As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my younger hen Linda was getting brutally bullied by some of my older girls. My temporary solution was to let Linda, and often her buddy Doris, out to free range every day, leaving the other three girls in the run. This let Linda's head wound heal, but it resulted in some collateral damage.

This is what happens when chickens get free access to your strawberry plants.



So, yea, it was pretty clear that if I wanted to have any kind of garden--container or otherwise--we needed to find some way to keep the hens away from the plants.

Initially, I was thinking of some series of wire mesh cages to go over my containers. That seemed rather complicated and elaborate. Plus, I have garden beds and containers all over the yard. I'd have to make the whole place a crazy fortress in order to keep the hens away from all my different fruits and vegetables. Clearly, the easiest and smartest solution would be to fence in the chickens. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that sooner, like three years ago.

Luckily, our chicken coop is situated in a part of the yard that's free of garden beds and largely unlandscaped. Even more luckily, I have a husband who is good at building things. Thus, our new chicken pen was created in only 2 short days.

Dakota used the same nice heavy gauge wire fence that he used in the run, and some green metal fence posts, to build a spacious enclosure in the bottom left corner of the backyard. Here's the fence that starts at the left side of the run and extends to the fence we share with our neighbors. I planted a few rosemary bushes just below this section to help hold up the hillside, and I'm going to plant some lavender on the uphill side this weekend.

After the fence was complete, he built a nice gate out of wood right near the door to the run. We kept the coop itself outside the fence, so we can still easily get to the nesting box, and I can re-plant the green roof (for the third time) without the worry that the chickens will destroy it immediately.

The new pen setup is working really nicely. We go downstairs every morning and open the door to the run, and all the girls head out into their free range area to dig and frolic to their hearts content. All our fruit trees and most of our plants are on the non-chicken side of the fence, so they are now safe from chicken claws and beaks. The hens all seem really happy with their new contained freedom, and Linda's head is completely healed.

I feel good knowing our hens have lots of space and fun stuff to do while we're away from the house. After all, the whole reason we got chickens was to get eggs from happy, healthy, free range chickens.

As longtime readers of this blog and my family members know*, I enjoy getting exceptionally dorky garden-related gifts. So, for my birthday this year, my parents got me a Worm Factory worm bin and 1,000 Red Wigglers. I was thrilled!

Both items arrived on the same evening, and my son and I had a great time prepping the bin for our new worm friends. It was a slightly more elaborate process than I expected, but, luckily, we had some dry leaves and composted dirt close at hand to add to the coconut coir and shredded newspaper that came with the bin.

I got a 3-tier bin, and so far we're still on Bin #1. The worms seem happy, and I've been casually giving them small handfuls chopped vegetable trimmings, coffee grounds and dry leaves for the last couple of weeks. It's hard to tell how well things are functioning, but the worms are active and growing bigger, so that seems like a good sign.

One nice thing about the Worm Factory is that is has all the important info printed on the lid. I think I'm doing a decent job with temperature and moisture control, but, since I'm a newbie, it's tough to be sure. I plan to shred up some junk mail today to add to the bin for the "fiber" part of the process. I also occasionally have little spouts growing out of the compost. I'm unsure if that's just an expected occurrence from adding plant matter to moist soil, or if it's an indicator or too much or too little moisture. Does anyone know?

My son is very interested in the whole worm composting process, which is an added bonus. He likes to show his friends the bin and tell them the worms are "making compost." And he's very excited to add the worm castings to our plants when the time comes. I'm happy to be able to share all my nerdy gardening interests with him. By the time he's old enough to have his own garden, he'll should be a total expert.

* These groups have significant overlap.

My newest chickens, Doris and Linda, have been integrated into the flock since June, and, sadly, things are not going very well. Linda, the Langshan, is being pretty brutally bullied by the older hens. The weird thing is, they lived together fairly peacefully for the first several months. Then, in early October, I came home to find that Linda's head was bleeding.

Over the next couple of days, the older girls managed to give her a pretty nasty wound on one side of her head, just behind her left eye. We added some additional perches to the run and put a second feeder up high, so that Linda didn't have to eat at the main feeder with the older girls. And we tried to free range everyone as often as possible. But, they kept picking on her. Her injury started to look really bad and I was very worried--although, happily, she didn't show any signs of distress beyond a general (reasonable) fear of her coop-mates. (I was worried about them pecking her brain, but she seems to be mentally okay--as far as I can tell.)

