Category: The land

Coping with screwy weather

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A brief warm spell about three weeks ago gave us hope that we might be able to make an early start with the garden. It was not to be. A cold spell followed, and two nights with hard frost. Only the lettuce germinated decently. Even the broccoli and cauliflower, which we started from plants, had minor damage from the frost.

We decided to re-till the area where the seeds didn’t germinate and try again in a week or so when the weather is warmer. Ken took advantage of the downtime in the garden to apply some of the organic soil amendments that had been delivered late, including dried kelp, cottonseed meal, blood meal, bone meal, and lime.

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The two new chickens have been transferred out of the bird cage in the house to the chicken coop. They were getting too big and too rowdy to remain indoors.

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An apple blossom damaged by frost

What’s blooming in this nasty weather

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Spring is late. And who knows if it’s here for good. Last year, the Carolina jasmine bloomed all winter. This year, it’s still dormant. The grass and clover keep trying to make a start, but a cold snap always seems to shut it down again.

But a couple of things are blooming — the old-faithful daffodils, and the peach trees. As for the dandelion greens, they’ll go into a salad.

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Feeding the worms

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The garden plot with compost freshly tilled in … and the chickens working it

Increasingly we think less in terms of fertilizing plants and more in terms of feeding the worms, on the grounds that if your worms are abundant and well fed, the plant life will flourish.

Part of this process is compost. The only form of compost easily available here at reasonable prices is leaf compost. This is a high-carbon compost and needs time to digest into the soil. But it’s good worm food if applied at the right time. Now is the right time. The soil is starting to warm up, and we’re a few weeks away from spring planting. Rain is forecast for Sunday. So Ken rushed to get several tons of compost spread around ahead of the rain. Then he tilled it into the soil. Given two or three weeks, a little rain, and a little warm sun, the compost will decompose into the soil before the spring planting.

My understanding is that high-carbon compost like leaf compost must be digested by bacteria before its nutrition is available to plants. While the bacteria are doing this work, they suck up a lot of nitrogen from the soil. Then the bacteria die, releasing the nitrogen back to the soil and making the nitrogen available for plants.

We also applied about 400 pounds of organic fertilizer this year. The fertilizer is made from chicken manure. But in addition to that, we use soybean meal (about 600 pounds this year) as fertilizer. The soybean meal has a decent portion of nitrogen, and it’s good worm food.

Each year, we add organic fertilizers and humus to the soil. And, each year, the plant life gets more lush and the birds and wildlife more exuberant.

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Piles of compost ready to be tilled into the wildflower patches. The wildflower patches look nice, and the seeds the flowers produce attract birds.

New gate for the new chicken lot

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As of sunset today, the chickens’ new habitat is ready. They now have three grazing and scratching areas, each separated by gates: the garden, the orchard, and a section of woods. Six chickens can do a great deal of damage to grass, and we want the strongest possible turf in the orchard. When it became apparent by mid-winter that the turf in the orchard was not going to be able to withstand a full winter of scratching, we moved the chickens into the garden to protect the orchard turf. The chickens soon wiped out the winter rye that had been planted as a cover crop for the garden and made a big mess. But at least, in the garden, no permanent harm was done.

Ken made the decision to extend their scratching area into the woods. That will give the chickens a great deal more space and relieve the pressure on the orchard turf. It also will provide a cool, shady area for the girls to hang out during the heat of summer. It also will make it easier to justify two or three new hens this spring.

This project cost several hundred dollars and a lot of time, but after we saw eggs for more than $10 a dozen at Whole Foods, we had no doubt that it was worth it.

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The girls in the garden — now a muddy mess after lots of rain and snow and scratching

Birds, everywhere

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Who can identify this bird? Photo by Ken Ilgunas. Update: We think this bird is a pine warbler.

It’s amazing how many birds there are around the abbey right now. Partly, no doubt, it’s because we’ve been feeding them. Partly, no doubt, it’s because it’s spring. But the birds are not just near the feeders. They’re everywhere — in the trees, on the fences, working the orchard, raiding the chicken house, waiting in line for the feeding stations on the porches.

We would like to think that, each year, the abbey grounds are becoming better habitat for birds. Each year, we dump more compost and more organic fertilizer pretty much everywhere. We’ve planted more evergreens for cover and lots of wildflowers. Where there is food and water and shelter, the birds will come.