Sunday Harvest (in 4 words)

Potatoes:

Tomatoes:

Love:

and Art:

Chicken Run Awesomeness

We built it.  (A few months ago, but I've been busy.)  It's amazing.  I'm so proud.

We started with MY OWN DESIGN.  (I say as I puff my chest.)  There were few designs of runs that I found that I liked so I tried my hand at designing.

There were a few parameters that I knew I was going to work with:
* It had to be tall enough for us to somewhat stand up in.
* It would be made out of 2x2's.
* It would be light.
* Predator proof.
* Bigger than the old run.
* The doors had to be easy to open and close.

So I got to drawing.  I drew out several rough draft plans.  Some changes and redrafts had to be made based on how long the treated 2x2's were that were sold at Lowes (not sold at Home Depot), how tall it needed to be for us to kind of stand in it, blah blah blah, including some of my own brain farts that I discovered along the way.

After several weeks of drawing and thinking and examining the blueprints in my brain, we decided to go shopping for supplies.  Here is what we bought on the first run:

*12 8ft treated 2x2's
*A box of galvanized 2.5 in nails.
*3 8ft x 26in corrugated pvc panels.

This totaled about a hundred bucks.

The building process went as follows:

Build the frame for the floor.  Line with poultry netting to predator-proof.

Then make the walls, keeping in mind how wide the poultry netting is, and how it will be tacked in, as well as where doors are going to go.  We were lucky to only have to make three walls instead of four because the coop would act as the fourth.

Short wall.

Tall wall.  The small area underneath the netting is for the chicken-access door.

Attach the walls to the floor.

This is upside down.

Put on the roof.  We had to cut the three pieces of PVC a little shorter, but as far as the width goes, the three pieces fit perfectly, including some overlap to make sure it wasn't leaky.  Poor Shawn gave himself some bloody knuckles screwing in all the screws, but we made sure it was on nice and tight to keep the ladies dry once the rains start.  Then we attached the doors, for both humans and chickens.  We got a really cool latch from the ReStore that I'm really excited about.  (That might be my favorite part of the run :))

The human door in the middle and the chickie access door to the bottom left.

Then all we had to do was attach it to the coop and ta-da!!!

They look so good in there, huh?

In the middle of construction we had to go buy 4 more 2x2's due to my lack of planning but that was it.  Most of the hardware was stuff we had leftover from coop construction.  So the whole run cost us just about $120. 

So in conclusion, on the whole, our chicken housing cost us $400, plus some labor.  We got exactly what we wanted in a chicken house and provided ample space for the ladies to hang out.  I just hope that it does well in the winter... though I already know that we won't have nearly the same flooding problems we had with the last place. 

Finally, to prove how awesome we are, please refer to exhibit A and B.

That is all.  We rock.

P.S.  I know that this post is not complete enough for someone to come along and build what we did based on what I have written.  Please let me know if you'd like more info and I would be happy to share more details with you.  Just leave a comment below with your email and we can totally chat!

Slappin' it together.

I think building a legit chicken coop has made us pretty confident in the power of a hammer and nail.  'Cause when we realized we needed a compost bin, we slapped one together like it was easy as pie. 

In the old place, we had a corner of our yard that had a concrete wall that was perfect for a compost pile.  It was pretty big, and made it really easy to just toss whatever we needed composted into the corner.  It was accessible to the ladies to turn it while looking for worms, which made it a pretty good system.

Unfortunately, the new place has no such corner.  So we had to build a compost bin.  We though about buying one, but they're pretty expensive.

We started with a piece of grape stake fencing that we originally picked up as possible material to build the coop.  It was pretty old and rotten on the edges, so we cut off the ends of the vertical slats down to the 2x4 cross pieces.  This got rid of the rotten parts while maintaining stability.

Brackets, random pieces of plywood, nails, screws...

Then we cut the whole thing into 3 pieces to make the back and 2 sides of the box.  Those were secured together with random brackets and things we had lying around.

We really just slapped it together.  It's pretty rickety.  I wouldn't trust the stability even for a doghouse.

At this point we decided to move it to it's permanent home since it was still light enough to move.  But in order to do that, we needed to do some concrete work.  I had never laid any concrete, but Shawn had, and my dad is quite the home concrete-laying veteran, so we were able to pour a slab down in no time.  We decided a concrete slab was necessary since on the other side of the fence is a veritable wall of blackberry bushes that I wanted to prevent from growing into my compost. 

And what happened right after we poured it?  The cats walked in it of course!!!

Once the stab was dry and set 2 days later, we moved the incomplete bin to it's final destination.  I was a little sad to say goodbye to the cute little kitty footprints.

Next we tacked on a piece of plywood 10 inches from the bottom to create the front wall.  A second piece of plywood was cut to (semi) fit the bottom part.  This way, instead of digging down to the finished compost next year, we would have a door for instant access to the black gold when we need it.  The door is made so that it can be slid in and out (up and down).  This was done by tacking on two small pieces of wood into each corner to hold the board in place.  The current board we're using isn't quite the right size, and we do have some plywood that we can cut to fit, but we'll get to fixing that when we get around to it.  The key was getting this whole thing made quickly so we could actually put stuff in it, since chickens keep pooping whether you have a compost bin or not.

This was a few weeks ago.  It's way fuller now.

The last part of construction was to attach a roof to the top with some hinges so we can easily open it up and drop stuff inside.  The plywood we used for the roof is pretty thin so it's really easy to open it with your elbow when you have a handfull of stuff you need to throw in. 

