Arcadia Farms

The more I learn about sustainable living, the more convinced I become that everyone can grow fresh food at home. Not everyone can have the same 1,500 square feet of garden space that we have here at Arcadia Farms, but even renters and apartment dwellers can grow a significant amount of food in a container garden. Container gardening is also a great place for reluctant homeowners to start. If you’re convinced that growing some of your own food would be beneficial but are hesitant to rent a rototiller and start digging up your backyard, consider starting with a container garden. Today I want to share some tips with you on how to make your container garden a successful one.

For the most part, growing veggies in containers is the same as growing them directly in the ground or a raised bed. One obvious difference is that you have less soil to work with. With less soil, you’ll need to pay close attention to your plants nutritional needs (small space means soil nutrients can be used up more readily). You’ll also need to keep a close eye on moisture (it’s easy to over or underwater a container garden). Let’s talk about those two factors – and a few other things you should keep in mind.

1. Give Your Plants Nutrients

To make sure your plants get the nutrients they need, I recommend starting with good quality compost. Because the soil in your container is more likely to become compacted over time, mixing in some vermiculite would also be preferable. There are also many ready-mixed organic garden soils that provide a good supply of nutrients while still being lightweight.

After your plants are established (are showing their true leaves), you’ll want to give them with a natural fertilizer. Good choices are fish emulsion (diluted in water per the bottle’s directions) or an organic soil amendment (such as Jobes organic tomato and vegetable fertilizer.) Fertilize every 1 to 2 weeks after your plants begin to show their true leaves. Here’s another idea for fertilizing your container: A whole, in-shell, raw egg. Warning: I’ve never actually tried this myself, rather, I found the idea on Pinterest. The idea is that the egg will decompose slowly and add nutrients to the soil as it does.

If you intend to use the same containers over and over again, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to soil fertility. First, you should add new organic matter every year. Fall is a good time to do this so that the materials have time to breakdown over the winter. You can accomplish this by adding grass clippings, shredded leaves, table scraps, store-bought or homemade compost. The second thing to keep in mind has to do with crop rotation. Just like an in-ground garden, plants of the same family ‘eat’ certain nutrients in the soil. If you continue to plant the same type of plant in the same container, over time the nutrients necessary for the healthy growth of that plant will be depleted. To avoid this issue, rotate similarly sized containers through various crops of different plant families. If your season and container are conducive to this, consider sowing some manner of nitrogen-fixing crop after your summer veggies are spent. This cover crop will keep weeds from inhabiting your container over the cooler months and will also add nitrogen to the soil. For a list of nitrogen-fixing cover crops, click here. In general, any legume will do the trick, such as peas and beans.

You can also add nutrients to your container by adding a layer of woody debris – such as broken branches, twigs or even small logs – to the bottom of your container. As the wood breaks down it adds nutrients to the soil, among other benefits.

2. Manage Moisture

{Image Credit}
www.amazon.com

Another benefit of adding woody debris to your container is that it helps to retain moisture. As wood breaks down it acts like a sponge, attracting water and then releasing it slowly into the surrounding soil as needed. This is the primary function of wood in hugelkultur – a system where raised bed gardens are built over piles of well-rotted (spongy) wood to help retain moisture and reduce (or eliminate) the need for irrigation. You can put this hugelkultur benefit to work for you on a container-sized scale. I even read that one blogger found better success with logs placed vertically than horizontally, essentially because the grain of the log acted like a straw for moisture to move up and down. (As soon as I can re-find his post I will link to it here!).  Keep the following tips in mind when selecting wood for your container:

• Avoid wood so large that will interfere with the growth of root crops (i.e. carrots)
• Avoid treated lumber
• Avoid wood from plants that contain natural herbicides, such as black walnut
• The more rotten the wood, the better
• Fresh wood that contains a significant amount of tannin (i.e. pine) should be avoided until the wood is older (6 months old at earliest, just my opinion)

Don’t feel like you need to use a giant log in your 12” pot – just a handful of fallen sticks from the yard will help! These sticks will also help provide some air pockets for drainage at the bottom of the container which is of critical importance in container planting. (You don’t want to drown the roots of your plant – they need air too!)

Because containers can dry out easily, try mulching the top to keep the soil cool and water from evaporating. If your container is large enough, you may consider using an olla to reduce the amount of time you spend on watering.

And lastly, because moisture management is so important in container gardening, you’ll want to invest in a moisture meter. For $5-$10 you can find something like this (image above) which takes the guesswork out of whether or not to water – just stick the probes into the soil and you’ll find out how much moisture is already present.

3. Choose the Right Container (Size, Shape & Materials)

When it comes to container gardening, bigger is generally better. That’s because you have more moisture-retaining, nutrient-rich soil to work with. But that doesn’t mean a small container can’t be just as successful! In Mel Brook’s Square Foot Gardening method, nearly everything can be grown in soil that is just 6” deep.  (Root crops will need a minimum of 12”.) The necessary width of your container will depend on what you’re growing – tomato plants do best with at least 2 square feet of space while one head of lettuce requires only 12.5% of a single square foot. Use these plant spacing rules as a guideline for container planting.

Tall or vining crops (such as cucumbers and tomatoes) will need a trellis. Does your container have enough space to hold both your plant and your trellis? Or will you use an external trellis near the container such as a fence or a porch railing? Here are some ideas for container-gardening trellises. Click on the image for more info and image sources.

Also consider the material makeup of your container. You’ll want to avoid containers from treated materials, ones that may leach chemicals into your soil or that previously held harmful chemicals/materials.

4. Location, Location, Location

This isn’t real estate, but location is still pretty darn important! The closer your containers are to the house, the less likely you’ll be to neglect them. Plus if you have easy access to your cherry tomatoes and snap beans, you (and your family) will be more likely to grab a few for a snack or dinner than if you have to wander far from the back door.

When choosing a location for your container garden, sunlight is another huge consideration. In general, you’re looking for a location with as much sun as possible. However some plants benefit from a little shade. To determine the best location for each crop, check out the info on the back of the seed packet. Once you’ve identified your shade-loving plants and your sun-loving plants, you can devise a plan for each group. You may even be able to use your large sun-loving plants to provide shade to your shade-loving plants. Shade-lovers staged on the east side of sun-lovers will get plenty of morning sun but will be shielded from harsher afternoon rays.

And when you place your containers, keep pests in mind! Do you have deer nearby? You may want to keep your containers in a fenced area. Is the sunniest spot in the yard also in the path of your pets and kids – you’ll need a plan to keep them from being toppled over. Another way to keep bunnies and other critters away from your veggies is to interplant smelly things to deter them – chives, garlic, marigolds and rosemary are good options.

Inspiration

As you ponder how to incorporate these tips into your own container garden, click here to take a peep at some of these neato ideas for inspiration.

I’m working right now on a custom container gardening plan for growing lots of things like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, potatoes and herbs. I hope to share that with you soon!

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally.  

Chicken Week ended many days ago. All the same, there’s one mildly important feature in our chicken raising plans that I have yet to share with you: Our chicken coop. Why the delay? Well… in short, the coop wasn’t done when I expected it to be. It was scheduled to be completed at the beginning of Chicken Week… and then at the end of Chicken Week… and then… well, the coop was ready early the following week.

That’s how life goes when you approach projects with a do-it-yourself perspective. Our DIY chicken coop was created by Ryan and Papa over the course of about three weeks. (Ryan spent nearly every free moment he had on putting this puppy together). I owe them a huge thanks! Mostly today’s post is a tour of the coop. If you have technical questions, please leave them in the comments below and I’ll be happy to get back to you with the answer.

