Vegetables Archives

To Everything There is a Season

January 8, 2015 by theblogbloom.com 7 Comments

My dad does this weird thing where he can think of and, of course, start singing a song for any situation.

Anything.

My sister and I recently talked about this. It is crazy.

I remember her screaming, “DAD! STOP. You have a song for EVERYTHING!”

In the background of her screaming you could hear things like, “You can’t always get what you want…” by The Rolling Stones or Frankie Valli’s, “Big girls don’t cry… They don’t *CRY-I-III.*“

I could commiserate with her frustration. It was annoying. Especially when you were fifteen wanted to go to “so and so’s” party or were begging to be allowed more than ten text’s a month.

I mean, seriously. Come on, DAD!

But, now that I am over halfway through my twenties something funny has happened: Those “weird” or “annoying” things about my mom or dad… are now things that I (scarily) do.

My mom comes out of my mouth more than I care to admit. And, my dad’s music on the mind trait is now my own. I also might add, even though this is kind of embarrassing, the music on my mind is usually songs that he would listen to.

… With the exception for T-Swift’s “Shake It Off.” Hey, what can I say? I work in sales.

The current tune running thought my head is “Turn, Turn, Turn” by The Byrds.

Well, actually the song was originally by Pete Seeger and was titled “To Everything There is a Season.”

It is that exact verse that runs through my head at least five times a day as I stare out the window at the, now, very frozen and snow covered piece of land that once was my booming garden.

I miss it.

I wish I could run out there and grab all the fixings for a wonderful salad at lunch.

I wish I could spend an hour in the morning before work tending to it and getting a little Vitamin D.

I wish my Instagram was full of things like this:

Or this:

Or this:

I wish Adam and I could walk out there in the late evenings with a glass of wine and admire what had popped up since the night before.

But,

To everything, there is a season,
And a time to every purpose under heaven.

There is a purpose to this time of year and the purpose is to rest.

Just like a strong athlete, the garden needs this time of oscillation.

Both the athlete and the garden, are pushed hard and to their limits in order to get stronger, faster, better.

But, if an athlete were to be constantly exerting himself he would likely strain or even hurt his muscles to the point of damage. In fact, it is proven that continuous training can weaken the strongest athlete.

However, the best athletes know that by stepping back, taking time away from the gym and recovering, their body will repair and strengthen itself allowing them to perform at their peak.

Real growth is found in the rest.

Quite the opposite of what our world seems to tell us, right?

We are encouraged to go, go, GO! Told that good things come to those who hustle. The guy who busts his butt working weekends and well into the evenings gets the promotion… and becomes the example.

But, all the while, no one wonders if we could be doing damage or making ourselves weaker.

Perhaps we should follow the lessons that are found in nature.

Athletes need to take a break from the weights to build up strength.

Babies and teenagers sleep so much because they are growing like crazy.

Studies have even shown that without sleep healthy and strong adults impair their motor and cognitive traits, similar to being drunk. (Spoiler Alert: The drunk guy never gets the promotion.)

Seasons existed before life.

And, there was quite some time that life reflected the seasons.

There was a reason to each season. A purpose.

So, as much as I love busy and vibrant August in the garden; When January comes, I smile as I take time to step back and just watch the snow fall on that corner of my yard.

For, without January there would be no August.

Summer in December

December 17, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 2 Comments

This weekend I took on Operation Holiday Cookies.

The amount of butter in my kitchen was at an all time high and my mixer found a new temporary home on the counter top.

I baked a handful of treats that my mom always had for the Holidays like oatmeal candy canes, spritz cookies and almond crescents.

While in the middle of my baking marathon Adam poked his head into the kitchen.

“I know you are making things that your mom used to make, but those are not cookies,” he told me.

Um, have you seen the amount of sugar I have gone through? These definitely are not crackers….? I was confused and really curious why he thought this way.

“They aren’t circles. Cookies are circles,” he stated.

For those of you who might be new… Hi! Thanks for reading. And just so you know, Adam is my husband… Not a toddler. I thought it would be best to clear that up after this preschool observation.

Okay then…!

Cookies are circles. Only.

-Weirdo.-

Hmm.

Well, that ruled out my plans for gingerbread men or frosted sugar cookies in the shape of trees and bells.

So, instead, to appease my husband’s wishes for round cookies, I made one of his (and my) summertime favorites: Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cookies.