Our eventual solution was to let Linda and Doris out of the coop on their own every morning. I put out food and water for them in the yard and they free range all day, while the mean girls stay inside the run. Then, everyone free ranges in the evening after we get home from work. This method has allowed Linda's wound to heal somewhat, although it's still vulnerable to bleeding if one of the big girls gets at her.

Linda seems okay, though. She's even laying brown eggs, which is great. But, the daily segregated free-range doesn't seem like a perfect long-term solution since it leaves my garden completely vulnerable to Doris and Linda's sharp claws and voracious appetites. Plus, when it rains this winter, they're going to want to go inside the coop. And I don't know what we're going to do next time we go out of town.

I'm not sure what I can do next, beyond expanding the run so everyone can spread out more. I think part of the problem might be that they older girls don't want to give up any of their space. A bigger run would definitely help, but that takes time and hard work from Dakota. I don't know when he'd be able to get around to a project like that.

Tina is getting kind of old, so I imagine she'll die of natural causes pretty soon, and that will help with the space issue. Her death might also reshuffle the pecking order a little. Linda and Doris are big and hearty. If they would just stand up for themselves, I think the other girls would stop bullying. But, unfortunately, I can't give a chicken the "punch the toughest guy in the prison yard" pep talk. Maybe she'll figure it out on her own.

Two weekends ago, I finally accepted defeat and admitted that the California Sycamore I hoped might stage a miraculous comeback was actually gone for good. Despite careful attention, the two year old tree seemed to be dead as a doornail.

My disappointment at this failure was soothed a little by the fact that we scored a new Sycamore for free at the annual Department of Sanitation Open House. Thanks Million Trees LA! (If you're wondering why we were attending an open house for the Department of Sanitation, I will remind you that I have a 3-year-old boy who loves garbage trucks.)

This time around, I am determined that the tree will survive. When we dug up the old one, I saw the roots had not spread very far. This is probably due to the terrible, hard, rocky soil in that part of the backyard. We dug a pretty big hole to plant the last Sycamore, but clearly it wasn't big enough.

This time around, we dug an extra extra large hole for the new tree and mixed some grow mulch into the soil. I also tried to build up a good berm on the downhill side to keep water from draining away before it can soak in. I also need to stake it a little straighter once I get my hands on some good, sturdy stakes.

Summer is not the greatest time to plant a new tree, but I couldn't pass up the free tree and I figure it usually doesn't get really blistering hot until August. I plan to water it deeply once a week-ish at first, and see how that goes. Fingers crossed that this one makes it.

Grew this beauty in the upper garden bed.
The bloom is pretty striking.

I hope to let it go to seed, dry it out and then feed the seeds to the chickens. This time, I will shake them off the sunflower head first. We don't want another freak out.

So, how's the flock integration going? Well...

Let's just say the new girls spend an awful lot of time on this ledge.

Interestingly, Betty, the Easter Egger, is the main aggressor among the older girls. She's the smallest of the adult hens, so maybe she's just reveling in having two smaller ones to boss around. In the pecking order, I actually think Betty comes ahead of Janice, the Cuckoo Marans. Janice is my biggest chicken, but she's also a little slow and dumb, so she gets bossed around more than you'd think. Tina, the oldest, tends to stay out of any scuffles. Betty is smaller than Janice and Tina, but she's tough.

Once Doris and Linda are fully grown, they'll both be bigger than Betty. I wonder how that will change the dynamic between them. Maybe it won't. I just hope the new girls eventually feel comfortable coming down off their ledge.

This year's peach harvest from the Desert Gold tree in the backyard was our best one yet. The peaches were small, but really sweet and flavorful. After eating one, my son asked if he could have them all. (I made him share a couple with me and Dakota.)

More importantly, I managed to harvest almost all the ripe peaches before the were gobbled up by those darn squirrels. (By the way, allow me to recommend the Those Darn Squirrels! books to parents of toddlers. They are really funny, smart and nicely illustrated.) I purchased some garden netting to protect my fruit from those fuzzy-tailed jerks, but didn't get a chance to put it up before the peaches ripened.

Anyway, speaking of small peaches, does anyone know why that might be? Should I be watering more or less? Pruning or fertilizing more aggressively? Do I just need to wait until the tree is older and bigger, or is this the normal fruit size for this variety?

Even if the Desert Gold has small fruit naturally, I still highly recommend it for inland Southern California gardens. This tree has been the most productive of all the trees in my backyard orchard. Its neighbor, a Pink Lady Apple, has failed to make a single fruit in the last five years!