The Materials

The structure of our coop is made entirely of re-used or re-purposed materials. Most of the framing came from a large, old dog house that I mentioned way back in this post. The remainder came from scrap wood that Papa had in his barn (which is where the coop was built). The metal used for the siding and roof were leftovers from when the barn was built. The area under the peak of the roof was put together using wood from our old kitchen cabinets (we remodeled the kitchen this year). Paint for the doors and trim came from a gallon of outdoor paint I purchased last year for the house (it matches our trim and shutters). The only new materials on the coop are the hardware – hinges, clasps and carabiners to keep racoons out. The coop is currently resting on landscape timbers but will eventually sit on cinder blocks.

The Design

The coop is 4? x 6? in order to provide the recommended 4 square feet of space per bird. Windows on two sides (lined with welded wire secured from the inside) provides for ventilation. Eventually we will also add ventilation at the gable ends. And at some point in the future the windows will receive working shutters to close out drafts on cold nights.

There are doors on three sides of the coop designed to work with the paddock system we have planned. Having a door on all sides of the coop means that no matter which paddock the chickens are using that week, we can leave one door open during daylight hours for easy in-and-out access at the chickens leisure. The fourth “door” is at the back of the coop; the entire bottom half of the back wall opens on hinges. This not only will allow the hens access to the back paddock but will also enable us to more easily clean out the coop when the time comes. Because we’re using the deep liter method for the bedding, clean outs should be infrequent (somewhere between every 2-6 months). It cost about $11 to (deeply) fill the coop and nesting boxes with pine shavings from Tractor Supply Company.

Speaking of deep liter, the floor of the coop is lined with vinyl flooring to make clean up easier. It’s high quality vinyl too – a remnant from my in-law’s kitchen flooring! (Thanks again!!!)

On the east side of the coop there are two nesting boxes. (You should have one nesting box for every four laying hens; two boxes will be just right for our six girls.) The roof of each box lifts up on hinges for easy access to eggs without having to crawl into the coop. These also close with a latch and carabiner to keep pesky but nimble racoons out.  Nesting boxes are topped with the same metal used for the roof. A metal roof allows us to collect rain water from the coop without worrying about dangerous chemicals from commercial shingles leaching into the water. Our intent is to use the water for the chickens but more design thought and work is needed to make a healthy, sustainable system.

Inside the coop hens are able to roost on the trusses of the roof structure. There are a few areas that need weatherproofing with a wee bit of caulk. But even with that in mind, it is a very comfortable structure for our hens to call home.

What do you think? Any thoughts on how we could make the coop even better? Any innovations you’ve used for your chickens that you think we should consider? As always, I’m 100% open to any ideas you’d like to send our way!

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally.  

Ever since I learned about dibbles, I’ve been wanting to make one of my own. A dibble is  a tool used to space seeds or seedlings in your garden by poking holes at exact measurements. Exact measurement comes in handy when it comes to Square Foot Gardening (SFG) because the main point of this intensive-planting method is to squeeze as many plants into 1 square foot (SQF) section as you can without hampering the plants’ ability to flourish. (For more on Square Foot Gardening, click here.)

Until recently, all of the dibbles I had discovered were board with pegs (to poke holes in the soil) managed with one central handle or two handles on the edges. I still think these are handy tools, but frankly, I don’t have the skill-set to make one. (However, if you know anything about woodworking at all, making your own dibble would probably be a breeze for you. Click here for a tutorial.) In addition to not being very confident with a saw, I’m also operating my micro-farm on a micro-budget. Simple as a wooden dibble may be, it still requires purchasing materials and I’d rather save that money for other items. Plus, to be most useful for my purposes, I would need four dibbles, each for the following SFG patterns:

• 4 seeds per SQF
• 8 seeds per SQF
• 9 seeds per SQF
• 16 seeds per SQF

Four boards. Lots of materials. Lots of time. I’ll pass.

And pass I have… for a long time… until I saw something that looked like this:

Aha! Thanks to a post from a friend on Facebook (Clementine’s Homestead), I finally met my dibble match! This dibble is made from cardboard, which is cheap, easy to work with and readily available to pretty much anyone. Sure, it’s not as pretty as the wooden variety. And frankly, it’s also a smidge less efficient because you have to poke each hole rather than pushing the dibble down once, but, it still serves the same purpose of evenly distributing your seeds. If you have the skill-set, time and materials, you could make this same dibble with a wooden board (or a sheet of metal for that matter).

Wouldn’t you like to make one of these dibbles for your own garden? I thought you might… And that’s why I created these! Here are five dibble templates you can print at home to create your own dibbles in a matter of minutes. (That’s right, I did all of the measuring for you… feel free to leave a tip at the door as you leave.) Because they are 12? long, you’ll need to print on Legal Size (8.5? x 14?) paper. I created the templates in two sections (A & B) so that they are more easily printed from a home computer (which can sometimes only accommodate paper that is 8.5? wide).

To download our free dibble templates, click here.

A few posts ago I shared that one of the biggest challenges I face personally as a market-gardener is being disciplined to start seeds when I’m scheduled to start them. Life is full of distractions and shifting priorities which means that more than once I’ve gone to bed thinking “Crap! I was supposed to start seeds today!” Now that I’m trying to plant by the phases of the moon, the pressure has escalated.

So you can imagine the giant eye roll I gave to myself when I realized Thursday that I was supposed to start a ton of seeds on Wednesday. It looked a lot like this…

Add to that the fact that I was also supposed to start a ton of seeds on Thursday and you’ll understand why I spent a big chunk of the day folding newspaper pots and stayed up till nearly midnight planting seeds. (But I got done before midnight… technically still Thursday – YES!!)

While I was planting cherry tomatoes (Black Cherries and Tommy Toes), slicing tomatoes (Moneymaker), sweet basil, Golden zucchini, Fordhook zucchini, zinnias, Charleston Gray watermelon, and California Wonder peppers, I wanted something to listen to other than the pitter patter of rain. So I decided to catch up on something else I missed because my life got distracting: A webinar from Seed Savers Exchange on how to setup your garden for seed saving.

This webinar was a great way to multitask and make late-night seed-sowing that much more enjoyable. The information is very complete but straightforward and easy enough for a beginner (i.e., me) to understand. Please don’t think even for a moment that I am an expert on seeding saving, however, I thought I’d take the time to create a very simplified summary of the information provided in the webinar. If you don’t have time to watch the video, I promise these tips will help you… but you should make time to watch the video as well.

Basic Tips for a Seed-Saving Garden

• You should learn the basics of pollination and specifically how the plants you’re growing are pollinated.
  • Some plants are self-pollinators with ‘perfect’ flowers (both male and female parts in the same flower). Examples include legumes (peas, beans) and tomatoes.
  • Some plants are out-crosses with both male and female flowers on the same plant such as squash plants.
  • Some plants are out-crosses where one plant is male and the other is female. Spinach falls into this category.
• Know your plant’s genus and species because any plants in the same species can cross-pollinate. Cross pollination means that the fruit that comes from the seed you harvest won’t be true to its parent.
• Keep in mind that just because plants are the same crop doesn’t mean that they are all of the same species. For example, there are four different species of squash. If you grow one plant from each of the four species, you won’t have to worry about cross-pollination. (For more detailed info on cross-pollination between squash species – and the teeny exception to the rule I just mentioned – click here.)
• Know the weeds in your area because they may be of the same genus and species as the plants in your garden. For example, Queen Anne’s Lace is the same species as carrots. If this ‘weed’ cross-pollinates with your carrots, the carrots which come from your harvested seeds will turn out… weedy.
• Preventing cross-pollination requires the use of isolation methods.
  • Complete Isolation: Grow only one variety of a crop (i.e., only one kind of tomato).
  • Isolation by Distance: Click here for information to help you determine how much distance you need to give you a better chance of avoiding cross-pollination.
  • Isolation by Timing: Plant varieties that will shed pollen at different times or strategically plant them to shed pollen at different times (i.e., planted a few weeks apart).
  • Isolation by Barrier: This involves use of tents and row covers. If you have two varieties of a certain species, you only need to use a barrier with one of them.
  • Hand Pollination: You can hand pollinate selected flowers and gather those fruits specifically for harvesting seeds. For more details on hand pollination, click here.
• To fully represent your plant/fruit population, you’ll want to gather seeds from several plants and fruits. In general, the more inbred your seeds are (typically from self-pollinators) the smaller the population can be (because they are already used to limited diversity.) Out-crossing pollinators will need a larger population size.
• To better control cross-pollination, you’ll want to know how your plants are pollinated. Do you have lots of bees and butterflies? Lots of wind? What are the other pollination sources in your area (i.e. neighboring gardens and weeds)? Know the plants you want to save seeds from – how far can its pollen travel?
  

