Garden fencing and spring planting

With the warming weather we are finally able to get back outside and start doing some work. Of course one of our big tasks is to get the garden started. For the last few years we have struggled with a way to fence off the garden to keep the chickens and other critters out. We may have finally figured out a way with the use of pallets.

A few months ago I finally found somewhere that we could get a lot of pallets. At first we were going to use them to build a goat pen but we decided to use them to build a fence for the garden instead. They don't look the greatest but they are functional and that's the most important thing.

This is the view from the inside of the garden. As you can see, it needs a lot of work and the pallets aren't that pretty but we think they will work well to keep the birds out. We are using T posts to secure the pallets. Hubby is screwing the pallets together and then adding a T post that is screwed into place for added stability. Oklahoma wind can be brutal so anything we can do to make it stronger is a good idea. We are also doubling the garden area this year so the entire thing will be enclosed with this fence.

You may also be wondering why we are turning the pallets so that the "good" side is on the inside of the garden instead of the outside. Well, when we decided to use the pallets for a fence an idea I saw on Pinterest popped into my head. I have seen pictures of people using pallets as planters by standing them upright and filling the slats on the bottom the pallet with dirt and planting in them. I know it will be a matter of time before the chickens figure out that they can fly up and roost on the edge of the fence and then hop over into the garden. My hope, is that if I plant the outside of the fence with things they can eat, they won't be so tempted to try and break into the garden.

This is the outside of the fence and as you can see, the open slats will make for some great planting spaces. Hopefully they won't eat everything on the outside of the fence and there will be some left over for us.

We have not gotten all of our sand plums planted but the ones that we have gotten in are already beginning to leaf out. We are so excited and we are hoping to be harvesting plums from these trees in a few years. They are native to Oklahoma and tend to form thickets so in some areas we will be using them to help create a living fence.

Sand Plum

We also planted a pear tree this year and it is finally beginning to bud out. It is a Kieffer pear and can reach heights of 15 to 30 feet with a 20 foot spread. This is, of course, a young tree but hopefully we will begin to see some fruit production in a few more years. It is also supposed to be a fast grower and may grow up to 25 inches per year.

We planted this tree downhill from the garden. We are thinking about turning this area into a small food forest area until we can do more planting further back on the property. I plan on heavily mulching this area and taking some steps to build up the soil fertility here. As we add plantings I will keep you guys posted.

As you can see in the pictures, things are slowly beginning to come to life. There is still a lot of work to do and hopefully this will be the start of many new developments.

Who needs TV?

I have said that animals are often more entertaining than TV. The chicks and the geese are proving to be a constant source of entertainment. The chicks are fun to watch as they go about their usual business and I find it amazing at how quickly they are getting their feathers. Being a city girl, this is all very fascinating and the kids are having a blast.

Plymouth Rock about one week old.

Rhode Island Red about one week.

 They have now been moved outside into the chicken tractor so they can have more room and get used to being outside. We have started construction on the coop and I plan on buying the fencing this week so we can get one paddock put up. If we can buy materials every payday, then we can have the entire system set up in just a couple of months. They have actually gotten a lot more feathers since I took these pictures so I will have to take new ones soon. They are almost three weeks old now and it is becoming more apparent which ones are the males.

The chicks in the chicken tractor.

 Right now it looks like we may have about four male Plymouth Rocks and 2-3 male Rhode Island Reds. It's still hard to tell but they are beginning to challenge each other. One interesting thing I've learned is that 5 goslings can out eat and drink 20 chicks. They are also noisier and smellier. Within the first week the geese were going through as much food in 24 hours as the chicks were in two days. That doesn't count the water! We have gone to letting the chicks out during the day so they can eat grass in addition to their feed and they now have use of the 1 gallon water container. They are going through at least half of that a day plus what we put in a large dish for them to splash around in.

We have also started taking them to the creek once or twice a day to let them take a dip and cool off. The temperatures have been pretty warm the last couple of days and they enjoy being able to get in the water to swim around. We will wait about introducing them to the pond until they are bigger. They actually have done very well about staying by the house when we are not outside with them. As long as they have shade and water, they will stay around the house munching on grass. Of course the funny part is how they will follow us around. We have taken to calling them our fuzzy children.

Let's go for a swim!

The garden is hanging in there and I plan on harvesting the Romain lettuce soon. The potatoes are growing like mad and we added some soil to them today. We are beginning to think about what we may want to plant for a fall garden. It's almost June so we have to start planning now. We are also thinking about ordering some berry bushes so we can get them planted this year. It will be a slow process to get all of the trees and bushes that we want but we just have to take it one step at a time.

As we make progress on the chicken coop I will post pictures and keep you updated on the progress of the chicks and geese. In the meantime, Happy Memorial Day!

Potatoes before we added more soil.

Garden Update

Now that the garden has been in for a little while I thought I'd give you guys an update. So far just about everything is doing well. We actually have a few tomatoes  and more blooms are coming out everyday. The romaine lettuce is doing pretty well as you can see.

Here is a picture of one of the marigold flowers.

There are four raised beds that we have planted. We have one more that I think we are going to use to experiment with growing corn. The zucchini and bell peppers have started putting out flowers as well so hopefully we will see something developing there as well.

The potatoes are going crazy! They have popped up all over the place and growing by leaps and bounds. Before much longer I will have to add some dirt to them so they can keep going.

The Potato Bed

I planted some garlic about a week ago and it's coming up already. We have some more that can be planted by we may wait and do that as a fall crop. As the garden continues to grow I'll put up some new pics so you can see the progress. Hopefully our chicks will be here tomorrow. I'll post some pics of them soon so you can see how the little fuzz balls are doing!