Knee-High by the first of July

That's what they say about corn.

Corn wants full sun and doesn't require much love.

For a long harvest, you can plant early and late harvesting corn at the same time. Also you must do succession planting to ensure success! Plant new plants every two weeks for a month or so, that way you will have plants maturing every two weeks in the summer.

As I said earlier, I plant radishes in between, because corn takes a long time and radishes will come up well before they are in the way of the corn.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes do well with warm temperatures, lots of water and lots of fertilizer.

I grew these Roma Tomatoes from seed and seem to have some plants doing very well.


This guy is the ass-kicker of the bunch.

Since tomatoes like warmth and sunlight, a great place to put them is near a south-facing window, especially in the early season, before they are ready to go outside.



These plants are at the sliding glass door in our bedroom. They don't do much for sexytime atmosphere, but since Jen has been keeping chicks in our living room, I feel this isn't too big a deal.

The milk jugs give each tomato plant it's own little hothouse. Keeps the soil warm so the plants do well.

WTF is a Gingko?

This is my Gingko. Apparently these are good.

Let us talk Lettuce

What you are looking at here is a fine Romaine specimen. Commonly used in caesar salad, this lettuce is very high in nutrients.

There are also iceberg and mesculin lettuces, but the romaine seem to be doing the best.

Cabbage Patch

Cabbage Soup. Cabbage Salad, Cabbage Rolls..... I hope you guys like Cabbage.

The dogs have ravaged the Cabbage plants a bit, but I still think this will be one of my successes.

Radishes

So I said earlier that there would definitely be vegetables on my table this year.

It appears radishes will be the first. I'm guessing another week or so until I can pull the first of the bunch.





That's right, a row of thriving radishes!
(Carrots are beside although barely visible. Carrots take much longer, so plant them with radishes so you know where the row of carrots is!)





These ones are planted in between corn stalks. It's a wise use of space to plant radishes around longer maturing crops such as corn, zucchini or pumpkins. These plants will eventually grow large and need space, but since radishes mature quickly, they will be harvested before the corn stalks are ready. (Note the wire mesh over top to keep the stupid dogs out)












Closeup! One of my other hobbies is photography!

Bok Bok Bok part 2

Now that Jen seems to have got the chicken situation on a steady and positive path, she has set her sights a little higher. Sometime, somewhere, she heard about silkie chickens.

Now, most of you probably aren't familiar with silkies, but they are very strange looking, cute, white, furry chickens. Pretty much these birds are just pets, we want some cute, weird things to point at when people come over. Either way, I'm glad Jen got her chickens!


If you ask me, they look like mythical creatures out of Dr. Seuss books. Reminds me of the story, "If I ran the Zoo"

Separated at birth???

Bok Bok Bok part 1

After months of settling in and learning about our new environment, along with lots of web and literature research, we decided that chickens were the first livestock that we should add to the Kapty Hobby Farm. On our property there was an existing chicken coop, which was very well built. Seemed like it should be fairly easy - get some chickens off craigslist, feed them, water them, and then start eating eggs. We got some regular brown chickens that looked just like this photo.



Morgan exclaims, "There's chickens in there!!!"


Long story short, the chickens were too old, not very healthy so we got rid of them, again on craigslist. A nice lady came in and took them to her petting zoo where they would live as punching bags for the children in our town.


The best reason to get chickens: The beautiful smiles on our kids faces!


Now we've got a better idea. We got some new chicks, so they will be raised in our environment and presumably be happy, healthy and productive egg layers. It might slow down the egg production temporarily, but we weren't getting many eggs anyway, and this is a good long term solution. Nice work Jen!



The chicks are very cute and they are barred-rock chickens. The biggest difference is that they are grey instead of brown. Apparently they are a good mix between egg layers and meat birds...yummmm.

Dog Day Afternoon :(

Lucy, the main culprit....






The sun was shining brightly, I was on my way home from work, thinking I would check the garden when I got home.

I drove down the long driveway, which was bursting with life on this hot, bright day. This could only be good for the veggies.

As I neared the house, Lucy, the crazy dog, went into a frenzied tirade, running, jumping, darting this way and that. It is these quick movements that dig deep holes in my tilled soil. This day, however, was not her day.

Zoe, the older, lazy dog slowly raised her head as she lay sunning herself, perhaps disappointed I interrupted her nap, perhaps happy to see me home. Normally, I would assume she was happy to see me and give her a scratch behind the ears. Not this time.



In fact, I sort of wanted to smack her behind the ears, as she lay sunning herself right in my garden, on top of the cabbage and broccoli.

So the dogs are an ongoing issue.