Planning Your Garden for Seed Saving

Saving Seeds at Arcadia Farms {2013}

So as I was stuffing compost into newspaper pots I got to thinking – which plants should I select to save seeds from this year? Since this will be my first year (properly) saving seed, I decided to start with some of the easy self-pollinators. Fortunately I laid out the garden to provide some isolation between crops of the same species but different variety so the isolation by distance should help me out. I have lots of pollinators (especially bees) in my garden so, knowing that pollen could travel to my plants from neighboring gardens, I think starting with these self-pollinators (which typically have fully enclosed reproductive parts) is a good place to start. I’ll keep you posted on the nuts and bolts of actually harvesting and storing the seeds. Meanwhile, if you’re a visual person, here’s a map of our garden layout so you can see the distances between each variety. With all of these factors in mind, I’ve decided to keep seeds from the following plants:

• White Tomesol Tomatoes
• Black Cherry Tomatoes
• Roma Tomatoes
• Dragon Tongue Bush Beans
• Sugar Ann Sugar Snap Peas
• Rat’s Tail Radishes
• Charleston Gray Watermelon
• Table King Acorn Squash
• Sugar Pie Pumpkins
• Quinoa (mostly for eating, though!)

Since my watermelons (Citrullus lanatu) are a different species than my acorn squash (Cucurbita pepo) the fact that they live next door to each other shouldn’t be an issue for cross-pollination. Likewise, all of the tomato plants in the main garden will be far enough apart to minimize my concerns for cross-pollination. Unfortunately the tomatoes I’m planting in the Fenceline Garden (Moneymaker slicing tomatoes and Tommy Toe cherry tomatoes) will be close enough that I’m not going to take my chances with saving their seeds this year. Next year I’ll rotate those varieties into the main garden so that I can save some seeds.

Do you save seeds from your garden? Any tips? Do you use any of the isolation methods discussed above and in the video? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally. 

Wish List Wednesday | Gardening Gadgets for Kids

Welcome to another Wish List Wednesday! This week Owen will begin sowing seeds for his 4’ x 6’ raised garden, located next to his swing set in the backyard. Last summer I enjoyed watching him pick and share fresh cucumbers with his friends in the neighborhood (and they all enjoyed it too)! This year he’s growing sunflowers, dragon egg cucumbers and a watermelon plant. Since now is a great time for little ones to start getting involved in the garden and pre-garden work, I thought it would be fun to do a Wish List Wednesday featuring tools and gadgets for kids. To make the list, I consulted my resident expert on kid-friendly gardening. Here’s what he came up with.

Watering Cans

Fancy Pants Watering CanPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Lucky Elephant Watering CanPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Verdie Chameleon Kids Watering CanPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Kid-friendly Compost Bins

Children's Compost BinPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

DIY Kids Compost BinPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Garden Gloves

Kids Garden GlovesPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Harvest Baskets and Buckets

All-purpose bucket for the gardenPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Metal harvest basketPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Twigz Kids Garden BucketPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

A Garden Border Fence (To Keep Pets Out)

Garden Border FencePinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Garden Boots

Garden Boots for KidsPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Garden Boots for KidsPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Garden Boots for KidsPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Garden Tools

Morgan Cycle 6 pc. Junior Garden Tool Set - Kids Gardening Tools at HayneedlePinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Mini-Greenhouse

Mini GreenhousePinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Super simple mini greenhousesPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Mini Greenhouse from IKEAPinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Kid-Sized Wheelbarrow

A wheelbarrow for the wee ones.Pinned by Arcadia FarmsOnto In the Garden

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally.    

One of the things I’m enjoying most about this year’s growing season is the opportunity to help others with their home gardens. Last week I had a chance to chat with a friend and former college roommate – Sara Heilig, about the garden that she and her husband Nick would like to grow this year. The garden is driven by three major factors: The family’s veggie preferences, their space and of course Assistant Gardeners – Emma and Hailey.

The Space

The Heiligs currently have an 8’ x 8’ raised garden bed in place. The bed is surrounded on two sides (North and West) with a 4’ high chain link fence and on the other sides with a custom-built gate. The sides of the bed are made of three landscape timbers stacked on top of each other. Also the bed was filled with commercially mixed garden soil about five years ago and has clay earth beneath it.

In addition to this 8’ x 8’ bed, the Heiligs are also planning to build a 4’ x 6’ cedar raised bed inspired by a picture Sara saw here.

Both beds get (or will get) excellent sun. While bunnies are a concern, there are no other potential critter problems (such as deer, raccoons or pets). Also, the 8’ x 8’ bed has a path of stepping stones running through it to allow Sara to harvest the hard-to-reach sections of the garden without compacting soil as she steps into the space. I don’t know exactly where those stones are, so please keep in mind that the plantings for this garden will need to be adjusted slightly to accommodate those stepping stones.

Because they have two distinct garden spaces, this seasonal family garden plan calls for planting each space for a different season. The larger garden will be planted now for spring and early summer veggies. The smaller garden will hold summer veggies. Meanwhile, since the early veggies will be gone by midsummer, the large garden will be replanted for a fall harvest. We’ll talk about this more in a minute, but crop rotation and well-planned companion planting are key to this second round of veggies.

Veggie Preferences

The Heiligs (especially the little ones) love snap peas and beans. This plan provides them with a whole heapin’ mess of beans and peas! They’re also fans of zucchini and would like to try summer squash. Sara is interested in canning or freezing tomato sauce this year so the plan also calls for some roma tomato plants. (Her father is a tomato connoisseur with tons of plants each year so there’s no need to plant slicing tomatoes.) Here are the other plants they’d like to grow:

• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Sweet Peppers
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Summer Squash

I also threw pie pumpkins and cabbage into the mix as recommendations.

Spring Garden (8’ x 8’)

The Spring garden (8’ x 8’ bed) features sugar snap peas (Sugar Ann) growing along the North and West side of the garden. Since peas grow on vines, they can be trained up the fence and no additional trellis is needed. Because the climbing peas are to the north and west, they shouldn’t block much sunlight. All the same, I designed the garden so that the sun-loving veggies are to the south (carrots, broccoli) and the veggies that can handle (and sometimes welcome) a little shade are planted to the north (spinach and lettuce). The wee bit of additional shade from the peas may even help the lettuce and spinach to last longer into the season before they bolt (grow a flower and become bitter tasting). The carrots are furthest south in this scheme because they are the shortest and that way their sun won’t be blocked by the taller broccoli plants.

