Last night was a sleepless night, or a sleep is optional night. I was frustrated when I went to bed because I had opened the hen pen to let them all out a couple hours before dusk figuring all eggs for the day had been laid and since Ms. Houdini and her apprentice were already out and I didn’t want to play hide and seek or fetch to put them away. After it was dark, I turned on the front porch lights and noticed that two of my plants in pots on the front stoop had been dug into, one half dug out and in the grass. And the increase in outdoor work has caused my shoulders to ache at night and I hadn’t taken anything before settling in for the night. While lying there restless, I had an idea on how to enclose the hens’ pen without requiring me to crawl in duck walking to lock them in. The coop is a large A frame with each vertical of the A nine feet long. I figured if I stapled fencing to the frame outside the coop front, strung a ridge line out to a tall pole, I could create an A shaped pen. Because it isn’t framed, it sags some, so a 4′ wide section of the plastic fencing almost totally encloses the outer end.
The six step in posts along the sides hold the fencing to the ground and provide a post to which a length of cord can be tied putting a little tension of the side A’s of fence. The post nearest the camera puts tention on the ridge line. I thought I had it set and came in to prepare dinner. Hubby let the pups out so he could prepare their dinner without them begging and he said one of the hens was in the front yard and the dogs totally ignored her. Drat, that meant there was still an escape hole, so after dinner, a few more places were secured together with cord and another step in post placed to hold the fence to the ground. In all the years I have raised chickens, this is the first group that has insisted on getting on the porch, digging in potted flowers, and tearing up the flower beds. I am still 5 or 6 weeks before the pullets are laying and the mature 8 sent to freezer camp. I really need to dismantle the rotting chicken tractor and figure out how to give the pullets some free range time without them learning the bad habits of the older hens.
Yesterday while digging the comfrey for my friend, I decided that the asparagus solution is a raised bed set on cardboard and started with new crowns. The foot deep raised bed frame was ordered and will be here this weekend. Today I was able to find new crowns and purchased a dozen and the bagged soil to fill the raised bed.
That does mean no harvest next year. I will let the current bed play out until June, then dig it up and use that space for the half barrels with thornless blackberries in it. The new raised bed will be easier to keep weed free and will allow me to finish laying cardboard and mulch in the remaining part of the garden. The Asparagus Crown packages also indicate I have not been treating my current bed right, which could account for it’s dimished output. And the new half barrels of blackberries will give me more fruit with blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, ground cherries, grapes, apples, Asian pears, a peach tree that has yet to provide usable fruit and a plum that has still not produced any fruit. We have plenty of wineberries and blackberries growing wild, but most are difficult to get to until the hay is down and most of the blackberries the past few years have been the small, harder, very tart ones that are slightly bitter and don’t make good jam or cobbler. There is enough space for a 4th half barrel for raspberries too, that would give me 4 of each. And there is still hope for the fig that was transplanted into a half barrel and is beginning to leaf out. I do love my gardens, both flower and fruit and vegetable and trying to put away enough goodies for us to enjoy when fresh food is harder to come by.
I may look to making a wood frame and stapling heavy plastic or looking for old storm windows someone is discarding to see if I can make a cold frame from the deep bed the potatoes are planted in. They will harvest before fall crops have to be sown so we might be able to have carrots and some greens into early winter. With a good crop of potatoes, onions, and garlic, frozen beans and peas, canned tomatoes, peppers, and pickles, some carrots and greens would be very nice until the hard freezes occur.