With way more free time on my hands, I’ve rediscovered the joy of being outside! Although I’d love to start growing my own vegetables, I entirely trust myself quite yet (not to mention that it is summer already)! For now, I’m focusing on weeding, outdoor foraging, composting and making my five hens as happy as they can be!
Every day I find it hard to believe that I raised these big strong girls from tiny chicks and finally, after much working in the garage, we made them a coop! I’ve been moving it around every week or so to ensure that they have fresh grass to scratch at.
Recently, I’ve moved the coop to our patio stone because of all the weeds between the cracks. I also discovered the hard way that all 5 of the girls have extremely sharp claws and beaks so I’m hoping that they will wear them down a little on the stone before I move them back onto the grass.
It’s been really 30*C recently and my chickens are really feeling it. Similar to dogs, they don’t sweat so instead, they pant. They also drink lots of water, droop their wings and take lots of dust baths.
My compost bins are so much fun. I recently realized that there are A LOT of flies around it so I prevented this by covering whatever I put in with grass clippings. My compost will probably end up being really acidic because of all the chicken poop, pine needles and lemon peels I put into it. I don’t really mind it though because I am hoping to use my compost for growing vegetables next year and most of them like a slightly acidic soil.
I’ve been trying to fill my compost bin to the top so I can let it sit in the second bin I made. But it is like Sisyphus! Everytime you think it is full, you water a little, mix some more and it shrinks!
For urban foraging, I’ve noticed that some wild raspberry and strawberries have come out! I hope I’ll be able to eat them by the end of the month.
As for my asparagus, it hasn’t grown and it’s been a month! D: I dug it out recently and my hypothesis is that I buried it too deep. Seeing that the roots looked quite alive, I simply skimmed off the top layer of soil. Hopefully they grow. I know I don’t have much of a green thumb but the box said “guaranteed to grow”!