Fortunately all of these cool-weather veggies play nicely together so companion planting is not a large concern. (There are no “bad” combinations to look out for.) Here are the varieties I selected for this garden:

• Sugar Ann Snap Peas. This is a common garden pea that matures early.
• Tom Thumb Lettuce. I just loved the idea of little girls being able to pick cute little lettuce heads from their own garden.
• Rouge d’Hiver Lettuce. I was initially drawn to Rouge d’Hiver lettuce because of striking purple-red color, but reviews indicate that this variety is also very low maintenance and tolerant of a wide array of growing conditions.
• Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach. This is a common variety of spinach that resists bolting and has a great taste.
• Berlicum 2 Carrots. Just a good old fashioned orange carrot!
• Calabrese Green Sprouting Broccoli. The majority of the broccoli is this Italian heirloom variety because reviews indicate that it is easier to grow than other varieties and produces earlier.
• Waltham 29 Broccoli. This is the most common home-garden broccoli variety. Reviews indicated that this one grows well too.

     

All of the veggies I’ve talked about so far have high yields per square foot. The exception is Broccoli on the other hand has low yields per square foot (only one plant). Because of that, and because this family loves it, I devoted the bulk of the garden to broccoli.

This plan calls for a lot of greens. If you wanted to add some variety, good choices would be beets (the baby greens are delicious!) arugula and chard.

Summer Garden (4’ x 6’)

The summer garden is smaller and contains all heat-loving veggies. For the most part these guys play well together with one exception: Beans. Tomatoes and peppers don’t like beans so I designed the garden to keep them as far apart as possible. The end result was that I wasn’t able to plant very many beans (which, remember, the girls love) but don’t worry – we’ll make up for that in the Fall Garden.

Because there is no trellis here, the beans are bush beans. Using bush beans also helps to avoid a shade issue since these are all sun-loving plants. The tomatoes, however, will need some manner of trellis. Here are the varieties for the summer garden:

• Golden Wax Beans. These are also a common garden vegetable with a creamy yellow flesh and a sweet taste.
• Dragon Tongue Beans. I will grow these for the rest of my life. I love the flavor and they are so beautiful! For a family that loves fresh snap beans, this one is sure to be a winner.
• Roma Tomatoes. These tomatoes are also known as paste tomatoes because they are great for sauces. We also like them for fresh eating.
• Black Beauty Zucchini. A classic home garden zucchini plant. It’s a bush variety so no trellis is needed.
• Crookneck Early Golden Summer Squash. Also a classic. Matures at the same time as the zucchini.

    

If the Heiligs are feeling adventurous, they could try substituting Golden Zucchini for the traditional green variety.

Fall Garden (8’ x 8’)

June doesn’t seem like the time to be thinking about fall. After all , the summer is just getting started! But by the middle to end of June, the sugar snap peas will be in decline and other veggies like lettuce and spinach will be on their way out too, depending on weather conditions. What a shame it would be to leave this 8’ x 8’ space laying fallow when there is still so much fair weather left to the year. Here’s the plan for making good use of that space to continue the harvest well into Fall!

Peas are legumes, and legumes are nitrogen fixers. That means they add nitrogen to the soil. We’re going to take advantage of that by planting a second crop of “heavy feeders” in the place where the peas used to be. (Heavy feeders are crops which “eat” large amounts of nutrients from the soil.) On the West side of the garden, we’ll plant cabbage. Cabbage might not sound like the most appetizing of garden vegetables, but trust me, you will LOVE the taste of homemade coleslaw from home-grown cabbage! Along the north we’re going to plant two cherry tomato plants and another zucchini plant. (The family loves zucchini and unfortunately I wasn’t able to squeeze as much into the Summer Garden as I wanted to.) There’s also an option to plant pie pumpkins or winter squash (such as acorn squash) here… or another zucchini plant. The nice thing about planting these on the North fence is that the climbers (tomatoes, pumpkins) have a built-in trellis and all of the shade issues I mentioned above apply again. Keep in mind that any large fruit (bigger than cantaloupes) will need slings to keep them from slipping the vines.

The placement of the cabbage and tomatoes is important. These guys don’t like each other, so we need to keep them as far apart as possible. Another tricky thing about this garden is that tomatoes also don’t like beans so we need to give them some distance.

However, remember that whole thing about “heavy feeders”? The broccoli that was in this garden in the Spring has “eaten” a lot of nutrients from the middle of the garden. A great way to replace those nutrients naturally is to plant legumes – like beans! Sweet, delicious, snap, bush beans. And tons of them! To keep the beans and tomatoes happy, I’ve placed two rows of carrots between them. With lettuce and spinach to the south of the garden, essentially now we’ve swapped the “root vegetable section” with the “leaf vegetable section.” That’s important because you should never succession plant (plant a second time in the same soil) crops from the same family (because they “eat” the same nutrients).

The varieties in the Fall Garden are the same as the Spring and Summer with a couple of additions:

• Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage. Beautiful and delicious. What more could you ask for?
• Tommy Toe Cherry Tomatoes. I grew these last year – they were my best tomatoes!
• Tendergreen Bush Bean. These beans are supposed to be excellent for preserving – both canning and freezing. If the girls don’t eat them all before frost comes, there will be plenty to save for the winter.

If garden success through the year brings on a desire to try some more “exotic” crops, here are some suggestions for alternatives:

• Trade carrots for parsnips
• Trade some carrots for turnips. Just a few – turnips have a very distinct, almost spicy flavor. The greens are also edible and I like them sautéed.
• Trade some greens for kale or swiss chard.
• Swap a cabbage or two for cauliflower.

Note: Many of the selections I made for this garden came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. You can find the same or similar varieties from other companies like Hart’s, Seed Savers Exchange, Sustainable Seed Company, Victory Seeds or Annie’s Heirloom Seeds.

Challenges

The Heiligs’  garden has some other challenges to address. In the last few years, Sara’s gardens have produced wilty vegetables – or some things have not produced at all. After talking with her about the garden, it sounds like the space is just in need of a nutrient boost since the soil has never been amended in the last five years. Adding a layer (4” thick) of a combination of quality plant-based compost mixed with manure-based compost should do wonders. If necessary, a natural fertilizer like fish emulsion would help during the season. You can find other natural, organic fertilizers (as well as compost) at major home stores like Menards and Home Depot. Follow the directions on the packaging for success.

The garden also has a current, perennial occupant: Strawberries. Sara would like to keep the strawberries, however, they have only produced tiny, colorless berries the last couple of years and clearly need a boost. Once we give the strawberries a boost, they are aggressive enough that they may take over the whole garden! To combat both issues, this plan involves transplanting the berries into containers full of rich, organic soil (same compost mix as the main gardens). For more tips on successful container planting for strawberries, click here.

Another challenge is how to kill some resident grass that just won’t go away. A safe, natural, effective way to kill wayward grass in (or around) the garden is (drum roll) vinegar! The acetic acid in vinegar – especially as it interacts with sunlight – is able to destroy plants without unnatural chemicals. Because vinegar used for household purposes has a relatively low amount of acetic acid, boiling the vinegar in advance may help to concentrate the acid. Some people also say that you can use boiling water to kills weeds (I tried it and didn’t have success) so perhaps boiled vinegar has double the power? Either way, I recommend that Sara apply the vinegar before planting veggies as the vinegar will be just as harmful to desirable plants as it is to weeds and grass. It’s also recommended that the vinegar be applied on a sunny day.

And lastly, we need to talk about a garden pest: Cabbage worms. These guys stink. I ended up picking them off my broccoli by hand last year and it was a stinky way to spend my time. I found that they were also fans of non-cabbage-family things like leafy lettuce. This year I’m going to try placing nylons over my cabbage heads as a physical barrier to keeping the cabbage worms (and white moths that lay the eggs initially) off my cabbage. For more thoughts on keeping cabbage worms at bay, click here.

To download the complete Seasonal Family Garden plan (including info on varieties selected and where to buy them) click here.

The moral of today’s post is that a major component of suburban/urban chicken keeping involves being a good neighbor… sweater or otherwise.

