just wasn't meant to be. But so far all these little ones are full of energy and spunk.

The funny part is that not a single one is black! I'm thinking our hen decided she didn't need to go through the trouble of laying when she had other hens generous enough to donate to her cause. In a way I am disappointed because I was hoping to carry on her broodiness in my flock by keeping a daughter from her, but on the other hand it will be a nice surprise to see how these little ones grow up. I know at least one is a RIR x EE cross. Also, perhaps broodiness is a learned trait more than a genetic one. We will see.

The other baby on board is our new buckling, Parham Farms DT Bazinga! He finally came to live with us here after being weaned. As you can see, he has certainly made himself at home.

Originally he was going to be staying in his own spacious pen with his own barn. I had cleaned the kid space out over the last week, installed a new hay rack, and even bought a dog house because that barn is a mostly open, lean-to style. I thought he would be more comfortable, warm, and secure feeling in a smaller enclosure while sleeping by himself at night. He was going to be sharing a fence line with the does, but not a barn.

That plan didn't work out, and in the picture above you can see why. Little 'Zinga is a loud mouth. I can't blame him considering he has just been separated from his mom and siblings and moved to a new place, but it still threw a hitch in my plans. I could just imagine every predator from miles around coming to snack on a goat kid buffet that night. Every cry surely translated to "Free food! Helpless baby over here! EAT ME!" in predator language. 

Luckily our doe barn is unique in that it was originally a horse stall and open overhang. When we converted it for the goats, we put up a panel fence and gate around the front and latched the stall door open, creating a connected space of two 10 x 10 areas. Normally I only use the partition to contain the does in one side when I need easy access to them for hoof trimming, deworming, etc, but it came in handy Saturday. 

I closed the gate to give the does one half and Bazinga the other. I moved Bazinga and his dog house (and my chair) over to the front half of the barn and let the does have the back, which is connected to their fenced area. The only problem so far is that the only hay rack I have for that barn is on the doe side, and the only mineral feeder is on Bazinga's. But I will deal with those minor inconveniences for a couple of weeks for the sake of knowing that Bazinga will be quiet at night because the does are there next to him, and that even if he isn't my LGD Lakota is right next door and could easily alert us or even climb the gate if some hungry hooligan tried any funny business.

Even though these babies are cuties, I'm excited to see how they grow up. The chicks will be a total surprise as their mature feathers come in. They could be any number of colors. As for Bazinga, I know he is going to be an impressive buck. He has the most incredible bloodlines and I'm already impressed by his conformation. I expect great things out of him!