Last month, I finally settled on names for the new chickens. The White Rock is called Doris and the Langshan is Linda. My father wanted Susan, but we have a good friend by that name, and I didn't want anyone to get them confused (ahem).

In May, I also started letting Doris and Linda outside, first in the tractor and then the yard to free range. And, of course, I began introducing them to our three big hens. That went... okay. But, a weekend camping trip was approaching, and I didn't want to leave the pullets in their box or in the less-secure chicken tractor for two days. So, full integration became necessary.

I felt the girls were big enough to take some minor bullying, and fast enough to escape too much nasty pecking from the hens. So, I put Doris and Linda in the big coop and then hung out for a while to make sure it didn't get too brutal in there. There was a little of the usual pecking but nothing too crazy.

I briefly considered doing that thing where you put the new girls inside the coop late at night while everyone is sleeping and then they all wake up together without realizing there are two new chickens in their flock. But I don't think my chickens are that oblivious.

Integration is going somewhat well. No one is bleeding or missing major feathers. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that Linda and Doris live with a certain amount of fear. Most of the day they are perched up high in the run, away from the three big girls. I try to let everyone out as much as possible, just to give the little ones a break.

Doris and Linda are growing up nicely, and I see them eating, so they should be fine in time. In fact, they should get just as big as their older sisters before too long.

One of the fondest memories I have of gardening with my dad when I was a kid is picking and eating green beans right off the vine. The smell and taste of fresh-picked pole beans is one of my favorite sensations of summer.

This year, I've been happy to have several towers of beans thriving around my garden. Regular readers of this blog (aka my parents) know that my big summer garden plans don't always pan out. But, this year, I have had some success--and, of course, several failures. My pole beans are my biggest triumph so far.

I have one tower growing in the upper bed, and three more down below in the lower raised bed. All are currently covered in leafy vines and starting to create pods. I am growing pole beans, because I like the winding vines and they save space. The varieties I picked this year, Kentucky Wonder and Cherokee Trail, are from Seed Savers.

The Cherokee Trail beans have black seeds and dark pink flowers. They haven't made pods yet, so I can't speak to their taste, but here's the interesting description from the Seed Savers site:

(Phaseolus vulgaris) (aka Cherokee Black) Given to SSE in 1977 by the late Dr. John Wyche, SSE member from Hugo, Oklahoma. Dr. Wyche’s Cherokee ancestors carried this bean over the Trail of Tears, the infamous winter death march from the Smoky Mountains to Oklahoma (1838-1839), leaving a trail of 4,000 graves. Green 6" pods with purple overlay, shiny jet-black seeds. Good for snap beans and dry beans. Pole habit, snap or dry, 85 days.

I love their descriptions of heirloom varieties. They really add an extra layer of historical interest--and drama--to regular old vegetable gardening. Plus, it makes you feel like you're helping carry on a tradition just by planting them.

The beans we're currently eating are the Kentucky Wonders from the upper bed, which I planted first. My upper bed hasn't done so well lately. It's exposed to chicken interference and skunk destruction, and I worry the soil is a little tired. But the pole beans don't mind--perhaps because they grow upward and away from those pesky animals. When they reached the top of their pole tower, I attached a string, and have been training the vines that way.

I really like how that looks, maybe because it gives an impression of overflowing abundance. Or maybe it's because the delicate bean flowers are more exposed.

So, it looks like we'll be enjoying fresh beans for at least another month, maybe longer. My son is not a huge fan yet, but he's had some bites and plans to have more. I'll make him a pole bean lover by summer's end, I'm sure.

So the chicks are over three weeks old, and we still haven't settled on names. I blame this mostly on our busy schedules and the fact that I wanted to give my son a chance to name them. He hasn't really responded when I asked him what we should call the baby chickens, although that shouldn't surprise me. All his favorite stuffed animals are just called what they are--Donkey, Big Bear, Little Bear, Lion, etc.--except for one stuffed shark inexplicably named Felix.

Some names in the running: Doris, Marcy, Rhonda, Sheila, Vicki, and Phyllis. Any votes? I plan to name them by Tuesday at the latest.

Other than their lack of name, the chicks are doing great. They're putting on new feathers almost every day and scratching around in the shavings of their brooder box with vigor. It'll still be a while before I introduce them to the big girls, but I think I'll start taking them outside shortly for some dirt scratching and sunshine.