Let’s face it – not everyone thinks keeping chickens is a super idea, regardless of how many benefits there are to be had. Your neighbors might be some of those people. Whether your neighbors are obstinate, hesitant or exuberant about your flock, here are some considerate things you can do to keep their interests in mind without hampering your own.

Fencing

People like their privacy. In general, people also like control. When it comes to their own property, they have a right to control its use and appearance. While your neighbors don’t have a right to control the use and appearance of your property, good neighbors keep their neighbors interests in mind. Considering all of this, fencing is an important feature in a suburban homestead that includes chickens. Fences serve three purposes. First, they keep your chickens contained on your property or a portion thereof. Second, they help to keep predators away from your chickens. And third, they help to control views into and out of your property. Let’s talk briefly about each purpose.

Keeping Chickens In

Many ordinances require that suburban/urban chickens be contained by either completely enclosed arrangements (chicken run) or four foot high fencing. Besides being a matter of law, this is also a good idea. Keeping your chickens contained gives you more control over their access to portions of your property and keeps them from invading the neighbor’s yard.

Keeping Predators Out

You and I aren’t the only ones who like a plump, juicy chicken breast. Predators ranging from your neighbors dog to area raccoons and many things in between would like to make lunch out of your birds. While a fence won’t keep them all out, it will keep some of them out and possibly deter others. For ideas on good predator-proof fences, click here.

Controlling Views

If your budget allows, a good way to ensure your neighbors won’t be offended by your homestead’s chickens is to install a beautiful (or maybe even standard) privacy fence around the whole of your property. This fence provides you with privacy but also keeps your avian-averse neighbors from seeing your chickens. This kind of fence (usually made of wood) can also serve to keep chickens in and predators out as we discussed above. However if your primary concern is controlling views, you can also plant a hedgerow (a living fence made of a line of shrubs or trees) that grows over time or grow vining flowers/fruits on fences. A hedgerow can provide benefits like nuts and berries (for you or the chickens!) depending on varieties you select. (even blueberry bushes can make a good hedge.) A hedgerow might also consist of tall ornamental grasses. Perennial vining plants may offer the benefit of beauty, attract pollinators like bees and/or provide other edibles like fruit and veggies. The benefit of using vining plants is that you can work with existing fences (especially chain link) for a nominal fee. In our garden, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans and nasturtiums climb the chain link fence to partially obscure views from the east. This year we’ll also plant perennial berries on the west fence specifically to provide a more pleasant view to our neighbors (the chicken coop is on that side of the yard). We’ll also be planting climbing nasturtium and beans on the south side of the chicken paddock and evergreen underbrush throughout (such as variegated japanese sedge). These plants serve multiple purposes: Food, shelter and aesthetics for both us and the neighbors.

Smells

Some people say chickens are smelly. While this may seem like an unnecessary observation for me to make, let me just say that chickens aren’t smelly: Their poop is. If you were stuck in one spot for a long time and your poop accumulated in one spot without being moved, people would think you were smelly too. (I’m just saying…)

All the same, chickens do make waste and depending on your management method, it can pile up. Here are some good-neighbor ways to address smells.

Avoiding Coop-and-Pen Chicken Raising

The first tactic I recommend is to stay away from a chicken keeping method that involves your birds being confined to one place forever. In the typical coop and run management method, chickens live and eat in the same place where they make waste… and it all piles up. That’s where the ammonia smells affiliated with chickens comes from. For ideas on other ways to raise your chickens, check out this post.

Frequent Cleaning

Unless your birds are truly free range (which seems unlikely and unwise in an urban setting) you’ll have a coop for them. You could opt to clean their coop frequently (once or twice a week) to reduce odors, especially if you can’t avoid the coop and run method. The problems here are 1) that’s a lot of work 2) it’s expensive to replace bedding that often 3) that’s a lot of work 4) the waste you clean out has to go somewhere 5) that’s a lot of work and 6) every time you clean the coop, all of that yuck is airborne. Also, it’s a lot of work.

Deep-Liter Method

To avoid having to continually clean your coop, try the deep liter method. Click here for a great article on how and why to use this method, but in a nutshell, you use a large amount of bedding and as the chickens scratch in it, the bedding and feces naturally compost and reduce pathogens. This method dramatically reduces odors and amounts to cleaning the coop much less often (between one and four times a year).

Fragrant Planting

If your birds have access to roam the yard (or an area of the yard) and you’re using the deep liter method, you’ve likely eliminated the bulk of any odors normally associated with chickens. If you want to take your quest for good neighborliness a step further, you could also add fragrant plantings to your landscape. According to the book Free-Range Chicken Gardens by Jessi Bloom, the following plants are both durable and fragrant: Daphne, honeysuckle, lavender, lilac, roses, sweet box, viburnum and witch hazel. Fragrant plantings are best placed near the chicken coop, near property lines or both places.

Noises

Even the most docile of chickens will make some noise. If your neighborhood is anything like mine, it won’t even compare to all of the barking dogs and squealing children. All the same, here are some things you can do to reduce the impact of chicken-noise on your neighbors.

No Roosters

I love sleep. I wouldn’t want to awoken at dawn by my own rooster and I can’t imagine how annoyed I’d be if that rooster belonged to my neighbor! Most backyard flocks exist for egg production – skip the rooster. You don’t need him. (Also many ordinances forbid roosters in urban/suburban settings).

Wind Chimes

Be careful. Depending on the sound of the chime, this could be just as or more annoying as hearing your chickens clucking. If you have a good relationship with your neighbors, ask them in advance what they think about wind chimes.

Bring on the Birds

Not chickens – song birds. Here’s a list of ways to attract songbirds to your property. But keep in mind – some of these birdies start singing in the morning just as early as a rooster!

A Water Feature

If you’ve always wanted a pond with a mini waterfall, here’s your excuse. A well-designed waster feature may muffle chicken noises.

Melodious Plantings

According to Free-Range Chicken Gardens, the following plants will create a rustling sound in the wind that may help to muffle chicken noises: Bamboo, love-in-a-mist, maiden grass, quaking aspen and quaking grass.

Other Considerations

We’re fortunate to have great neighbors whom we talk with frequently. If you also have great relationships with your neighbors, let them know that you’re getting/you have chickens. Talk with them about your plans to keep chickens in a way that is respectful of the views and smells and sounds coming from your property. If your plan will take time to implement (as portions of ours will) it’s also important to share that with your neighbors. At a minimum, they’ll appreciate knowing that you have their interests in mind.

Picking a chicken breed that is docile and quiet is also a good move for suburban chicken owners. Click here and here for resources to help you pick the right breed.

Also, the appearance of your coop is important to your neighbors’ perception of chicken keeping. You’ll need to get creative, get resourceful or cough up some cash, but it’s in your long-term best interest to make sure your coop isn’t an eyesore. Other Mr. Rogersish things to do would be sharing eggs and teaching neighbor kids about the chickens (with their parents’ permission).

Being a good neighbor is an important part of urban/suburban chicken keeping. If you put these tips into practice, you’ll be doing your part to minimize complaints and concerns so that your neighbors can see the true value of a backyard flock rather than focusing on stereotypes or issues that might make them miss the good stuff.

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally.  

Here’s something I’m crazy excited (if not a little late to share) about: Kalamazoo Social Media Week! According to an article on www.mlive.com by Ursula Zerilli:

“Kalamazoo Social Media Week kicks off on Sunday, April 14-18, 2013 with a week full of events and contests celebrating local businesses, pop culture in Kalamazoo and community engagement…

The community is being asked to vote now for individuals and businesses, who are best incorporating social media into their communications strategy on Foursquare, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Nominees will be judged by a panel of five people comprised of social media experts in the field to avid community supporters.

Award categories include the best local blog, most inspiring Pinterest board, best locally-produced video on social media and the most engaged business.”

