Crowded in the Greenhouse

Our small unheated greenhouse is proving to be a wonderful gardening tool. Today it is so crowded with seedlings and potted plants that I can barely step inside to water. I'm ready to begin setting plants into the raised beds outdoors, but the weather still isn't cooperating and we're expecting frost again tonight. The greenhouse has become a holding zone until we can plant outdoors.

The biggest challenge in the greenhouse is maintaining acceptable temperatures. On a sunny day, it can easily reach 100 degrees in there, far too warm for my little seedlings. I raise the roof vent in the morning and open the sliding door to allow air exchange. By late afternoon I'm closing it again to retain heat through the night. Also, my 30 gallon water storage (black plastic garbage can) absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night. I'll remove this in another month, but for now it helps moderate temperatures.

If you haven't space for a green house, a cold frame can also help raise seedlings. With a little imagination you can fashion these small garden structures from recycled items. This is my first spring with the greenhouse. I'm so grateful to have it!

Warning: Garlic Mustard

In the photo above, can you see the little white flower in the foreground? It looks pretty harmless, doesn't it? It's called garlic mustard and it came to the New World with our European ancestors who grew it like any other herb. In Europe, garlic mustard has natural predators to keep it in check, but on this side of the pond the stuff goes crazy.

The woods immediately behind my house are overrun with garlic mustard. In the photo above, you can see that literally nothing else grows in the understory. I've hand weeded that very plot only to find it overgrown again the following spring. One teeny garlic mustard flower produced gazillions of seeds. This wicked invasive is crowding out our native wildflowers and so far there is no solution to the problem.

At this point, it's my goal to keep garlic mustard out of my yard and garden beds, but it's not easy. I'm even pulling the stuff out of the raised bed in my greenhouse! Garlic mustard can't be composted because its seeds won't cook properly in the heat of the compost pile. Garlic mustard must be sent to the landfilled in sealed bags. It comes up quickly in the spring. I find it green beneath the snow in February. It's blooming now and will reach it's peak in the next month or so. At about three feet tall, you simply can't miss it. By the end of June, it all dies down and allows us to foget about it for a while, but it will be back next year with a vengeance.

I try to not let it get me down. Controlling it seems hopeless, but I can't give up hope. If you see the nasty stuff, pull it out by its roots and throw it in your garbage can. Perhaps someday there will be a better solution. Meanwhile, we need to protect our native wildflowers by hand.

Spring Blossoms

We have the usual spring blossoms at Red Bucket Farm---tulips, daffodils, trillium, bleeding heart, wood violets, jack-in-the-pulpit, and dandelions (good for the bees).

I'm thrilled to report that the cherry trees and the established peach tree are blooming. And yes, the bees are busy pollinating.

We also have good old fashioned spring crops like rhubarb and asparagus that have just emerged. The snap peas have sprouted in the raised bed along with spinach and swiss chard. Inside the greenhouse, the potted blueberries are blooming well ahead of the outdoor blueberry bushes.

My currant bushes have been established for a few years. They were the first "crop" that I attempted to grow. I appreciate these old standards that have somehow fallen out of fashion. I love currant jam. And if you've never tasted currant sauce on vanilla ice cream, well, you're missing out on something special.

I'd stay and chat, but there's work on the farm. Thanks for visiting!

Flock Management: Separating the Girls

If you've been following the news at Red Bucket Farm, you already know that we have three mature laying hens and this spring's baby chicks. The chicks (hatched March 28) are now getting pretty big for the brooder box. Unfortunately, we can't incorporate them into the main flock and chicken coop until they are very nearly the same size as the mature hens. It might be June or July before we can allow them all together or the big girls will pick on the little ones.

As an interim measure, we divided the fenced chicken yard into two sections. In the photo above, you can see the main chicken coop on the left with the big hens grazing. On the right, you can see our make-shift shelter for the chicks covered with a blue tarp. They have their own food and water beneath the tarp, and a portion of chicken yard to poke around in. The fence between them is temporary; we'll remove that in a few weeks and hope they don't notice.

Meanwhile, the big girls certainly have noticed! Rosie the Redstar complains all day every day. Braaawk-buk-buk-buk. I hope that she'll get used to the little girls.

The chicks still go in their brooder box at night. The daytime trips to the chicken yard are good for them, but their shelter is by no means predator proof, so we scoop them up and return them to the garage at night.

By the way, if you're ever tempted to raise chicks inside your house, think twice. It took me hours to clean the office after we moved the brooder box to the garage. A thick layer of dust, almost like drywall dust, covered everything. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Compost Awareness

This week is International Compost Awareness Week, sponsored by the US Composting Council. It's an opportunity to educate about the benefits of composting.

