No till tilling

While we did decide to till the garden last year, we are not going to do it ever again.

There are things one can do to avoid tilling, and the long term effects of tilling are actually quite detrimental to the soil. Most people will tell you that they till to avoid weeds and enrich the soil.  The first year you till your land, it will produce an incredibly rich and bountiful crop.  In subsequent years, however, things won't be so great without a lot of amendments -- tilling exposes the precious topsoil resulting in topsoil loss and nutrient depletion.  As far as weeds go, there are lots of dormant weed seeds in the soil, and tilling simply brings them to to surface giving them the sun and air they need to grow.  They should thank us!

I'm not implying that tilling is some evil empire of agricultural practices, but for us, it isn't something we want to do.  For larger scale operations, it may be unavoidable, but on our scale, we're trying to avoid it. As I mentioned before, if you till, you'll need to add amendments to maintain fertile land, so why not skip the extra step and simply build soil from the ground up.

Many people claim that no-dig practices don't work and you end up with compacted soil.  This parsnip grew at a friend's house in Maine -- clearly there's no compaction there!  She's been building the soil without digging or tilling for years, and look at this bounty!  Credit: Lisa Fernandes.

Our plan is to use permaculture techniques to build soil that will get better every year.  Why simply go for sustainable (status quo) when you can make something better than how you found it?

One of the techniques we're using to improve our soil involves letting our chickens to the "tilling" work. :)  The jury is still out for us on whether or not we are going to get organic certified, so we can still do this.  If we go the organic certification route, we can't put our chickens directly on our veggie bed, but for now we're happy to have them eat weed seeds, spread manure, and generally stir things around.

In order for them to do this, they need a temporary and mobile home -- enter the chicken tractor.  It's a mobile home that we built for them that we'll move around the field.  And now, a photo montage…

Cheapo bike tires that are going to make our tractor mobile.  We ended up replacing the tubes and tires because they didn't hold air for crap.  

The bottom frame -- we struggled with how to attach the tires, but you'll see below that we figured it out quite nicely.

Oliver is always on hand for scale. :)  Bike tires need two points of attachment or they wobble all over the place.  With this setup, they are pretty secure and sturdy.

Dr. Trafton thinks it is a really good idea to ride the frame down the hill into our field.  I made her wear the helmet.

Dr. Knapp, however, thinks this is a supremely bad idea since there are no breaks and no ability to steer.  Here's what happened...

We have a floor, people.  Olive and Oliver were clearly more interested in a squirrel than being scale models.

Wall frames are up!  

…and we have a chicken door!  

We started building this in the fall, and this was our beautiful view.  Not too shabby!

Walls, big door, and more.  All we need now is a roof!

Here's the inside -- roosts and the nest boxes will go on the top ledge there.  Clearly, we built this entire thing from scrap wood we had lying around.

I heard a lot of flapping coming from the chicken yard, and this is what I found.  Wing clipping followed shortly thereafter.  Don't worry, it is just like cutting a fingernail, there is no pain involved.

Fast forward to now -- we got a corrugated plastic roof, and Dr. Trafton put it on.  Add some temporary fencing with a solar powered electric charger to keep dogs and other animals out, and the ladies are enjoying their first days on the veggie bed.  Naturally, we had to observe them for a little bit to make sure they weren't going to jump out or the dogs weren't going to try to get in.  The only dog to attempt getting in thus far is Baxter….shocker.  He learned his lesson and won't be trying it again any time soon.  Oliver is, obviously, on hand for supervising and keeping everyone in line.

Here's a better view of everything from our deck.  They worked the bed like champs, and we have since moved them to the perimeter of the bed where they're eating weed seeds.  We're going to swap out chickens for ducks once the seedlings are in the ground so they can work slug patrol.  

This is what was happening during our supervising.  This guy is such a snuggler, it is borderline ridiculous.  Please note his little smile. :)

…and then we attempted a family portrait...

So, we're really pleased with how quickly the chickens can work things over.  We're hoping to try to keep moving them around the field, especially where we've planted fruit trees.  It is our hope that we won't have to mow these areas, and we can keep to only mowing the very lower part of the field where we have no trees around which we'd have to navigate.