By the middle of the summer, we have zucchini’s covering every surface of the kitchen. We saute them, grill them, bake them. We have so many that I even make special trips to Indianapolis to ~~pawn them off~~ give them away to my friends.

But, even with all this, there are still tons of zucchini’s that come out of the garden everyday in the middle of the summer. To help make the most of our plentiful zucchini’s I like to freeze them either grated or sliced so that Adam and I can enjoy them throughout the winter months.

This cookie recipe calls for grated zucchini, either fresh or frozen. However, if frozen, be sure to squeeze out all the liquid.

Now, I know what you might be thinking… Zucchini in a cookie?!

It’s actually really good.

So good, that I think the flavors would make a really good ice cream too. Maybe I will play with that next…

The taste of the grated zucchini isn’t strong by any means and is complimented by the ground cinnamon. It’s also a fun way to sneak in vegetables in a picky kid’s diet.

Or husbands.

… And they are circles.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cookies

2014-12-22 11:28:42

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Ingredients

1 cup (2 Sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups grated zucchini (about one large zucchini or two medium sized zucchini's)
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Using a stand mixer, beat together butter, sugar, brown sugar, until combined and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time until combined and mix in vanilla.
In a medium bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and beat on low until they are just incorporated.
Add the zucchini and chocolate chips and mix until they are just incorporated.
Scoop the cookies onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Bloom. https://www.theblogbloom.com/

“Where We Are” by Adam

November 16, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 2 Comments

This is Part Two of our series where we are giving thanks for starting a garden two years ago. Throughout the month of November with the help of my husband, Adam, we will be telling the story of “How we got here,” “Where we are,” and “Where we are going” from each of our perspectives.

Today Adam explains where we are:

Well, it’s a crazy weekend in the Trost house.

Saturday we hosted a co-ed baby shower for four of my fraternity pledge brothers and their wives. We have reached that point in our lives that the wedding season is shorter and the kids are showing up in droves.

We had nearly 30 people in our house on Saturday which made for a very loud and fun baby shower. We ate, drank, laughed, told stories and genuinely had a fantastic time catching up with great friends.
Now it’s off to the Sunday night Colts game in Indianapolis. I think I will need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

Purdue Alpha Gamma Rho all grown up.

I started thinking about all the great celebrations we take part in and what is so common with each. Almost every event Claire and I host I feel like it all revolves around the food. Now any great host knows that the meal doesn’t mean anything unless the guests you are sharing it with are 5 star.

I had one great friend turn to me and say “You always know you’re going to have a great meal when you come to the Trost’s.”

That made me feel great.

I enjoy cooking great food as much as others enjoy eating it. One thing I enjoy even more is growing great food.

I love to serve people spectacular meals made with the food I have grown and taken care of. There is a feeling completely different than anything I have ever felt when I can transform a garden treasure into a meal that someone genuinely enjoys. It is my passion.

This brings us to “Where We Are.”

We are just on the edge of discovery and refinement.

Claire and I have progressed through growing our food rather quickly. Our first year was trial. (And we tried a lot of things.) Gardening, having egg layers, raising 50 meat chickens, trying to figure out composting, and many others.

Our second year has become more of a discovery and refinement season. We still have the egg layers (a big topic of conversation at the baby shower), we raised meat birds again this year to fill our freezer, our garden went from 8 garden beds to 24, and our compost actually looks like compost.

Currently I am trying to figure out how to grow the most possible food in the smallest possible area. We are discovering how different crops planted in very specific areas and timing can produce massive amount of food.

For example, when tomato plants are young, plant radishes in between the plants. By the time the tomato plants get large enough to shade out the ground the radishes are harvested and you just produced 20 more pounds of food in the same bed. We also use plants that grow tall, like peas and cucumbers on trellis to shade our lettuce. This allows us to grow lettuce all through the summer without bolting. We are also planting cover crops like buckwheat in the bed when another crop will not be planted there for at least two weeks. This keeps the soil active, shaded to reduce weed pressure, and adds organic material to the soil.

Spinach shaded by growing beans.