Click on the image at right to learn about events hosted by Klassic Arcade, Kalamazoo State Theatre, Kalamazoo Beer Exchange, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Bell’s Brewery and Old Dog Tavern. I’m especially excited about the food truck lunch Tuesday and the Social Media Awards celebration on Wednesday!

Award?! Best Local Blog?!

Part of our farm’s mission is to share information about sustainable living with our community (click here for more on that). Kalamazoo Social Media Week is a perfect opportunity for us to share what we’re all about with our neighbors! Will you help us?

Show Us Some Love – Vote for Arcadia Farms

If you love this blog, please click here to vote for Arcadia Farms in Best Blog – Individual Category.

If you love our Pinterest boards, please click here to vote for Arcadia Farms in Most Inspiring Pinterest Board.

You can nominate as many times as you’d like… really… scout’s honor!

{Click here to see the 345+ reasons why our 322 followers think this board is inspiring!}

Not Sure What to Say?

By all means, I encourage you to use your own words. But in case the whole free-form nomination thing makes you a little woozy, here’s what I wrote (yes, I nominated myself… shameless…):

Blog Name: Arcadia Farms

Blog URL: http://www.arcadia-farms.net

Blog Author: Chief Veggie Whisperer, Katie Shank

Why is This the Best Local Blog? This blog is about a Portage family learning to live a sustainable lifestyle and focuses on eating healthy, buying local and saving money. Katie is a former HR Director who recently quit her desk job to dig in dirt full time and share the story via social media. She offers inspiration and advice from personal, wet-behind-the-ears-but-fearless experiences to other families who are new to topics like homesteading, gardening, seasonal eating and healthy living. This blog is also consistently in the top 10 blogs (often #1) at www.local-harvest.org.

Contact Email Address: katie@arcadia-farms.net

Keep In Touch

Social media is all about up-to-the minute details, right? Get all the Kalamazoo Social Media Week updates by following @tweetupkzoo and @ArcadiaFarmsCSA on Twitter! (Or check us out on Facebook where I’m much more active.)

As of today, there are about 1,500 people visiting this blog each week. If you’ve found the Arcadia Farms blog helpful or inspiring and would like to help us spread the message of sustainable living to others, we’d love to have your vote. Thanks for your support!

Though the iconic mental picture most of us get when it comes to raising chickens is the standard coop and run, there are many methods for raising chickens. Here’s a quick overview of your options:

1. Coop and Run. A dwelling for the chickens with an attached, enclosed cage allowing the birds some outdoor space.
2. Chicken Tractor. A small but moveable pen which is rotated around a pasture, usually every week.
3. Truly Free Range. Allowing birds to find their own food, water and shelter on your property.
4. Pastured Poultry in Pens. Similar to a chicken tractor but much larger and moved more often (i.e., twice daily).
5. Pastured Poultry in Paddocks. Chickens rotate through several paddocks planted with food chickens can self-harvest.

About the Options

Each of these methods have their pros and cons. To be completely transparent, I’m not here to tell you about all the pluses of each option – if you want to know the pros, you’ll want to do some extra research.I’m here to talk to you about the option we’re using: Pastured poultry in paddocks. However, to adequately tell you why I believe #5 is the best option, I have to talk a bit about the challenges of the first four so you’ll understand how using paddocks addresses the limitations of those other options. Brace yourself – the negativity is about to get a little deep for a paragraph or two here.

The Coop and Run method is first. The problem here mostly be summed up on one word I repeatedly tell my seven-year-old not to say at the dinner table: Poop. In a Coop and Run system, lots and lots of poop piles up in one location. The result is a stinky mess and a flock that lives (walks, sits, eats, drinks) in pathogens from their own feces. (Doesn’t that sound appetizing?) Even when chickens have access to the outdoors (the Run) there’s still a messy accumulation of poop. Also, the chickens completely obliterate any green vegetation that used to exist in the pen. So in essence, these birds live in a poop hole and a mud pit. This is not good. #drops the mic

With all of that accumulation of yuck, at some point you’re going to have to clean it up. Which means either a) you’re constantly cleaning up after chickens or b) you hardly ever clean up after chickens but they live in filth. And as Paul Wheaton points out, when you do clean the coop, all of that yuck is airborne for at least a little while.

Next let’s talk about Chicken Tractors. This is an improvement over the Coop and Run method because there is less accumulation of poo in one area. However, the tractor sizes tend to be on the small size (just because you can put birds in an area that small doesn’t mean you should). Also, the effectiveness of the method depends heavily on how often the tractor is moved. Here’s what Mr. Wheaton has to say about it:

“A few people will move a chicken tractor once or twice per day, such that the chickens will consume about 30% of what is growing in a spot before moving on.  This is an improvement over what most people will do which is to leave the chicken tractor in one spot until all vegetation is gone.  Or worse, beyond that point. Consider that in general, 40% of what grows on the ground is probably good for chickens to eat.  30% is slightly toxic and the rest is very toxic. If left in one spot for more than a few hours, the chickens end up eating their own poop that has fallen on their ‘food’.”

Our next option is truly free range chickens – as in no coop, no pen, no tractor, no nothing. The challenge here is that we’ve taken on the responsibility to care for these animals but left them vulnerable to predators and possibly lack of available food (depends on what your land is like). In addition, eggs will be laid all over the place and you’ll have no idea how old they are. Aaaand this romantic idea of letting chickens run free like they do in the wild will loose its appeal quickly when your patio furniture and car and lawn mower and dog house and back lawn and swing set and swimming pool are all slathered in chicken droppings.

Onward to Pastured Poultry in Pens. This is similar to a chicken tractor only the pen is larger and moved more often (2 times a day). Less waste accumulates in one spot, and (if you’re really on top of things) the chickens don’t decimate the ground cover before they move. The challenge here is that making it work requires you to move the pen twice day. I don’t even like to answer the phone twice a day, let alone move a big chicken pen around my yard.

Pastured Poultry in Paddocks

Now with all that negativity behind us (where did that sarcastic girl come from?!) let’s sweeten things up a bit! After much reading I have become convinced that using paddocks is the best way to raise chickens.

Click here to read the rest of this article, including the reasons paddocks are superior and tips on using them effectively.

Chickens may be “easy to care for” but baby chicks are fragile. Follow these tips to give you little peeps the best chance at a healthy adult life.

Before the Chicks Arrive – Brooder Setup

Baby chicks need a warm, safe, clean place to live during the first 4-6 weeks of their life. That warm, safe, clean place is called a brooder and it can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.

The brooder can be as simple as a cardboard box or as complex as a wood and wire box built for the occasion. The container should be able to keep bedding (i.e., pine shavings), chicken poo, chicken feed and, well, chickens, enclosed at all times while still allowing air flow. Our brooder was initially a large plastic Rubbermaid tub. As our chickens grew we graduated to a large cardboard box and eventually a large dog crate with cardboard inserts to keep the bedding inside.

Temperature is critical during the first few weeks so you’ll want a heat lamp to keep those chickees warm! During the first week the temperature inside the brooder should be 95*. Every week after that you lower the temperature by 5* (move the lamp higher) until eventually you settle around 70* and turn the lamp off. To be able to accurately determine the temperature you’ll also want to include a thermometer. I placed my indoor/outdoor thermometer inside the brooder – tells me the brooder temp and (remotely) tells me the greenhouse temp.