We tried composting years ago and we were terrible at it. Our compost bins were just a matted, dense pile of yard waste that never quite broke down to be the crumbly golden substance it was purported to be. Eventually we gave it up.

Last spring we began composting again in earnest. We got a little smarter about it and realized that our previous attempts didn't contain all the right ingredients.

A compost pile needs brown materials that are high in carbon: ashes, wood, bark, shredded cardboard, fruit waste, leaves, peanut shells, peat moss, pine needles, sawdust, straw, vegetable stalks.

The compost pile also needs green materials that are high in nitrogen: clover, coffee grounds, food waste, garden waste, grass clippings, hay, hedge clippings, manures, seaweed, vegetable scraps, weeds without seeds.

Remember, compost needs both green materials and brown materials.

Since we began composting, I've noticed that I rarely use the garbage disposal in my kitchen. I have a small bucket on the counter where I save all the kitchen scraps such as fruits and veggie trimmings, tea bags, and egg shells. Also, I've noticed that composting has reduced the amount of garbage that goes to the curb on garbage days.

We have three compost bins. One is for the current collection pile. We add scraps to it daily and turn it over on the weekends, usually by hauling out much of it on a tarp and putting it back in the bin. The second pile has been retired and is gently decomposing. That one gets turned less frequently. The third bin is compost ready to be sifted and put to good use.

Compost bins at the garden center can be pricey, but it's easy to get creative. Old pallets make a good bin, or any other scrap lumber. We've got our eyes on a pile of discarded deck railing down the street which will expand and improve our current system.

If you live in an apartment or small home, you can try worm composting. The worms will help percolate your small pile of scraps and turn it into wonderful fertilizer for your container plants.

Please do your part to reduce, reuse and recyle. Composting is easy!

Home Sweet Hive

On Tuesday we decided to open the beehives just long enough to remove the queen cages and check on the sugar syrup feeders. It was a cold day, hovering around 43 degrees, a bit too chilly for the bees to leave the hive. We thought it would be a little easier to accomplish our task on a cool day. Also, we didn't want to leave the queen cages in the hive too long or the bees would begin to build comb around them. This might result in beautiful free-form comb resembling modern art, but it makes it nearly impossible to manage the hive. We didn't want to stall too long.

The green hive was relatively simple. The queen had been inadvertently released on Friday during installation, and the hive has been happily building comb for a few days. The queen cage was empty on the floor of the hive. We were able to move top bars and grab the queen cage without disturbing their comb-building cluster.

The blue hive was another story. The queen cage was suspended between two top bars and fastened with a thumb tack. Bees were still clustered around the queen cage, but we felt sure the queen had been released because the whole cluster had slowly moved down the hive. After we got the queen cage unattached from the top bars, we had to carefully remove the clinging bees. It wasn't so easy to accomplish because a few hundred bees were pretty angry at us for disturbing their peace. Since we're new at this, we probably weren't as calm as we might have been and we smushed a few bees in the process. It was very exciting.

Yesterday the weather warmed into the 60s and the hives were very busy. The photo above shows a bee getting a drink of water at the rock & water dish situated between the hives.

Chicken Ailments

In the midst of all the flurry over the honeybees, one of our laying hens has been slightly ill. Hyacinth the Easter Egger had diarrhea last week beginning on Thursday. She seemed pretty normal, but by Sunday she was beginning to lose energy.

I learned that Hyacinth very likely has coccidiosis, an intestinal parasite that is carried through the feces. An animal can build resistance to coccidiosis or it can just as easily perish. A friend recommended that I treat her with Amprolium, which is administered in her water and would benefit all the laying hens.

By the time I made it to the farm supply store on Monday morning, all the girls seemed happy and normal again. I've still got the amprolium for next time, but right now I feel lucky that everybody is fine.

We realized that when we fenced in the chicken yard last month, we included our compost bins inside the chicken yard. After all, the girls are excellent at constantly turning over the compost, and they enjoy the kitchen scraps. Unfortunately, they also are more exposed to their own waste in the compost bin. Last night we relocated the icky compost outside the the chicken yard.

Meanwhile, one of the baby chicks, Squill the Speckled Sussex, has curley toe. Her outside toe on both feet curls out rather than facing forward. This could be genetic. It might progress and cripple her, or it might not.

We splinted her toe with a popsicle stick and medical tape. This might have worked if the other baby chicks hadn't immediately decided to attack her and the splint. Ultimately, we decided to live with the curley toe untreated and hope for the best. So far, so good.

Many thanks to my friend Myron, who is always compassionate and knowledgeable about these things.