One of the best tools I have discovered is not a special shovel or some magic garden tiller. It has been Mother Earth News Garden Planner. It is an online garden planner that keeps track of what you plant in each bed every year. This is key to having healthy soil, reduce insects and disease problems and grow plants more efficiently. Every time you plant a bed the garden planner will keep track of it and let you know that in 2013 tomatoes were in bed 4. It will then light up in red, letting you know not to plant them there again. Aside from YouTube, it is the tool I rely on most.

Now that winter seems to have shown up early, and our garden is all but dead (carrots, beets and kale are holding strong), I am in the reflection phase of our season. We had an incredibly successful year growing food, produced much more than we could eat and were able to share that with others.

I just took my pastured grown chickens to the butcher and my first thought was “I have a really big yard, I wonder how many pastured chickens I could grow on my lawn.” Now that I have used that grass to grow food, it seems worthless to fertilize, water and mow it constantly.

You should see how green my grass is where the chickens had been for only a day. Each day I moved the chickens to a new spot and now have 50 days of area fertilized. What if everyone did this? We are worried about growing enough food to feed the world when we don’t fully utilize what is right under our nose.

I am currently reading two books on starting a successful farming enterprise and the other on raising salad bar beef and am incredibly inspired.

The field around our house has been farmed for so long that nearly all of the quality top soil has washed into the creek. It is a gently rolling field that channels all of the water to one corner. Every year we have a big rain and it floods, washing through a culvert under the road through another field and into the creek. Each time, the water carries more soil with it. So much so that every few years the farmers have to fix the culvert, repair the washouts and watch the ditches get deeper and deeper.

Are we really fixing the problem?

What if we turned the field into, pasture, wood lines, natural habitat and ponds? Pastures could raise beef, pork, poultry, and sheep. The grass would hold the soil in place and help retain the water. Most of the corn grown in the field is being used to feed those animals anyway. Wood lines and natural habitat will attract birds who will spread the manure while searching for bugs. Ponds will retain the water and be used for livestock, especially in drought years.

So that’s where we are.

We don’t have it all figured out but, we have been very successful on our small scale. So much so that we want to continue to grow and produce food for others. You’ll have to stop in next Sunday to discover “Where we are going.”

Talking about raising chickens with a future farmer.

Love ‘Em to Death

May 1, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 2 Comments

Last week Adam and I transplanted the seedlings from their starter kits to larger flats. The seedling’s love the extra leg room and are beginning to look like plants.

Zucchini, Cucumbers and Kale… getting big!

While we were transplanting the seedling’s I noticed that the tomato plants didn’t look so great. They didn’t have a good green color. They looked… purple.

As I pulled the flat closer to me I realized it was kind of heavy and with further investigation I found that the plants were sitting in about a half inch of water.

Water is important for plants, but these guys were saturated.

We found that the cause was from Adam and me both watering them each day. I had been traveling for work so Adam thought I wasn’t able to get to it. We didn’t talk about it. One thing led to another… and the seedlings were over watered.

Yes. Like I just said, watering your plants is important. And necessary. But, there’s a fine line.

Over watering is actually worse than under watering. Over watering prevents a plant from obtaining nutrients and oxygen to develop their roots.

You would think that the more attention you give your plants, the better they would do.

But, that’s not the case.

You can actually love your plants to death.

Fortunately, with the tomato plants, we found it early and acted quickly. We put them into new flats with new soil. The tomatoes are looking much better and my mind is running wild with images of all the caprese salads that will grace my table come August.

Tomato plants looking better and getting adult leaves.

I have fallen victim to loving a plant to complete death before. I bought a rosemary plant and thought it would be so cute to grow on my kitchen island in a large, rustic coffee mug. I didn’t know rosemary needs to be in pot that drains water well.

My coffee mug did not do the job.

The old water sat in the bottom of the mug causing the root to rot which prevented water and nutrients getting to the plant. What happened is that it looked like it was dry and I kept watering it. Soon, the plant was dead.

I now have a rosemary plant in a Terra cotta pot that I water when the soil dries out and it is doing great.

Much better!

Here are a few other watering tips:

– Gardens typically need about an inch of rain each week. But, like a healthy diet, everything in moderation. One inch in twenty minutes isn’t great for a plant. Keep an eye on the weather and supplement as needed.
– If the weather gets particularly hot and dry, you may need to water more. And, if it’s cool it may not need as much.
– Water plants in the morning. This ensures that water dries off, instead of staying on the plant all through the night making it susceptible to fungus and bacteria. And, if you water them in the middle of the day, the water might evaporate before it’s absorbed by the plant.
– Provide water directly to plants roots versus spraying all over.
– Get a sprayer head that is designed for gardens. It will ensure the rate of the spray isn’t too strong and some are designed to make it easy to reach in-between plants.