Chicks also need something to eat (typically commercial chick feed) and something to drink (whiskey water). Becuase they’re messy creatures, it’s your job to make sure their food and water don’t get (overly) contaminated with poo. Ergo, these puppies come in handy:

The other thing you’ll need in your brooder is bedding. The bedding absorbs chicken waste. I’ve heard rumors that pine shavings are bad for chickens because they give off some manner of harmful emission. Unfortunately I didn’t learn that until after I had already filled my brooder with pine shavings. I did more reading (especially in the forums at www.backyardchickens.com and the overwhelming majority of chicken owners said they had been using pine shavings for a long time with no signs of impact on the chickens. All the same, after we ran out of wood chips I used timothy hay. I have to say, the wood chips definitely did a better job of absorbing moisture and smells. Plus the with the way our final brooder was setup (dog crate with cardboard sides) there were small cracks where the bedding would fall out onto the floor when the chickens scratched in it. Long story short, I ended up with chicken bedding on my floor. Not. Happy. I’m going back to wood chips. (On a side note, resist the urge to use shredded newspaper. Apparently it is very slippery under the little chickees feet and can lead to abnormalities in foot development.)

Bringing the Chicks Home

Now that your brooder is setup and the temperature is just right, you’re ready to bring some babies home! If you ordered chicks to be delivered through a hatchery, they’ll arrive a little stressed. The chicks are packaged in a way that they’re collective body heat keeps them warm, but as soon as you open the packaging, getting them into an appropriately warm environment is critical. Also keep in mind that it’s not uncommon for one or two chicks to die during delivery because of the stress. Keep that in mind if you have little ones who are helping you get the chicks setup. (Knowing that this is common, hatcheries will often send you a couple of extra ‘insurance’ chicks.)

If you’re picking your chicks up, you’ll want to keep them warm in transport. Our six chicks came home in a cardboard box from Tractor Supply Company that looked a little like a happy meal with ventilation holes. (Perhaps we should name one nugget?) The ride from TSC to our farm is about 5 minutes so I just made sure the temp in the car was comfortable.

Whether you bring them or the mailman does, the first thing you want to do is encourage your chicks to take a drink of water. Gently pick them up and dip their beaks into the water container until they drink.

Now is a good time to take note of how the chicks behave. If they huddle together under the light, they are probably too cold and you’ll need to lower the heat lamp. If they scatter to the edges of the brooder, they are probably too hot. Having a thermometer in the brooder takes some of the guess work out of this part.

Another thing to check for is “pasting up.” This is a condition where a stressed chick gets a buildup of feces on their vent (where their poo comes out). You want to check your chicks often for pasting up. (I checked mine a couple of times a day during the first week they were with us – their second week of life – and since none of them ever had a problem, I stopped checking after that.) If one of your chicks has a problem with pasting up, guess what you get to do? Clean it. Grab a damp, warm towel and wipe away the problem. Sounds gross, but think of all the street cred you’ll gain in the backyard chicken community…

Ongoing Chick Care

In addition to the things mentioned above, remember that you need to adjust the heat lamp every week so that the temperature drops by 5 degrees. This process is essentially “hardening them off” just like you would do with a plant that has been living indoors and is now ready to live outside. You’ll also want to change the chicks’ bedding at least once a week or more often if it gets especially nasty in there. After the chicks are 2-3 weeks old, they can take field trips to the outdoors so long as the temperature is warm. Keep a close eye on them to protect them from family pets and predators like hawks or racoons. Our chickens ventured outside twice before they moved to the coop – once at four weeks old and once at five weeks old. Both occasions were on warm (60*) sunny days and lasted for about 30-40 minutes. Marley helped us to keep a watchful shepherd eye on them both times.

When your chicks are four to five weeks old, they’re probably ready to be called chickens. They’re also ready to move to their permanent outdoor home. Because our chickens are old enough to get the heck out of my spare bedroom already be outside now, they’ve moved to their new home in the backyard (more on that later this week!). Though daytime temps are up in the 50?s and 60?s, our April nights still dip down to nearly freezing. For that reason, I plan to keep the heat lamp on at night for another two weeks or so. I’m being careful to keep it clipped to a spot where the hens can benefit from the warmth without danger of touching its hot surface.

A Note on Food

I ran into conflicting opinions about what to feed my baby chickens. Many hard-core permaculture peeps felt it was important to reject commercial starter feed. (After all, our grandparents or great-grandparents probably didn’t rely on medicated commercial chick feed to get their flock off to a good start.) The idea is that commercial “starter feed” has everything a baby chick needs, namely proteins that are easy for little chick stomachs to digest. You can buy medicated or unmedicated feed. The medication – as well as an available vaccine – are intended as a preventative measure against coccidiosis, a disease caused by an intestinal parasite. On YouTube I saw several videos where chicken owners have chosen to give their chicks yogurt as “insurance” against intestinal issues. For easy to understand info on coccidiosis, medicated starter feed and vaccinations, I recommend this article at Urban Farm Online: Hatching the Facts on Medicated Chick Starter Feeds for Layers. We opted for non-medicated starter feed and have given our chicks a few doses of yogurt. I have no idea whether or not they have been vaccinated. We’ll plan to feed our chickens starter feed for the first two to three months.

Chickens also need grit. Grit is a substance (usually small stones) that chickens use in their crop (the first part of a chicken’s digestive system) to help grind their food. (Look ma, no teeth!) Whether or not you need to feed your chickens grit depends on their diet. I suggest doing some research before you decide what to do. Here’s a good place to start: Chicken Grit; Grit for Baby and Adult Chickens. I still haven’t made a plan for the kind of grit we’ll provide our chickens.

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally.    

We have chickens! Why raise chickens? I’m so glad you asked! If you live in the city or the suburbs or think chickens are gross or too much work or you just can’t do it because you don’t know enough or or or… this post is for you. There are lots of benefits to raising chickens. Add in the fact that chickens are relatively easy and inexpensive to care for and you just might change your mind.

Reasons to Raise Chickens

First, naturally raised eggs taste better. Of course this point is completely subjective, but I have consistently noticed that naturally raised eggs are darker in color. In my opinion, they are also more flavorful than the standard white dozen we used to buy from the grocery store. (I also happen to think that naturally raised chicken meat is tastier too!)

Naturally raised eggs are healthier. According to www.backyardchickens.com, backyard eggs contain:

• 1/3 the Cholesterol of store bought eggs
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2 times the amount of Omega 3 fatty acids
• 3 times the amount of Vitamin E
• 7 times more Beta Carotene

Chickens are family-friendly, low-maintenance pets.

Chickens are great pest-control assistants! They eat pretty much any kind of bug. If you’re looking for a way to get rid of insects in or around your garden, or if you have a specific pest issue to address (such as termites or fleas), adding chickens to your backyard is a natural, chemical-free, low-cost way to kiss those buggies goodbye!

Chickens are also great at weeding. Chickens love to eat… if you have an area that needs weeding, let chickens loose; they’ll turn your patch of weeds into a salad. (Be careful – your chickens don’t know the difference between what you call “weeds” and what you call “lettuce.” We’ll talk later in the week about how to safely incorporate chickens into your garden and yard without sacrificing the plants you actually want keep.)

In addition to all of that, chickens can provide you with effective, natural fertilizer for your yard and garden. Chicken manure has great levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, all of which are essential for proper plant growth. Because of the high amounts of nitrogen, chicken manure is too “hot” to use directly in your garden. Chicken owners should compost their birds’ manure to breakdown potentially harmful pathogens and render the manure safe as a fertilizer or soil amendment. If you compost your chicken manure in a pile, you’ll need to wait 6 to 12 months before you use it in the garden. If you turn the pile once a week, you may be able to use it as early as 4 to 6 months. Another way to compost your chicken manure is the use the deep bedding method in your chicken coop. We’ll talk about that more later in the week as well, but if you just can’t stand to wait, you can find out more by clicking here.

Raising your own eggs (and potentially meat) and fertilizer can save a gardening family a good chunk of cash throughout the year.