Stay tuned for how it works...

The coop is finally finished inside and out!

It's been a while since our last post, but that's not for lack of things going on at the SDF. We've been so busy with the summer season upon us, and we love it!  We have many blog posts in the works, so stay tuned.  For today....more updates to the Flocktagon -- formerly known as the Chicktagon.  As in the past, I'll keep this post mostly pictures since they tell more, and are easier for you all to get through.

While we've had the Flocktagon built for a while now, there have been a couple things that needed to be done on the inside that have just been hanging over our heads -- namely, insulating the ceiling, adding a more permanent roost for the chickens, and installing nest boxes for our ladies. We purposely left nest boxes out for a while since this is supposed to keep them from thinking the nest boxes are a good spot for sleeping.

We'll start with the insulating.  We didn't think this was such an urgent thing since we were a ways off from winter, but while doing the insulation, we were amazed at how much cooler the insulated panels were than the non-insulated panels (well, duh...).....and I was getting really tired of the insulation/wood pile under the cedar tree.

Insulation/scrap wood pile under the cedar tree (most of the wood is behind the insulation).  Olive isn't part of the supply pile, but she's often found under the cedar tree keeping tabs on the local red squirrel population.

Here's the uninsulated ceiling.  We really like the way this looks, so maybe that has something to do with our lack of motivation to insulate it as well....but the comfort of our ladies won out in the end.

When we went in to start working, we found this pile up happening.  That's our little girl, Sheila on the left, then Freckles (she's ridiculously friendly), and Nina is stretching it out. 

We've been trying to handle them as much as we can so that if we need to for injury or illness sake, they won't be difficult to work with.  It's a rough job, but someone's got to do it.

I can't believe I'm even showing this disaster.  This was our first attempt -- craptastical.  We learned a lot, and we were able to reuse a lot of the boards on the future attempts.

Looking much better -- still not perfect, but we're still in serious training here.  This was the end of day 2 -- after the first day's attempt (see above), we had to call it quits and recover with a cocktail on the deck.

The chop-saw sometimes becomes your makeshift DJ booth while rocking out.  This was the final day, on the final panel -- morale was much higher this day.  Side note -- much of that scrap wood will be our kindling for our wood stoves this year. Stacking functions.

While I was busy rocking out on the chop saw, Anna had the joyful job of cutting up and installing the insulation.  We went with a rock based insulation -- no fiberglass to contend with, and it isn't ruined if it gets wet (not that it would in our fortress of a coop).

Insulation installation station.  Like a boss.  

Lookin' good!  This is our last panel, and we couldn't be more pleased.  Pretty sure the flock was pleased as well -- they were tired of being forced to be outside.  They're just like children...you tell them they can't come inside, and all they want to do is come inside...typical.

Like a glove!  It may not be professional grade, but we're pretty happy with the outcome

YAY! We're almost done!

The finished ceiling.  Mighty fine if I do say so myself.  

Next, we wanted to add a more permanent roost.  We had a temporary roost for the chickens but they have been quickly outgrowing that makeshift roost....and one may have fallen over in the middle of the night.  Whether or not chickens were involved in the roost collapse remains a mystery, but let's just say that no one wants anything to do with that roost anymore...despite our repairs.

The new and improved roost -- it is easier for them to roost on round surfaces, so why not use a log?
Stacking functions.

The ladies enjoying their new roost.  It has been fun to watch them figure out how to get up there.  As they get bigger, it will get easier, but for now sometimes they make it just by one little toe.  PS -- check out Sheila's pantaloons...amazing and adorable (she's on the far left showing you her booty).

The ducks are pretty pleased with the new roost as well.  You can clearly see who's male and who's female here....they're all getting along fairly well so far.  Keep your fingers crossed. Here, I think they're watching the chickens on the roost to see if they're going to fall on them in the middle of the night.

The next big task for the inside of the coop is to install nest boxes and hang the feeders/waterers.  We needed nest boxes on the floor for the ducks, and raised up for the chickens.  I'm thinking nest box apartment complex. Done and done.

We were all business this day, so the only photo we have is of the end product.  It took us a couple hours, so we can't complain.  The bedding will get trampled down as the ladies come and go.