Love your plants.

… Just not to death.

Why Garden Weekends: Money

February 9, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 3 Comments

Okay, so… I had full intentions of doing “Why Garden Wednesday’s” all through the month of February to inspire you to start a backyard/balcony/windowsill garden this spring.

But, Wednesday came and went without a blog. I had been on the road for work, we had a major snow storm (again…), and I just wanted to spend sometime with this cute kid.

Sleepy dude.

Can you blame me?

Instead, welcome to “Why Garden Weekends!”

Spring is coming, even though it sure doesn’t seem like it in the Midwest, and every weekend in February I will be posting reasons on why YOU should start a garden.

So, without further adieu, Numero Uno, a reason top of mind for everyone: Money.

Last fall, I wrote as I reflected on the summer’s garden that gardening has definitely saved Adam and me a little cash. Thanks to the garden, I do not buy as a much at the grocery store and we are far less likely to go out to eat than we had been in the past. This is because we had so much food of our own to eat!

I have been seeking out garden workshops around Indiana to try to gain more knowledge and skill. At a program last September, put on by Purdue Extension, I picked up a flyer illustrating the benefits of gardening and the numbers listed for dollars saved. It’s impressive!

Home gardening gives you a 1:25 cost benefit.

This means, if you were to spend $50 on seeds you could produce over $1,200 of food.

Here’s a break down of a few items from our garden explaining what we pay and what we could be paying if we were to purchase them at a store.

Organic, Pasture raised Eggs:

Store Price: $3.50 per dozen

The chicks were $1 each and its $11 for feed every month. We get around 11 dozen eggs a month from our five hens. So, our eggs are about a $1.00 a dozen.

Organic Tomatoes:

Store Price: $3.00 per pound

One tomato plant can give you around fifteen pounds of tomatoes. You could buy a tomato plant for about $2.50. We started our tomatoes from seeds and were able to get twenty plants of various varieties about six bucks. So, a pound of our backyard tomatoes were a whopping two cents.

Organic Zucchini:

I thought this was a funny picture from last summer. Zucc’s the size of wine bottles!

Store Price: $3.00 per Pound

A packet of zucchini seeds is about $2.00. You could get about 10-15 zucchini plants per packet. Zucchini plants are like weeds. They just keep coming! We would get one zucchini from each plant about every day last summer. A typical plant will give you around nine pounds of zucchini each season.

We had six zucchini plants last summer making a pound of our zucchini about four cents.

Organic Cucumbers:

Store Price: $2.00 per pound

A packet of cucumber seeds is about $1 and could give you thirty plants. We planted four cucumber plants and got about three pounds of cucumbers per week per plant when we were harvesting, making well over thirty pounds of cucumber for the season. Our cucumbers were less than three cents a pound.

Organic carrots:

Store Price: $3.00 per pound

You have to sow carrot seeds directly into the ground. A packet of seeds is about $2.00 and you could yield at least thirty pounds of carrots from one packet.

We plan to plant many more carrot seeds next year. The taste of a backyard carrot versus a carrot from a bag of baby carrots in the store is amazingly different. It has so much more depth of flavor and at six cents a pound, why not?

When I start to add in our entire garden’s lettuce, broccoli plans, snap peas, strawberries, herbs, peppers, and more the savings really start to add up.

Money savings is one of the big reasons I enjoy sharing our garden stories. There are so many people in America struggling to feed their families, let alone feed their families well. Gardens help make this possible. The knowledge just needs to be shared. There are many groups around the nation such as Farm to School and Extension offices working to inform people the benefits of gardening and teach the skills needed.

Community and Urban Gardens are popping up in cities everywhere. And, SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan, participants can purchase seeds or plants from any SNAP retailer or Farmers Market. This is awesome because the participants can use the seeds to grow food that they normally couldn’t purchase… in large quantities, too!

Still not convinced a backyard garden is worth it? Tune is next weekend and we will talk about your health.

Oh, Deer.

June 26, 2013 by theblogbloom.com 10 Comments

Written June 17, 2013.