So there you go.  Who knows how long the actual bin will last, but for now we have a place to put all the chicken crap, garden garbage, and food scraps.  We've been watering it down every few weeks to maintain moisture and promote decomposition, and we'll probably turn it here soon to see how things are looking towards the bottom.  I'm happy to say that all the materials that went into the construction of this bin was stuff we had lying around so basically we got a compost bin for free, plus some elbow grease.  Oh wait, we did have to buy the concrete.  So we got a compost bin for $15 plus some elbow grease.  Still a good deal.

Sunday Harvest

Oh jeez.  Three weeks it's been.  And I didn't take pictures of everything I harvested before I ate 'em.  Oh well.  Here's most of what I collected in the last few weeks:

Some exciting things to note:
* The potatoes are just a third of what we have.
* The onions that I ended up with are awesome, but the rest were a fail.
* The beans, cucumbers, and zucchini are done.
* The tomatoes are just getting started, and with the 80 degree weather coming our way, things are looking good on that front!

Sunday Harvest: Kid Edition

It's blackberry season!  Our new house is right on the Shoreline Interurban trail, aka the blackberry farm, so we have our own personal blackberry patch that we have access to out our back gate.  It's pretty sweet.  So we picked some and made something special.  I'll tell you about it later.

This week I had a little help with the harvest from my little 4-year-old friend next door.  She and her brothers are always pretty bored and loiter in their front yard, looking for someone or something to play with.  Oftentimes that someone is Shawn or me.  They always say hi to us, and on some weekends, will ask of they can come over.  They really like helping us in the yard and were heavily involved in the construction of the chicken coop, as well as the setup of the garden beds.  They can be kind of annoying, but considering we have made or are making a living off of working with children, having them around is kinda normal for us.

Since they helped with the planting of much of my garden, it is only fitting to allow them to help with the harvest.

But first let me tell you a bit about these kids.  I don't think they have very good eating habits, as evidenced by their being rather overweight.  I won't go into speculating why this is, but being from a low income family would be my first guess.  When we were planting the garden, they had no idea what a zucchini was.  They also claimed that they had never eaten a raspberry before, when we let them have some from our sad little patch.  They don't recognize green tomatoes as tomatoes, and can't identify cucumbers, green beans, or lettuce.

As urban living gets more and more distanced from farms and where our food comes from, children are having a harder time understanding that food is grown in the ground and comes off of plants.  I remember one student a few years back say this: "Mom!  That person pulled a plant out of the ground and there was a CARROT attached to it!" Couple this with the high prices of fresh produce and you get kids like our neighbors.  Sad, but true.

When we moved into our house several months ago and we were first introduced to our new little friends, the environmental educator in me couldn't help but decide to take these youngsters under my wing and teach them a thing or two about food: where it comes from, how it gets to us, and how yummy the fresh stuff is.

So having the little girl over today as I planted some strawberries and blueberry bushes and picked this week's harvest was exactly in line with my secret goal.  First, I let her pull a bunch of the purple green beans.  I was surprised at how little she reacted to the color, and instantly took a bite of one when I encouraged her to.  At first I thought she didn't like it because she made a little face when she said "it's good" (with some hesitation,) but then gobbled up a whole handful with gusto.  Next we picked some cucumbers.  I ripped one apart and took a bite out of one half to show her it was safe and she finished off the other half.  I asked her which she liked better, the purple beans or the cucumber, and the cuke won that round.  I then topped the taste test off with a chocolate zucchini muffin which, naturally, she snarfed with no hesitation.

Her brother came over a bit later and was not enthused about the idea of eating a purple green bean, but I expected that since he's got a bit more attitude.  I think I'll focus my energy on one child for now, since today was such a success.

I have always gardened for me.  It's my therapy, and a great fun way to get some exercise and eat right.  But for the first time, my garden became something that benefited someone else.  Now who knows how much of our time spent together today will have an impact on my little friend.  It might be just a speck in her imaginative day to day life.  But I like to think that there is a small chance that it could become something more, something big.  And that little chance is worth every second and every purple green bean donated to a good cause.

So go outside and plant a garden, if not for you, but for a small little friend.  It might make a big impact.

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Holy hell these are delicious.

And they use up a bunch of zucchini.

I'll be making several batches of these over the next few weeks.

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sour cream
2 cups grated zucchini
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a small bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients (top half of the list).  An a separate larger bowl, mix together the wet ingredients, minus the zucchini.  Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined, then add the zucchini.  This is when you would add the walnuts and chocolate chips if you want.  Pour into a greased muffin tin and bake for 20 minutes.  Now, it makes 12 muffins, but you may want to double the recipe since 12 of these muffins is not enough.

It's kinda more like chocolate cake.  But healthier... because it has vegetables in it.

I'mma go eat one now.

Pruning Raspberry Plants

Raspberry season is over.  So sad.  Unfortunately, what could have been an amazing raspberry season for us this year was interrupted and cut short because of the move.  We moved the plants during the most crucial stage, as the berries were ripening, so the berries themselves did not ripen fully and some of them were dry, small, and just plain sad.  The plants took awhile to establish, and a lot of it died off.  But, in the last several weeks, we've had a resurgence of the plants and have more growth.  No more berries, but now that the plants themselves have established, next year looks promising.

Every year, in order to maximize berry production and to give the live plant parts enough room, you have to prune the bushes.  It's really easy.  Here's what we started with:

Lots of dead stuff with green parts underneath.  Since raspberry bushes are not really bushes, and just a whole bunch of individual-looking sticks coming from the general same ground area, pruning is easy.  You just find your dead sticks, follow them down to about 12 inches from the ground and cut.  I think you can cut lower, but that's what I did this year.  You just need to make sure that the sticks you cut are the ones that fruited this year.  The ones that didn't fruit will next year so leave them alone.

That's it.  It took 3 minutes and looks way better.  See?