Garden Update 4/28/13

Potatoes

Peas

Close-up of the peas

Onions 

Carrots

Green beans

Tomatoes

The flood

Danielle sent me a text message yesterday with a picture of the garage roof.  It had water dripping out of it.  It is right below the upstairs bathroom.

I called the home warranty company and they told me that the plumbing is covered but none of the damage.  So the plumber was scheduled to come today and fix the leak.  This morning I called USAA our insurance company and was told that they would have someone out within 4 hours to start the moisture removal process.  I love USAA.  I've never had a problem with them and they're always helpful.  The plumber came today and replaced the wax ring under the toilet.  Meanwhile the ceiling is full of black water.  A gentleman from Serve-Pro showed up and took moisture readings.  The hardwood is wet and the ceiling in the garage pegged his meter.  He left 5 giant air movers and 2 dehumidifiers.  A small one in the bathroom and a giant one in the garage.

The problem was that the 3 day old turkeys are in the garage and the dehumidifier puts out over 100 degree air at 3% humidity.  So the turkeys had to be moved.  I decided to move them out to the screen porch.  With the heat light they should be fine.  I taped their thermometer to the door so I can monitor the temperature tonight.  I'll check before bed, sometime around 2, and when I get up.

Bourbon Red Hatching

Paddock Shift

This spring the back half of the yard where the chickens range was weed free and green.  The front half was all weeds.  The chickens like to eat all the weeds leaving the yard nice and weed free and they fertilize as they walk.  To get the birds into the front half of the back yard we have to worry about Benny, our lab-mut chicken eater.  I borrowed a electric poultry net and cut the front half of the back yard into two parts.  One for Benny and one for the chickens.

Then there were 9

Over the weekend the turkeys hatched.  We are up to 9 now.  One was lost trying to get out of the egg and there are still 4 eggs left in the incubator.  It's looking like this will be it, there is no activity from the last 4 eggs.  We'll leave them in the incubator till Tuesday night though to make sure.

Turkeys are Hatching

On their 27th day in the incubator two of the Bourbon Red turkeys decided they had enough of life in an egg.  These are our first two baby reds!

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

At the SOWEGA beekeepers meeting I was talking to another member and she told me that she had a rooster that she would be willing to part with.  After we returned from our trip to Macon I gave her a call and she dropped off this beauty to Danielle.  We now have a rooster to keep the girls in check and to give us some fertilized eggs!  No more hatchery prices!

More planting

After the tomatoes were in, we moved on to the peppers.  This year if I was only planting a couple of plants I didn't start them from seeds.  It is easier to just go pick up peppers, watermelon, and sweet potatoes.

 We put in 9 sweet potato plants

 

 14 peppers of varying type.  Jalapeno, banana, cayenne, etc.  No bell peppers

 

And finally 3 Queensland Blue Pumpkins, 3 butternut squash, and 3 watermelon plants.

They all look like this.

 

 

 



 

Tomatoes in the ground

Today turned out to be a beautiful day.  Finally the rains stopped, the weather warmed up, and no-one was vomiting.  I spent the day working the garden with the kids.  My mother-in-law was great and weeded for me!  I spent the morning planting 56 tomatoes in 2 beds.  I'll admin that we did cheat a little this year.  I started by digging a decent sized hole and filling it in with Jungle Dirt, then placing the tomato in the jungle dirt.  The raised beds are getting better, but the soil isn't quite there yet.  Once they were planted Danielle helped me move the trellises from the old tomato beds to the new ones.  Soon I'll have to hand the twine for them to grow up.  They are the tomatoes we started back on February 17th.  They are Seed Saver's Exchange #107, Amish Paste Roma Tomatoes.  Being an open pollinated heirloom seed, I should be able to save the seeds this year and not have to purchase seeds next year.  First though, I have to keep them alive until harvest time.

Water Storage

Living outside of town we get our water from a well.  It's a nice well, unlike our well in Illinois that smelled like eggs and turned everything orange.  The water is quite nice and doesn't taste like chlorine.  However, if the power goes out we don't have any water.  I do have the generator but this house doesn't have a transfer switch that would connect it to the well.  So, until I come up with $500 for a transfer switch the well won't be easily utilized during an outage.  To have some water on hand after a storm I've bought some water containers and water treatment.  I ordered (8) 5-gallon jugs from the ready store last week and they arrived today.  They're stackable to save space.  The instructions say that I have to wash and sanitize the jugs before filling them for storage.  One more thing on the to-do list.  The good part is that it is good for five years once treated and sealed.  I also bought 1 extra lid with a spigot.