So, remember how I wrote about the huge, beautiful heads of lettuce just a few days ago? Remember that photo of all the green heads of romaine?

Here’s are a photo to remind you:

Yeah, it now looks like this:

Not Pretty.

They were attacked by a deer overnight. They ate the Caesar Lettuce Heads, the Romaine Lettuce Heads, Strawberries and even my cute, yellow squash.

I was so upset. So, I started asking our family and friends how to combat this animal.

Adam joked that he could shoot it, but he didn’t want to make that news for poaching deer. Yeah, that wouldn’t be good. No thanks.

One of his friends joked we could “accidently” hit it with a car. I have done that before on an icy road, without a doubt by accident. It’s scary and expensive. No thanks.

I didn’t want to hurt this deer; I just wanted him to get out of my garden.

A neighbor, after a couple of beers, suggested using pinwheels. Pinwheels?! That seemed a little far-fetched and possibly alcohol infused (…?), but I guess at this point it wouldn’t hurt to try.

The next day, my sister-in-laws and I were relaxing at Adam’s parent’s home for Father’s Day. She was reading a home magazine that happened to have tips in keeping deer away from gardens.

The first tip was to construct a fence at least 10 feet high. This one made me laugh. Um, no.

The next was to use human hair. This one made me gag. Um, no.

The next was to get stakes and tie on plastic ribbon on it. The ribbon blows in the wind creating noise. This one got me thinking. Maybe creating sound like a pinwheel?

The next idea was to use repellent sprays. I was kind of wary about sprays as I wanted to try to keep this garden as natural as possible. Aimee, Adam’s oldest sister worked at a nursery in high school, said that they used to spray a repellent to keep deer away. She said it stunk, but it worked. The repellent wasn’t sprayed right onto the plants, just around the border.

So, today I hit the stores. I could not find pinwheels anywhere. I was shocked. I figured with the Fourth of July just around the corner I would be able to find at least some patriotic pinwheels. (I knew they might have looked silly. But if it worked, I was fine with the silliness.)

In defeat, I went to a garden supply store to look at the repellents.

There I found Liquid Fence, an eco-friendly spray that would not harm animals. The ingredients listed mainly eggs and garlic, just like some of the sprays listed in the magazine. This scent is unattractive to deer and rabbits, keeping them away from gardens and landscaping.

I figured at this point it was worth a shot. I purchased the bottle and sprayed it around the perimeter of the garden. I did get a whiff of the spray at one point, and PHEW! It did stink.

But, so far, it works!

(I still plan to stock up on pinwheels if I ever see them.) 🙂

“Lettuce” Eat Well.

June 26, 2013 by theblogbloom.com Leave a Comment

Written June 12, 2013

When I returned home from Virginia I found that I had a totally different garden. Thanks to the care of my lovely husband, the plants were so much bigger, fuller, and flowering to show that produce was coming.

Adam tending our growing, green garden.

Peas were climbing.

The cabbage was huge and full of color.

The carrots and green onions finally looked like they were doing well.

The tomatoes were so full and looked strong in their cages.

Zucchini’s were budding and I even had a cute, little squash growing!

Yayyy!

Even the chicks had grown up! No longer little, fluffy adolescents, but now resembling real chickens. Their feet were so different; they were huge!

But the biggest change had been in the lettuce. It was big, beautifully green, and ready to harvest.

Trio of Greens!

That night we opted for some fresh romaine on the side of dinner. I snipped one of the largest heads of lettuce close to the base but not directly on the ground. Cut here, the lettuce will continue to grow so that we can use romaine from this head again. To cut the lettuce, I actually used shears that I received at a flower arranging class at West Elm. (Tons of fun and really informative! I can keep fresh flowers in my house going for nearly two weeks now. Check out your store. They typically do events once a month or so.)

Once I had enough for Adam and me, I headed inside. There I rinsed each head very well in the sink, tore the leaves into bite sized pieces and tossed them into the salad spinner.

I placed a couple handfuls of the romaine in bowls and topped it with a chopped tomato, a little crumbled feta, and a splash of balsamic dressing.

It was the perfect complement to our steaks.

As we took our first bites of the homegrown lettuce, Adam exclaimed, “It taste like lettuce!” I laughed. Umm, yeah? “I just was nervous. We have never done this.”

True.