So, it seems like I may get blueberries after all! Even though the two bushes that were supposed to be cross-pollinating each other didn't bloom at exactly the same time, there are still little berries forming on the earlier-blooming bush, a variety of southern highbush called "Misty."

I'm a bit confused, as I was assured by both the Internet and the guy at the nursery that cross pollination was necessary to get fruit. I guess the berries might not make it all the way to maturity, but they seem pretty real right now so I think that's unlikely. I'm really looking forward to picking and eating them in a couple more weeks.

The other bush, a variety called "Jubilee," has just started blooming, so the jury is still out on whether it will produce fruit. But I'm feeling lucky

I've also got a pretty good strawberry crop coming to maturity in various containers around the yard. My son loves picking and eating fruit and veggies straight from the plant, and I don't blame him. It's pretty fun to grow your own food, especially since fresh picked is so much tastier than grocery store fruit.

Guess what I brought home last night? New chicks! Look at these fuzzy little peepers, all little and sweet. It's fun to have new ones after several years with just the grown hens.

The little girls don't have names yet, but the yellow one is a White Rock and the black and white one is a Langshan. I have never owned either breed before, but both are supposed to be pretty good layers of eggs and fairly good tempered. I got them from someone who posted on the Los Angeles Urban Chicken Enthusiasts message board. She had ordered 15 chicks from McMurray Hatchery, but ended up not being able to keep any of them. Since I was looking for just two chicks but needed them sexed and vaccinated, it worked out perfectly for me to take two of hers. I originally asked for a Rhode Island Red and an Australorp, but sadly those two chicks didn't survive their first night at the woman's home.

These two chicks seem pretty hardy. They peeped their little heads off the whole (long) drive home, and they have settled in happily in our old brooder box. I've got a big bag of organic starter-grower crumble from Centinela Feed in Burbank, a thermometer and a heating light, so they should be all set for quite a while. I'll keep them apart from the big girls for at least 8 weeks, maybe longer. I don't want them to get beat up.

Of course, these are the first chicks we've gotten since my son was born. As you can imagine, he's pretty excited about the baby chickens. When he woke up this morning and saw the box, he shouted "Hi chicken!" over and over for several minutes. We let him hold both chicks today and did a good job being gentle. I think it's going to be really fun to raise these chicks with him. We've been gardening, too, so he'll be an expert urban farmer before he's even in elementary school--or at least as much of an "expert" as I am.

I've been playing a little game with myself for the past several months. It's called "Dead or Dormant" and it centers around the California Sycamore tree we planted in November 2011. We got the tree, a native of this area, to replace a giant pine tree that was felled by bark beetles. Dakota, having grown up in the Midwest where they have seasons, wanted to get a tree that would drop its leaves in the winter. So, we decided on a Sycamore, with it's pretty white bark, big broad leaves and deciduous nature.

This is how that tree looked in November of 2011.

Here it is almost exactly a year ago, in March 2012.

And this is how it looks now.

Hmmmmm. Something seems... different, doesn't it? You're probably wondering why I don't have a wide shot of the tree for you. That's because it's hard to get the camera to focus on a leafless stick. At the moment, there is not a single leaf growing on the whole tree. I'm finding that fact very distressing.

But I have not lost hope. The bark is still pretty and white, and there are those little bud-like things coming off the "branches." I feel like those buds might make some leaves any day now. Right? Right? Someone with knowledge of Sycamore tree growth should comment and reassure me, if you can do so in good faith.

I will say that I have given this tree intermittent waterings--not too many but not too few--over the last year. The trees and shrubs all around it are quite happy and healthy, and I have not let too much dirt collect around the base of the Sycamore's trunk. It should be fine. But I am getting worried.

I guess all I can really do is wait and watch. Wait and worry.

Dead or dormant?

Deciduous trees are stressful.

When Dakota first built our coop back in 2008, one of the many cool features was its green roof. After doing his research, he built a multi-layered system to make sure the roof had good drainage and the right soil mix. You can read that original post and see photos here. It was a really cool idea, but, unfortunately, the original green roof pictured below did not survive.

I blame a combination of squirrels, blazing sun and infrequent watering. You know, the usual.

Recently, I have really wanted to re-plant the coop's green roof. It's still a great idea, and the drainage system still works. All I really needed was a way to keep the plants from drying out in the summer and keep the squirrels from digging up their roots. My solution was simple and obvious: burlap.

