The fall garden and the city chicks {October}

I figured that since it was the last day of October that it might be a good time to write a garden update.  What I’m wondering is:  Is it seriously the last day of October?  Has this year flown by or what? {smile}

 From the looks of the picture, it might seem that the garden is kind of neglected right now.  That would be because it is.  Between the drought, the extreme temperatures this summer, and school starting, there has been little time (or want to) to spend out in the garden.  When the kids are having a school break in the mornings, I will putter around the garden and pick a thing or two here and there.  It is so neglected that I feel like the whole title of this blog is a fraud.  But a girl can hold on to her dream even if she hasn’t the time to live it…right?  {smile}

So what is growing in our Little White House garden?

 Peppers

 Pumpkins

 This box was filled with green bean plants until the city chicks scratched them up.  The girls have now been banished from the garden unless they are in this:

 We built a chicken tractor to hold the city chicks so that we can move them around the yard.  We simply put the tractor over a raised bed, place the chickens into it with a little water for drinking, and they work to scratch up the ground for us.  They get bugs to eat and we get well worked soil.  A win-win for all. 

  We’ve also planted collard greens and carrots.  We will share the collard greens and the green tops from the carrots with the chickens this winter. 

Things to do still for a fall/winter garden:

plant mustard greens, more carrots, and possibly cabbage for the winter

replant turnips (also met their fate from scratchy chickens)

plant a few fruit trees

research transferring bramble berries and strawberries

build a new trellis for the grapes

cover unused boxes with black plastic for the winter

 We now have four chickens.  Three of those four are laying eggs.  Well, actually, the fourth also laid about three eggs and then quit.  We haven’t a clue what happened there.  The three layers are giving us about 2 – 3 eggs a day.

 Two of the chickens will lay eggs in the nesting boxes.  (Actually they seem to prefer only one box.)  The third chicken likes to lay her eggs right inside of the large door that we use to access the chicken house.

One day the kids told me that one of the chickens had laid a really big egg and I needed to go see it.  Here is what they were talking about:

 I knew they were joking with me so I’m glad it was just a basketball and not something that would scare me like a bug or snake or anything of the creepy-crawly origin.

 Even though the city chicks have been with us for a while, it is still a very big deal to get eggs from the coop everyday.  The kids will even wash the eggs and they love to count them.  Everyone loves the little green eggs that our Ameracauna lays. 

The garden posts will probably quiet down for a while now since the garden won’t be producing much over the winter.  But I’m all ready planning for next year’s spring garden and possibly a few more city chicks to add to our flock so I’m sure I’ll share a bit here and there.