Critters in our garden!

Given the weather, we haven't been outside much lately, but here is a set of photos of critters that we have in our garden.

Nicky enjoying the yard rather than working in it for once!

The kitties, carefully supervising me.

A little butterfly in the yard.

Ford on our potting bench

Francois on the deck.

Flint being flint : )

A little salamander we found under a rock while making our rock wall

The Spring Planting begins!

Howdy all!

We had a busy busy weekend! Nicky and I went to Theodore Payne nursery in Southern California to buy lots of natives for our garden:

 Believe it or not, this wasn't when the cart was totally full !!!

The biggest purchases went towards Nicky's lower slope. She planted lots of fescue (from a flat, as well as small and medium sized pots, and from seed!) We better get a whole slope of native grasses! We even fenced off the area to prevent Flint (our dog), or more likely my mother-in-law's dog Rogue (or nut butt) from destroying the grass before their long roots take hold.

Nicky also planted golden sedum in a path from the seating area, down around the nectarine tree, to form a cool spiral. As you can see, Ford our cat is helping.

Here is a cool view of Nicky's slope, which hopefully will turn into a lush meadow by summer!

I also bought a small Jefferey Pine, which I planted in a pot on the deck.  I really look forward to it getting bigger because their bark smells like vanilla.

We also planted a few non natives, here you can see our third blue berry bush (on the left), and a blackberry bush (on the right), which we later fenced off so that our dog wouldn't try to eat it . Not the berries, but the damn plant! He pulled out our previous two rhasberry plants.....

We also planted Western Redbud (a native) out front of the house, which has beautiful pink flowers.

We also ripped out a strip of our grass, in which we planted a line of gladiolus bulbs. Also, not a native, but of so pretty!

We had so many of the gladiolus, so we sort of spread them around the garden. As well, Nicky drained and cleaned out our algae filled water garden, and set up the decorative pump we got for Christmas. Still need to look for a nice solar pump, and then we are set.

 Finally, here is a current photo of our sprouting veggie garden. We have them under a grow light (which runs for 16 hours), and a heat pad, which we placed on top of a layer of wood to help insulate it. We have tomatoes, zucchinis, squashes, cucumbers, gords, and lots of other goodies that we can't wait to eat : )

Happy Gardening!

How to cut up green waste for composting

Howdy all,

Nicky and I are big into composting (well mostly me), given that it is good in for the environment, but mostly because it is like spreading growing gasoline in our garden! Our compost  makes our veggies grow super big, and healthy, which is delicious!

Here is a bush (formerly a tree) that grows at the edge of our property, which I think is called a liquid amber? I really don't like it, given that it shades our veggie garden, as well as my rose and flower slope. No matter how often we hack it, the plant keeps on coming back which is fine, given that it composts pretty well!

Here is a bit of detail on the leaves:

On very big branches, I like to cut each branch down to make it easier to trim later. I cut them where the sub branch splits off from the main branch:

For very thin branches, I usually cut them down every 3 to 6 inches. This is mostly for speed, since the smaller you cut them up, the faster it breaks down, but if you cut them too small, it takes forever just to do a single branch!

Once the main branch is cut, I usually put them aside so that I can focus on cutting them all at once (since these can hurt my hand). For these branches, that range up to around pencil thickness, I use the hand pruners, and cut them every inch. This is important, because these large sticks take a long time to break down in the heap. If they are cut small, even if they are not completely broken down, you can still use your mostly broken down material in the garden, and they will provide a longer term source of nutrients for you soil.

A loverly photo of the length I like to cut these sticks:

Here is a close up of what these look like in bulk. I have also found that if these sort of sticks are longer, it makes moving the compost more difficult.

Nicky trimming away:

Happy trimming!

Baby monarch in progress!

A few days ago we noticed a monarch caterpillar on a rose bush. We thought that was odd since all the others we've seen are on the milkweed we planted just for them. Hypothesis: maybe the caterpillars go to a different plant just before the chrysalis stage? But then why choose a plant 20 feet away from the milkweed? Any bloggers out there have the answer? 

Here is one little guy (maybe the same one?) on the milkweed:

And here is the chrysalis we found:

Can anyone solve our little mystery??

Chicken Run

Howdy all!

Our chickens are getting pretty big, and it is time to get them the heck out of the house, so we finished the chicken run! To start, we moved around the dirt near the chicken coop, to create a (roughly) flat area to set up the run:

We also wanted to give the chickens a nice base in which to play (and poop), so we took an old (and unsuccessful) compost heap, and moved it into the chicken run. The compost was mostly unbroken down leaves, hay, and grasses.

The run has a base of redwood beams. We were afraid of using the chemically treated, rot resistant wood given the proximity of the wood to the chickens. We want nice health eggs.

Here is a good photo showing the outline of the chicken run, in a nice little 'T'. The chickens need about 10 square feet per chicken, so this gives them enough room to run around.

After the base was done, we installed the vertical posts of 2x 4s, that will support the hardware cloth (do not use chicken wire! The holes are too big, and critters can still get their hands through the holes. We chose 1/4" hardware cloth, so nothing hopefully can get in.)

Here is Nicky relaxing:

After the vertical posts went up, we attached the horizontal ones that will hold the roof of wire up. We attached these to the chicken coop, which is a nice sturdy base.

After the wood was done, we put on a nice thick layer of paint to protect the wood:

Here is our door, which will be big enough to allow us to move compost in and out of the chicken run once our little egg makers start their magic.

A confused Ford investigates the chicken run.

Here I work to install the Hardware cloth (again don't use Chicken wire), which covers all the sides of the run to protect our chickens from possums, raccoons and alley cats.

Ford investigates the inside of the chicken coop.

The excess wire at the bottom of the run was folded 90 degrees, to prevent digging by creatures under the edges of the run. We will eventually cover these with concrete paver stones that will be heavy enough to prevent digging. As well, our dog Flint **loves** to stare at the chickens, eagerly licking his lips. The pavers will prevent him from digging into the coop as well.

Ford supervises our work from on top of the chicken coop:

Success! Our chicken wire can support the weight of a slightly overweight kitty cat : )

Still to do: Move the chickens out to the chicken coop.
                Finish the egg laying boxes
                Finish putting the pavers around the chicken run.
                Clean out my destroyed office!

Happy New Year Caterpillars

Howdy All,

Happy New Year! Nicky and I have been frantically working to finish up the chicken coop, so I can get the chickens out of my damn office! While we were working today, Nicky found four monarch butterfly caterpillars in one of our bushes, so we took a bunch of photos!

I also took some other photos as well, even though it is winter, we still have some pretty flowers!