Why We Are Raising Chickens

At Arcadia Farms we desire to keep chickens for several reasons. One of the chief reasons is that the ability to gather naturally-raised eggs from our backyard contributes to the physical and financial health of our family. Another reason is that the symbiotic relationships of chickens to other areas of our farm provide environmental health and cost-savings for our operation. (As I mentioned above, properly composted chicken manure provides fertilizer for our gardens and as omnivores who eat bugs, chickens provide additional pest control to our property.)

Choosing Birds

I’m no chicken expert. So as a newbie I discovered quickly that there are many, many breeds to select from. After some research we initially wanted to purchase Orpingtons (Buff or Blue) but ended up with ISA Reds. These breeds are considered good choices for suburban settings because they are very docile and make less noise than other breeds. They are also known to be good-to-excellent egg layers.

If you’re interested in raising chickens but have no idea where to start, check out this Which Chicken? Breed Selector Tool resource from www.mypetchicken.com. For more super-helpful information check out About.com’s Small Farm guide to Choosing Chicken Breeds by clicking here. And just in case you’re as wet behind the ears as I am was about the world of chicken’s, here is a glossary of chicken-related terms provided by Tractor Supply Company (click on the image below). You’ll probably want to start here so that you better understand the terms used by the other references listed above.

Can You Have Chickens?

If you live in Portage, MI and are interested in taking the next step, click here for local ordinance information. For those of you in other communities, be sure to check with your local municipality about the application of ordinances to your ability to keep chickens.

There may be other reasons to raise your own chickens. Can you think of any? Do you have any questions about raising your own chickens?

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Guess what I found this morning? A fabulous list of common ingredient substitutes courtesy of www.allrecipes.com!

For the list click on the image below. (Don’t be fooled by the picture… the list is a lot longer than just these three ingredients.)

Guess what? We have chickens!

We are the proud owners of six ISA Red egg-laying hens who are six weeks old as of today! If all goes well, they’ll be supplying us with fresh, brown eggs by the end of the summer. We selected ISA Reds because they are docile, quiet and good egg layers. Those traits make them a good fit for our suburban setting and our need for a family-friendly flock. Our girls came from Tractor Supply Company on Shaver Road in Portage. Here’s a tip I learned from one of the TSC employees: If you show up the day before the next batch of chicks are scheduled to come in, they’ll sell you the week-old chicks at a discounted rate to make room for the newbies. So you spend less AND TSC nurses your chicks through the first week where some chicks tend not to make it. The chicks were origianly $2.99 and I paid $1.00 for each of them. Winner winner chicken… well… *ahem*.

When I was growing up, my aunt raised chickens and turkeys (Hi Aunt Bonny!) so I have a general idea of how to chase care for them. But as an adult, I have to admit I was (am?) a wee bit clueless about what goes into raising healthy birds. I’ve heard that chickens are super easy to care for so I set out to learn how and why. I started my search for chicken knowledge on the good ol’ world wide web. I found lots of helpful info at www.backyardchickens.com, About.com’s Small Farm pages and a few other blogs which I’ve saved to our Chickens board on Pinterest.

But by far the most helpful information I found came from the forums at www.permies.com. (If you’re interested in sustainable living, the information – and support – in these forums will make you drool. Grab a napkin and go check it out!) This website was created by Paul Wheaton (dubbed the Duke of Permaculture) and provides an avenue for him to share his knowledge on the subject as well for others to contribute. In this ongoing forum post, Paul describes five ways to raise chickens (coop and run, chicken tractor, truly free range, pastured poultry in pens and pastured poultry in paddocks) and then provides compelling arguments for why pastured poultry in paddocks is THE way to go. This info helped me think outside the box regarding how to raise our chickens in a manner that is healthiest for them and ultimately for us. I’m working on putting my own this-farm-is-in-the-suburbs-and-needs-to-look-nice-without-costing-a-lot spin on it. More on that later this week…

In addition to information and inspiration from Paul Wheaton (and other permies), I also received great practical and design advice from the book Free Range Chicken Gardens by Jessi Bloom. To be honest, I’m a sucker for packaging, and it was originally the beautiful front cover that compelled me to check this book out. The whole thing is full of brilliant coffee-table-worthy photos but thankfully the book itself is worth as much as the pictures. This book provides a practical overview of how to raise chicks to become healthy chickens along with detailed advice on how to design your yard to meet your chicken’s needs without sacrificing style or function. I’m glad it’s in my micro-farm library!

Now that I’ve gathered all of this great info on chicken-keeping, I’m no expert, but I am a well-armed newbie! In celebration of our girls’ first week living outdoors, I hereby dub this week “Chicken Week” at Arcadia Farms and plan to share all of my new-found poultry insight with you. If you’ve been thinking about raising backyard chickens but have wondered what it will really entail, come back for more throughout the week as I share with you both what I’ve learned from experts and what I’ve experienced in real life. I’ll be talking about:

• Why we decided to raise backyard chickens (and why you should consider it too)
• Which birds make good urban or suburban chickens
• How to care for baby chicks
• Designing a chicken-friendly garden/yard in the suburbs
• Reducing (or eliminating!) the cost of chicken feed
• Building a chicken coop (ours cost $0!)

Also on our Facebook page we’re running a contest this week where you get to help us name one of our hens. Stop by and vote for your favorite name (or make a suggestion of your own) and then please stop by Friday to see who wins!

I can’t wait to share Chicken Week with you!

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally.    

This winter I shared with you that I want a beautiful, traditionally styled, super-sized tea garden full of straight-up tea plant (Camellia sinensis) hedges and oodles of herbs. Despite my grandest dreams, our micro-farm only has room for a micro tea garden. So instead of having something like this…

I’m going to have something like this…

I’ll be growing herbs for tea in upcycled tin cans which will hang from the posts of our garden fence. I’m also hoping to add some herb containers closer to the house. This weekend I got started on planting my first herbs – stevia.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with stevia, it is a natural sweetening alternative to cane sugar. I’m going to use the leaves in tea but you can also use it in powder form for baking. (Personally, I’m not a huge fan of the aftertaste it leaves in baked goods.) I’m starting small with just five containers. Here’s what I did.

I’ve been collecting an assortment of tin cans all year. I grabbed five of them and used a drill to make holes in the bottom. Because stevia likes well-drained soil, I wanted to add a little something to the bottom of each can to create air pockets for drainage. What better to use than some of the myriad twigs lying around my yard? Cleans my yard up a smidge (ok, a very tiny smidge), makes good use of what would otherwise be yard waste and creates a mini-hugelkultur climate in my herb containers. Win win win!

I’ve never grown stevia before… can’t wait to see (and taste) what lies ahead! And I’m super excited about all the other tea-worthy herbs that are yet to come.

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally.  

Our seed potatoes came yesterday! I ordered certified organic Nicola and Desiree seed potatoes from Seed Savers Exchange and can’t wait to get them planted! (I also ordered sweet potatoes from Annie’s Heirloom Seeds and expect they’ll be coming soon as well.)

This year before I plant my potatoes I’m going to chit some of them. No, I didn’t just cuss at you. Chitting potatoes is the act of sprouting them before they are planted. This is my first year trying it out, but those who’ve done it before say you can harvest your taters up to three weeks early if you follow these steps. Here’s a quick tutorial.

Chitting Potatoes – A How-To Guide

1. Start the process 3-4 weeks before you’re ready to plant the potatoes in the ground
2. Place the potatoes in a bright location (sunny windowsill or under a florescent/grow lamp)
3. Sprouts will emerge. Try to keep the potatoes stable so that these sprouts don’t get broken. Placing the potatoes in an open egg carton would do the trick.
4. Plant the sprouted potatoes just like you would plant them without sprouts. Just like you plant regular potatoes withe eyes facing up, plant these with the sprouts facing up.

Did you enjoy this article? Visit www.arcadia-farms.net for more info on eating healthy, saving money and buying locally.