Last task -- hanging the feeders lessens the chances that the birds will perch on them and poop in them. The nest boxes double as a platform for holding the chicken watering receptacle.  Stacking functions. The ducks make a REALLY big mess of their water, and we don't want the sensitive chickens to get sick from it....unlikely, but better safe than sorry.  The orange bucket is the duck waterer -- they like to stick their entire bill in the water to clean our their noses, and the chickens don't like this waterer, so it is an easy way to separate the two waterers.

Last but certainly not least -- it is a really good thing we were about to install nest boxes.  The day before we did it...this happened.  Go Fern!  She's our only mature female, and she's a duck (on the left in the picture 3 above -- the duck without the green head).

Go Fern, go!  We are so excited.  We have fresh eggs...er, egg.  I also love that the shell is slightly green tinted. It was delicious and nutritious...the yolk was a beautiful deep yellow.  Hopefully she'll find the nest boxes for her future egg laying endeavors.

Chicks part deux

Now that they're about a month old, I figured we should finally post something about our new chickens.  We lost our first batch of chickens to what we believe was a fox, and we're ready to look to the future of new, healthy chickens!

We ordered 8 new chickens from My Pet Chicken, and we decided to get all new varieties so as to start fresh.  The chickens arrived on a Tuesday at about noon (less than 24 hrs after they left the hatchery), and two of them were dead when we picked them up.  One of them didn't look too hot, and it died over night.  Then, a fourth one died on Thursday.  This hatchery refunds you for losses, but this was ridiculous...especially considering how quickly they arrived!  The woman on the phone was very nice, and they refunded our losses and paid for shipping us new chickens.  Because of order minimums, we ordered 8 more chickens -- these also arrived less than 24 hrs after leaving the hatchery.....and two of them were dead on arrival.  W.T.F.  According to the website and the customer service people, they only see deaths about 1% of the time -- hmmmm.

Despite our rough start, we have 10 happy healthy chickens....

Here's a group of 5 on the day they arrived. :)

They're a bit older now, though...

This is Freckles, a Barred Rock -- named by our nephew. :)

This is Nina, another Barred Rock.

Sheila -- she's a White Cochin.  She is the runt of the bunch, but she makes up for it with attitude. She has feathers on her feet and has stolen our hearts.

This is Chewy, aka Fluffy Butt, aka Miss Featherbottom, aka Dr. Featherbottom, Esq. She's a Light Brahma and obviously also has feathers on her feet.

This is Sal, a Speckled Sussex.  So beautiful as adults.

This is Amy, another Speckled Sussex.  She runs in circles....yeah.

This babe needs a name.  She's a Speckled Sussex as well.

This is Louis, another Speckled Sussex.  She was exploring from day 1.

This is Maren, a Silver Cuckoo Maran.  Her eggs could be dark chocolate brown!

Last, but certainly not least, this is DiDi.  She's a Speckled Sussex as well.

We're really happy with our new ladies, and they're starting to get really sassy.  They've been spending all day outside in the temporary (and newly reenforced) chicken pen, and they're loving it.  We spend every early evening having cocktails and chicken time -- we sit in the grass rehashing the day's work and catching bugs to feed to the chickens.  We are happy to report that they love green heads, ticks, slugs, and Japanese beetles.

We're anxious for them to grow into fully feathered adults so we can introduce them to the ducks and have all our birds living full time outside.  The introduction is sure to produce at least one blog post -- it could get interesting...

Poultry fence and generally epic updates...

This is going to be a pretty long post -- you've been warned.  I'll try to keep it easy to get through with lots of pictures and not too much text.  Basically, there are a ton of things that I've wanted to post about for a while but haven't managed to do it.  So -- I'm putting them all in one post....whoa.

