the good, the bad and the downright sad.

August 17, 2015August 17, 2015 / bluegrassbackyard / Leave a comment

Today, this blog-it’s a little sad for me, a familiar feeling of grief tinged with a little bit of failure.

As a child growing up, I was fortunate enough to have parents who understood and supported my fascination with animals-we had cats, dogs, horses, fish and even the occasional flock of orphaned ducklings. At an early age, I was made well aware of the feelings of loss, grief and profound sadness associated with losing a pet. It varied with intensity-but regardless, big or small it was there.

As I have aged, I am still overcome with sadness when I lose a pet, and a deep sense of failure-as if I could have predicted the future and created a better outcome. As an adult, the grown rational side of you understands the loss and the “whys”, but your heart still feels overwhelming sadness.

Yesterday, I was reunited with these all too familiar feelings-in the most unsuspecting of places.

Our rooster, Nugget had wandered off of his many acre farm and was killed by the neighbors dog. He was raised with our dogs, who are completely trustworthy with the birds. When we relocated him to his new home (we aren’t able to house roosters in our neighborhood, due to the proximity of other homes and a roosters propensity for screaming in the wee hours of the morning), it was also home to 3 other trustworthy dogs-he wasn’t raised to have (what I now believe is a healthy) fear of dogs.

This is the first chicken I’ve lost, and I certainly did not think I would be as upset as I was. Darn, it hit me right in the feels. I truly believe you have a personal responsibility to all animals you choose to bring into your home and life, regardless of if they are pets or producers. I have responsibility in the end, and let this little guy down.

Looking forward, I don’t see that it will get any easier- but these things happen, especially when raising livestock. You do your best to protect and care for them-but inevitably these things happen.

There is so much care, time and love that goes into raising livestock and produce. You are hit with a bit of defeat every time a plant dies or doesn’t produce the way you think it should, all the time you spend tending to them seems wasted. Then, the next morning when you’re collecting dozens of eggs or canning pounds of tomatoes- it all feels great, and makes perfect sense and you’re filled with happiness. I cannot imagine the rollercoaster larger scale farmers ride, it makes me respect their process so much more.

See ya on the flip side Nugget-thanks for the lessons.

nugget gets gone.

July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 / bluegrassbackyard / 2 Comments

When we purchased our chicks, we purchased them sexed as females. Sexing chickens can be really tough, so we weren’t too surprised when we ended up with one Roo. As he aged, he turned into a beautiful golden boy-but as he grew, so did his voice. It wasn’t too long before his vocal abilities were center stage-and he was singing the song of his people in the early morning light.

Living in a neighborhood, we knew that this wouldn’t work and we would have to relocate our dear friend Nugget. Luckily, I have a friend who owns a larger farm and a flock of her own, she was willing to take him in. Today we separated him from our girls, stuck him in the car and brought him to his new family.

Backyard chickens are becoming more and more popular as urban gardening takes off across the country. It’s important to remember, that if you’re going to be an owner of backyard chickens- you be a responsible one. One bad egg can ruin it for the whole group.

Noisy chickens and crowing roosters don’t make good neighbors (for some people). It’s important to remember that, although you may love waking up to that sweet rooster song-there are many people who do not. I recommend keeping your coop as far away from your neighbors as possible, keep it as clean as possible, and restrict your coop residents to hens. Sharing the fruits of your labor doesn’t hurt either- who can look at a farm fresh egg and not smile?

a straw bale, what?

June 22, 2015June 23, 2015 / bluegrassbackyard / Leave a comment

This year we knew we wanted to expand our garden, but wanted to do so as easily and as cost effectively as possible. We stumbled upon straw bale gardening, and after a bit of research decided this would be the method for us. The straw bales could be placed outside of our existing garden, didn’t require any additional building of raised beds, and would cut down on the amount of weeding we’d need to do (all big positives for us).

The unfortunate thing, is that you can’t just stick your plants in a straw bale and expect them to grow- the bales take some conditioning before they’re ready to plant. Roughly 10-15 days before you’re ready plant, you need to begin a fertilizing and watering protocol to promote decomposition of the bales, and to put “food” into the bale for your plants to munch on as they grow. Once this is done and you’ve got your plants set into the bales- you can continue on with any fertilizing program you choose to use. To condition our bales, we chose to use Organic Plant-tone Plant Food from Espoma. This is a 5-3-3 mix, that we felt would give the bales the jump they needed to break down. This is mainly comprised of feather meal, chicken manure and bone meal- your dogs will find this concoction tasty-so make sure to keep it in a safe place (we learned this the hard way).

So far we’ve been really happy with the results. If I were to do anything different- I would have staked each bale from end to end to keep them together. As they break down, they get a little loose and start to wash out. The bales that we planted tomatoes in, we staked at each end, knowing we’d need to tie up the plants. These bales have held together much better and I think they hold water better.

My Personal Pros & Cons for Straw Bale Gardening

Pros:

Decreased influence of weeds
Plants seem less susceptible to rotting and slugs, as they’re elevated off the ground
Easy to maintain and prune-everything is raised
Low investment for the planting materials
Can be put anywhere

Cons:

They seem to dry out quickly and take A LOT more water (we had a hard time starting seeds due to this)
If they’re not staked, they’ll slowing spread and break down a bit faster
Not very aesthetically pleasing (we tried to plant marigolds and mulch around them for the look factor)

Overall I think we are pleased with our results. The tomatoes have done really well, along with our zucchini, jalapeño peppers, pak choy and kale. The most beautiful thing of all- is that we can turn around and move the bales to the compost pit for the winter, and use them as fresh compost next season!