Food Snobs

It's time for me to recognize that my girls are food snobs. Oh sure, they love the treats we give them---bread, pasta, rice, melon rinds, and those scrumptious smushed Japanese beetles that we pick off the raspberry plants. But just this week they've proven themselves to be as fussy and lazy as spoiled cats. 

When we first began raising chickens, our poultry consultant recommended that we feed them food from a reputable company such as Purina. He discouraged us from buying the bags of cheap feed at the farm store. Like dog and cat food, poultry feed comes in a few different formulas for different stages of life. There's chick feed, of course, followed by different blends for egg layers or for birds raised as meat production. Our first girls started out with Purina chick grower and then moved on to Purina Layena. 

After a while, I became aware of genetically modified crops, and I realized that Purina very likely uses corn that has been genetically modified. We switched to organic hen food, alternating between two brands. We tried Organic Pride (from Mounds) and the Willy Street Coop's own soy-free organic blend. In the end, we decided that Organic Pride had less waste at the bottom of the bin and the girls seemed to prefer it. 

Just in the last month, egg production has been down significantly. Two of my girls have given me an egg or two per week, which is pretty poor. I know they lay fewer eggs in extreme heat, but this month has been pleasant. We decided to change their food to see if that would make any difference. 

Early this week, we scooped the Purina feed into their food dishes and watched them run frantically from one dish to the other. All four hens eyed us wildly, certain there was some kind of horrible mistake. They returned to the hanging food hopper, the only dish with a bit of organic feed remaining. Then they sulked in a corner and refused to eat until their evening ration of Japanese beetles. 

So. That's the way it's going to be? We returned to organic feed and the girls dramatically swooped in to fill their little crops. I'll give the Purina to a neighboring chicken farmer. But the cleaver and soup pot await those who do not lay eggs. Nope, I'm not kidding. We're limited to four hens and they're not simply pets. I hope they're paying attention to my daily pep talks! 

Apiary Update

This is just a quick update on our beehives. In July, we had such an extended heat wave that one of our top bar hives experienced a damaging meltdown. You can read the details of that on my July 22 post. But there is good news---the damaged colony is rebuilding. This week I noticed a new hatch of bees taking their orientation flights in and out of the hive, staying within a few feet of the hive while they get their bearings. (I avoided picking tomatoes in front of that hive while they were doing that!)  They have about eight combs now and the colony is obviously queen-right. We're a little more hopeful that this hive will be able to survive the winter. Aren't they amazing little creatures?

Onion Harvest

A week ago my onion bed looked tired. The leaves had been flopping over for several days and it wasn't due to lack of water. The plants were finished and ready for harvest.

At the end of April, I planted a hundred purchased Copra Hybrid onion plants and forty onion "sets" of generic purple onions given to me by a fellow gardener. Onion sets are tiny little bulbs that were sown the previous year and then stored over winter for spring planting. Onion plants, which look like a bundle of thick grass, were seeded a few months earlier and then gathered for transplanting. Both methods are tried and true, although sets are sometimes more disease prone. I planted my onions in a 12'x3' raised bed in full sunshine where they have grown without much fuss.

Last week, after carefully lifting the onions out of the soil, I gently rubbed them clean and placed them on top of the soil to dry for a week. It's important to cure the onions until the outer skin becomes dried and crispy.

Since it's been a rainy week, I transferred the onions to wire tables in the greenhouse and kept the fan running to dry them. The Copra onions will store well in mesh bags, so we'll use the purple onions first.

This is the first time we've grown onions at Red Bucket Farm. So far, it's been pretty easy and we're looking forward to eating this crop!

Greenhouse Shadecloth

In my life as a Wisconsin gardener, much of my thought process is about how to get bushes, vines, trees, chickens and bees to survive the bitter cold winter. But this year, I'm learning how to get those same bushes, vines, trees, chickens and bees to survive an extraordinarily blistering summer. And although it's been hot outside, it's been even hotter in the greenhouse.

Daytime temperatures in the greenhouse are frequently more than 100 degrees. Inside, we're growing eggplant and peppers in large containers. These two veggies theoretically love the heat, and I thought they would enjoy the protection of the greenhouse. I was surprised to discover that the leaves of the eggplant bushes were bleaching and dropping. Once it dawned on me that it was just too sunny in there, I draped an old sheet over the top of the greenhouse. Within a couple days, the leaves began to turn green again.