First things first -- the poultry yard fencing.  After the chicktagon went up, putting up a permanent fence was the next thing on the agenda.  After we lost our chickens, we knew we really needed to do this ASAP to avoid a repeat fox performance.  We managed to find some cedar fence posts on Craigslist (literally the tops of cedar trees from a shingle company), and we were hoping to borrow a neighbor's post-hole digger attachment for the tractor.  It turns out our 3-point hitches aren't compatible, so we were on the hunt for a post-hole digger and a trench digger.  There is not a single place in the midcoast region that rents a post-hole digger tractor implement, so we're stuck renting something else.  After exploring many options, we ended up with a post hole digger and trench digger that attach to a small Bobcat.  We need the posts to go down at least 2 (preferably 3) feet, and we wanted to bury the fence at least a foot to prevent animals from digging under the fence to get at our ladies and gents.  So...here goes....

The before -- chicktagon on the right, fenced in pond on the left in the back.

Anna drives the trench digger over to the  fence site.  She's badass.

Trench digging like a pro -- this thing made our lives MUCH easier.  We would still be digging trenches if we were doing it by hand.  It couldn't handle all the rocks, but it did manage to move a sizable number of sizable rocks. :)

On to post-hole digging.  We decided with the first hole that it was best to dig the hole, then put in the pole.  We're working in a really wet area, and we didn't want the holes to fill up with water before we had a chance to put in the posts.  We are filling in around the posts with a mixture of lime and gravel.  We read that this mixture is better than concrete in wet areas because concrete actually absorbs the moisture and holds it next to the post, which speeds the rotting process.  We don't want that -- mostly because we don't want to do this again....ever.....or at least for a long time.

You knew it was coming.  He just makes it so easy. Clearly, he's not afraid of the Bobcat.

Making sure the posts are at least close to level.

End of day 1 -- trench dug, 24 posts in, 1200 lbs of gravel put down -- total exhaustion. We most definitely deserved that gluten free beer in the outdoor shower. :)

Day 2 -- 200 ft of 6-ft welded wire, another 1200 lbs of gravel, 400 ft of rough hewn cedar boards, and a race against the tropical storm. Rain in the forecast for the afternoon -- we couldn't pick up the fencing until 10:30 -- bring it.

End of day 2 -- all the fencing is up, we even made a separate section for Inga (Russian tortoise).  This section will also be the adolescent/sick chicken/duck area. This day was even more epic than the first -- it rained on us a bit, but not too much.  At the end of the day when we were filling in the trenches, I almost kicked Anna's butt when she told me she was having fun filling in the trenches because we were "rolling around in the mud." I was so tired, I was at the point of crying, and I hate hate hate shoveling (maybe why I like no-dig permaculture?).  There was nothing fun about it.

So the gate location was on uneven ground -- answer -- purposely make a crooked gate.  I'd say my woodworking skills are improving.  This gate required both mitering and beveling.  I kind of love it.  We buried a chunk of cedar post under the gate so it won't wear down over time creating a gap under the gate.  

YAY!  Olive is also happy that the heavy machinery fence building is done....except that the chicken yard was one of her favorite playing spots.  I'm sure she'll find a new one. :)

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Moving right along -- one thing we've learned is that farming/planting can be a serious lesson in patience.  Good thing we both already have a yoga practice, or we may be even more impatient than we already are.  We have been doing a ton of planting in the past few months, and I'd like to call this section, "Things we've planted that might, just might, give us something in the next 3-15 years"....yes, 15 years. There are also some things we've planted that won't take that long, but still...

This is American Persimmon - it's native to the US, but few people grow it.  When the fruit is ripe, it is delicious, but if you pick it too soon, it is tarty tart tart!  We have 4 of these, and maybe we'll get to taste some in 5+ years.

This is a Pawpaw - also native to the US, as far north as us!  It is more common in the midwest and mid-Atlantic regions.  If you live there, be on the lookout!  This gem is also known as the Custard Apple -- it tastes like a combination of banana, mango, tropical goodness.  It doesn't like to be transplanted, hence the leaves look like crap, but notice the new leaves at the top! YEAH!  This baby (and it's 3 siblings) will hopefully give us fruit in 10+ years.