But, not only did it “taste like lettuce,” it had a fabulous flavor. And knowing that it came straight out of our yard and had never been in contact with any chemicals or processing made it even better.

So, what’s in our Garden?

June 24, 2013 by theblogbloom.com 1 Comment

Written May 28, 2013.

Strawberries– Adam’s favorite. They probably won’t be that great until next year as they are a spring plant. However, the deer beg to differ. They seem to like the big strawberry leaves coming out of the ground. We are lucky there have not been more casualties with the other plants around the strawberry bed thanks to their hoofs and appetites. And, the deer are very lucky that it is not deer season, or else they would be seeing more casualties on their end thanks to my shot gun bearing, camouflage wearing husband.

Please note the deer tracks.

Spinach– We could eat spinach every night. We were able to transplant eight spinach plants that we started from seeds. We bought eight more from the store that had been started and transplanted them into the ground.

Caesar, Iceberg and other Lettuces

Cabbage and red cabbage– These plants are doing so well. They were one of the first plants we transplanted into the ground.

Broccoli– Another hardy plant that is thriving.

Zucchini and Squash– Since transplanting these plants have never looked 100%. Their leaves have gone from green to yellow and back to green again. I really hope these plants take off because I love zucchini and squash on the grill. Adam’s also a huge fan of chocolate zucchini cake. Yes, I am that sneaky wife who hides veggies in dessert. Just wait ‘til we have kids.

Peas and green beans– We tried to grow green beans a couple years ago and maybe got one serving out of our plants because it was so dry. Hoping for some better luck- and weather- this year.

Carrots– We planted these straight into the ground and have not seen anything happen since. I really hope there is some magic going on under ground…

Green onions– These were planted right into the ground and look great. I am so happy because this is the best addition to any stir-fry or Mexican dish.

Cucumbers and pickle cucumbers– This is my favorite vegetable. I cannot wait to see how they do. So far, it’s not bad, but that deer has made some close calls with his feet.

Peppers– Currently, we only have sweet and poblanos. Great, yes. But, I need jalapenos. For salsa, chili, appetizers, etc. etc! When I purchased the large amount of seeds at the home and garden store back in early April on packet was sucked under the conveyer belt. At that point, I probably had fifty seed packets so I wasn’t even going to try to begin to figure out which one was missing. But, it was my beloved jalapenos.

Tomatoes– The definition of summer in my book. We have roma’s, cherry, better boys, and best boys. I love a good, August tomato. With all these tomato plants we hope to give canning a good try. (… Things I have never done before. I am already a little nervous.)

Herbs:

All the herbs are in their own planters as herbs have a way of taking over if they are not contained.
We have basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, cilantro, and rosemary.

Potting soil really brings out the color in my mani.

I am sad because the rosemary is not growing like I wish I would. Rosemary is one of my favorite herbs. It is great for chicken, vegetables like carrots or asparagus, and even makes good kabob skewers for some extra favor.

I planted a tomato plant with the basil because I read that, if planted together, they help fight off bugs. So, it’s an experiment.

The parsley and cilantro did great in the starter kits, but I must have sent them into a little shock when they were transplanted into larger planters. The cilantro started to turn a little pinkish purple, which I read was a sign of stress. I am hoping they get used to their new homes. I would think they would have loved the extra root-room. But, as always, you learn something new every day.

My stressed out cilantro. Any one else have ideas on why it’s turning red?

Oh, and I can’t forget our chickens! We have twelve birds that made the move to their beautiful coop that Adam built in late May. The coop is about eight feet by eight feet with a little door so the chickens can roam in about a thirty foot long fenced in area. We still are not 100% sure how many egg layers we will have as they won’t lay eggs until October or November. At this point we are pretty sure we have about four boys. They are getting little crown combs on the top of their heads. And definitely have a stronger, more seeming to be testosterone fueled demeanor.

It’s a boy…?

I never thought I would say this, but we LOVE the chickens. They are a lot of fun to watch and have been pretty simple to take care of.

Adam could watch the birds for hours.

In fact, we love everything about this garden. We were afraid when planning it that we might be getting in over our heads. But, so far (knock on wood), it’s been enjoyable work and it’s really neat to see things change every day. Most nights, Adam and I catch up over a beer or a glass of wine as we walk through the garden. Sure beats sitting in front of the TV!