I had some burlap left over from my son's birthday party decorations. So, I added additional soil into the green roof "bed" and then stretched the burlap across. Then, I used a heavy-duty staple gun to secure the burlap around the edges of the roof.

There was one plant still alive in the old roof, so I cut a little "x" in the burlap to let it through. Then I cut a bunch of additional slits all over the burlap to add more plants.

I pressed the burlap back around the base of each plant for maximum protection and water-retention. The plants I chose this time are a variety of succulents--some taken from cuttings of existing plants and some purchased by Dakota. Several are aggressive spreaders, and my hope is that this new burlap mulch idea will allow the plants to grow and fill in the spaces in between. It should. Burlap is pretty permeable.

So, here's the newly re-planted green roof. I'll let you know how things progress this time. I promise to water more frequently this time around.

One of the major benefits of being married to someone with a fancy wood shop and the skills to use all the tools is that he can pretty much make anything.

I usually try not to brag too much about Dakota on this blog, but I have to share the favors he made for our son's recent birthday party. It was a hootenanny theme, and Dakota decided to make a hand-crafted cigar box guitar for every kid.

If you knew Dakota, you'd know he never does anything half-way. So, the guitars came out beautifully. They have wood handles, sturdy boxes and individually carved pegs so that they can be tuned. They are, in my humble opinion, pretty awesome.

While you (and I) might say this is a lot of work for a 3rd birthday favor, in the end I feel like it was worth it. It was really fun to hand out each one and see the excitement on the kids' faces. Hopefully, they will have a great time jamming on their guitars at home. That's what's happening at our house.

One of my blueberry bushes has already started to put out an impressive number of flowers. They are quite pretty and delicate-looking, and they seem to be holding up well despite wild swings in temperature.

This is great to see except for the fact that the other bush hasn't even started growing spring leaves yet. Blueberry blossoms need to be cross-pollinated by a bush of a different variety in order to set fruit.

So... bummer. These flowers are just ornamental for now. I am hoping the other bush will have a burst of growth very soon, so that the two bushes will actually flower at the same time. It would be so fun to pick fresh blueberries this Spring. I just need that lazy second bush to cooperate.

At the moment, I have 3 chickens. Two of them, Betty and Janice, are 3 years old this week. And the third, Tina, a black sex-link, is 5 1/2. That's pretty old in chicken years. She's basically a grandma. But, despite her age, Tina is still going strong.

In fact, she even laid an egg last week. And the egg looked good--no bumps or weird shell formations--just smooth and pink and lovely. Now, that is an impressive feat for such an elderly chicken. Tina has always been a consistent layer. In the spring and summer, I've gotten as many as 5 eggs a week from Tina.

Unlike Betty and Janice, and her hatch-sister, Peggy, who died several years ago, Tina has always let me hold her. I particularly appreciate this trait now that I have a son who likes to pet a chicken from time to time.

As you can see from the photo above, Tina is still looking good. Her black feathers are nice and shiny, and her comb is healthy and red. What I'm trying to say is, Tina is the best hen I have ever had. She is smart and pretty and healthy and productive. Tina is a super-chicken.

So... Cheers to you, Tina. Enjoy those sunflower seeds I just put in the coop. You deserve them!

I'm sure you've all been lying awake at night wondering what has happened with the cactus pimple I posted about over the summer. I apologize for not keeping everyone up-to-date on the gripping saga of my special cactus' pubescent event.

Well, I was right. It does seem to be a new appendage, which is exciting. But, it is growing very very slowly. Here it is as of last month.

As you can see, the bump has grown very slightly, and turned green with hints of purple. But it's far from the little cactus "arm" I expected by now.

I guess I should have known this would be slow-going. In the whole time I've owned it--about 7 years--it has only grown 5 inches. So, I guess I will have to be patient. Hopefully, when the weather warms up, it'll have a little spurt. I'll let you know.

The recent wet weather, particularly the longer damp period in December, seems to have created a perfect growing environment for a variety of mushrooms and fungi in our back yard. The specimens in the garden are both beautiful and diverse. I don't think I've ever seen this variety at our house before.

We've sadly lost a couple of trees to bark beetle in the last couple of years, so there are numerous large stumps and logs that make a perfect fungus habitat.

I myself am no botanist, so I have no idea what any of these are. But, it's fun to wander around the garden and come across little shelves and piles and ripples of fungus.

Anybody know of a good website that identifies common mushrooms and fungi?