We ordered a "shadecloth kit" and installed it inside the greenhouse. It's not perfect, but it certainly makes the greenhouse more tolerable in the heat. The eggplants are recovering and shooting out more blossoms and fruit. I imagine that I'll remove the shade cloth in a few weeks and store it until next year. I've also added a fan to the greenhouse. It's important to keep the air moving, which seems to keep the whiteflies under control.

Whether it's too hot or too cold, we always enjoy eating whatever fresh food we manage to grow.

Apiary Meltdown

We experienced a disaster in the bee yard at Red Bucket Farm. Due to extreme heat in the first week of July (over 100 degrees for three consecutive days), we discovered that all the combs in the red hive had melted off the top bars and dropped to the floor of the hive, crushing hundreds or thousands of bees. This was our newest hive and it had been doing fabulously, building a dozen combs, laying eggs, tending brood, bringing in nectar and pollen.

Last weekend (July 14) we cleaned out the melted mess from the floor of the hive. The combs had not melted off the top bars. In fact, there was still an inch or two of comb attached to each top bar, but the bulk of the comb had dropped in the heat. I remember a day in the extreme heat (when I was preoccupied with trying to keep the chickens alive) that there were suddenly a large number of bees on the outside of that hive. At the time I assumed it was normal bearding behavior in the heat, but in retrospect I believe the returning forager bees clustered outside because of the disaster inside.

We also discovered bees building comb in the roof of that hive. This was new comb without honey or brood, so we suspect they began building there after the meltdown. I have to admire their work ethic and resourcefulness.

After cleaning up the disaster, we shook the bees out of the rooftop and back into the hive body, then replaced all the top bars and let the bees get back to work. We're rebuilding the rooftop to repair the warp and prevent them from accessing the space. We also built an arbor-like structure over the bee yard and sewed awnings to provide some shade from the summer sun. The awnings can be removed in the fall when the sunshine will be beneficial to the hives.

We're concerned that it's rather late in the summer for that hive to rebuild enough that it will be strong for winter survival. This morning we took two top bars from an adjacent healthy hive to share with the struggling colony. The borrowed combs were full of honey, brood and bees. Perhaps this will jump-start the red hive for a chance at survival. If the queen was lost in the disaster, they may be able to groom a new one.  We're also providing supplemental cups of honey.

There is some good news. One of the hives is quite strong. We harvested 20 cups of honey which we can use to feed the weaker hive. Maybe there will even be some honey for us to enjoy. It's been a fascinating journey. There is nothing like an emergency to teach us about bee life.

Heat Exhausted Hens

It's been a brutally hot week here in the upper Midwest, over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for days. My four hens have done reasonably well in the heat by scratching wallows in the dirt and staying in the shade.

Last night the heat was unrelenting, still over 90 degrees at 10 pm. We placed a fan outside the hen house, hoping that a little breeze would provide some relief. Squill (the Speckled Sussex) was panting so fast and loudly that she may not have gotten any rest.  

This morning (a mere 80 degrees at 7:30 am) Squill was showing distress. She was panting loud and fast, stopping only to open her beak wide and gulp for air. By 10 am I couldn't risk it anymore. I brought the girls inside and settled them on the cool tile floor of the basement bathroom. They have food, water, and a couple of garden trugs with hay. They're resting quietly in relative darkness. Let's hope the poor things survive the summer.

Herding Dog

Lately, I've been trying to blog with information that might prove useful to other urban farmers, but today's blog is strictly a stupid pet story.

Most evenings about an hour before dark, we head out to the backyard in the hope of getting a little work accomplished after the heat of the day. While we're tending the gardens, we let the hens out of the chicken yard to wander around, pecking grubs and bugs from the ground. Our dog, Beta, has learned to follow the chickens without harassing them too much. She seems to enjoy the hens and our evening family time.

Beta is half German Shepherd. She came to us several years ago from a shelter organization. She had clearly been abused in her life before us. She was afraid of everything, choosing to hide in the safety of her crate most of the day. Over the years, she's become a good family pet, but she overcompensates for her fears by being unnecessarily protective and overly aggressive. Nevertheless, she is kind to the chickens.

The other evening, one of us began to shoo the hens back into their fenced chicken yard. As soon as we began, Beta carefully circled to the far side of the chickens and gently corralled them into their pen. We were amazed, so we let them back out and tried it again. As soon as we began to shoo them, Beta calmly passed beyond the farthest hen and efficiently herded them into their pen. We tried this new routine four times, and each opportunity Beta became more confident and efficient, never ruffling the hens.

Most of us think of German Shepherds as drug-sniffing police dogs, but at some point in their history they must have been sheep herding animals. I guess some of those instincts remain. It's a good pet trick for an unusual farm dog.