This is the Pawpaw flower. It is staaaaanky and pollinated by flies. Photo credit: www.carolinanature.com

This is the fruit -- it is the largest North American fruit.  It probably hasn't been very popular because it has a very short shelf life.  It makes a great smoothie base! :) Photo credit: www.examiner.com

Here's what it looks like inside.  The seeds are not edible, actually poisonous, but look at the custardy goodness! Photo credit: www.tcpermaculture.blogspot.com

This is our row of cylons...there are many copies.  We grafted a bunch of apple scion wood (hence cylons) onto some root stock. The scion wood is the new growth that gets pruned off in the spring.  We took a grafting workshop and came home with 10 grafts -- it looks like they're all making it, but only time will tell.  These may give us fruit in the next 4-5 years. They are mostly rare varieties found in Maine.

Olive in the cylon patch.  She's very brave.

This is a pear tree.  We got it from Fedco at the tree sale.  I'm optimistic it will give us fruit in 3 years (a short wait!).

The strawberry patch -- which needs to be weeded, but that's another story.  We got the roots from the Fedco tree sale.  These would give us fruit this year, but since they're perennial, we're pinching off the flowers in order to encourage the plants to get better established root systems.  It is tragic to pinch off the flowers, but it led me to smell the strawberry flower.  If you've never done it before, you simply must.  It smells like yummy sweet strawberry goodness. Our plan is for the strawberry patch to expand a bit each year until it takes over this entire hill. We can eat strawberries next year.

Asparagus!  We planted about 75 plants, and we were looking forward to our lush asparagus forest.  It isn't so lush right now.  Tragically, we recently learned that most varieties aren't self seeding.  So, it won't expand into the thick forest we were hoping for.  Either we'll keep planting, or we'll look for a variety that spreads.  We can't eat these puppies for another 2 years.  It is torturous.

This is Hablitzia -- it's a perennial spinach vine.  We've planted under the deck, and it's going to crawl up the outdoor shower. The dogs kept trampling it, but now it's better...sort of.  You can see the squished cage.

This is a perennial arugula.  We just transplanted it a couple days ago, and the roots weren't the best.  Hopefully it will pull through. We've started a perennial vegetable bed in our terraced garden figuring that it gets warm first so we'll get lots of delicious greens early in the spring.

These are Egyptian walking onions -- a perennial onion.  The bulbs at the top get so heavy that they flop over onto the ground.  That roots, and the plants 'walk' around the garden.  

This is Water Celery -- ducks love it, and we can eat it too.  It can be quite aggressive in wet areas, so we're keeping it contained in a pot -- which will have to get much larger.  It is right next to the outdoor shower, so it gets watered every time we shower. :)

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Moving on....I told you this would be epic.  Now, just some things we've noticed around the farm.

This is the view of our field right now -- the lupines and other wildflowers are busting!  We love it...but not as much as some other ladies living here....

When we stepped outside this morning, we couldn't help but notice a humming in the field.  We were wondering if it was just the sound of the bees on all the flowers.  It appears it was.  They're working so hard, and it is pretty awe inspiring to watch them coming and going from the hive.

Here they are in action -- you can see some of their very loaded down legs.  I'm not sure how they can manage to fly with all that pollen!

Don't know who this guy is, but it was really pretty.

This is a spittle bug removed from the spittle (seen top left).  I have never seen one before, so I checked it out while we were watching the bees.

Lots of low-bush blueberries around our hives and in the field.  Can't wait for these babies to turn blue!

Given we have to pinch off all the flowers on our planted strawberries, it is really nice to find a bunch of these wild strawberries in the field. YUM!

Our flowers are loaded with Giant Swallowtails.  They're so beautiful.

And, just to prove it isn't all sunshine, butterflies, and rainbows over here....

We cut and stacked some wood....and it fell over. :(

Our omnipresent trash pile.  We still have to insulate the coop ceiling, but we need the insulation to dry out before we can do that.  I know, we could move it inside, but that's too easy.  So, we have a trash pile....classy.

I took a break from writing this (and other things -- I'm multitasking) to refill my....water, yes, it's water.  This is what I found outside.

Farm manager -- relaxing under a bench.

Olive -- hot, happy, tired, and dirty.

Last but certainly not least -- my wife...planting veggies topless.  Like I said, we keep it classy. :)

 OK -- I think that's it for now. Thanks for sticking with it.  Look forward to an upcoming post about...slugs. :)