Peeps who garden, keep chickens, etc.

[Cherry]

I just picked up a copy of Mother Earth News magazine at the grocery store! Lots of great articles in it--growing your own food, swapping seeds, and an article on "seed starting" by Nancy Bubel.... Other articles include composting, canning, keeping chickens and guineas and a discussion on compact tractors....

It's on sale until the end of April.... :yes:

[goodhors]

I just picked up a copy of Mother Earth News magazine at the grocery store! Lots of great articles in it--growing your own food, swapping seeds, and an article on "seed starting" by Nancy Bubel.... Other articles include composting, canning, keeping chickens and guineas and a discussion on compact tractors....

It's on sale until the end of April.... :yes:

They always make me feel guilty, because I COULD do all those homey things, and don't. I hate canning, don't want chickens or having to deal with them. Crafts are fun if done as a HOBBY, not your way of life. Too much like when I was a kid, and the canned food was needed to feed all of us.

I do garden, more for flowers than stocking things up. We have tomatoes to snack on, going to the barn. Pea pods also good snacking raw. I ate more raw than we got into the house to cook! Just not willing to give up flower space to the veggies. Husband picks up lots of garden produce and often eggs, on his daily travels and from customers with excess supplies. I love eating it, just not the work to make results happen. I can mulch my perennials, shrubs, tweak a weed now and again, have tons of flowers to pick or look at.

I do like Hobby Farming magazine on occasion. They have articles that make interesting reading, without making me feel guilty.

Good reading to you!

[deltawave]

I flip through that one sometimes at the grocery store--a bit too earthy and sanctimonious for me. :) I do like Hobby Farm, though.

[Cherry]

I've always just looked through it once in a while at the grocery store too, but all the gardening articles suckered me into buying this time. My guard must have really been down that day because I also bought a copy of Vegetarian Times--even though I am not and probably will never be a full fledged vegetarian.... ;)

Chickens aren't for me either! When I was a youngster my parents bought a few chicks for my brother and I at Eastertime--you remember, back when it wasn't illegal to dye chicks???? When the chicks got older my uncle, who lived on the outskirts of town, had to take them because my parents knew there was no way they could kill them and feed them to us (we wouldn't have eaten them if we knew where they came from).... :yes: :winkgrin: :lol:

Although oldsters like us might not benefit from this magazine some of these young whippersnappers may.... :winkgrin: I just glean from them what I can and ignore the rest--just like everything else in life.... :yes:

[1ofEach]

My fiance started getting Mother Earth News over a year ago. We both love it even though we have to ignore quite a bit of ads and little snippets in the articles. I even got him the back issues for Christmas (he asked for it). I also got this neat bread recipe from it that is so simple to make and it keeps very nicely. It is also only like $15 for a year subscription. It was definitely worth the cost.

[Flash44]

We grow the veggies that we eat often - carrots (for the horses!), lettuce, tomatoes, cantaloupes, and red peppers. There is a "pick your own" farm right around the corner, and we go there for what we don't grow ourselves. I buy seeds from seedsavers.org and share what seeds I don't plant with my friends.

[2DogsFarm]

Now there's a Blast From the Past!
ME News - who'd a thunk... I remember when it was in its heydey...
(so much for being coy about my age...)

Anyhow - even when I lived in the Big City I grew some veggies in windowboxes - tomatoes, lettuce, jalapeno peppers and a ton of herbs.
Now that I have my little farmette I have a large (to me) veggie garden and every year I try something new.
This year it will be sweet potatoes!

Tomatoes always, there's no way a store-bought, even from a farmstand, can touch the taste of one you just-picked : - 9
Fuggedabout canning!
I just freeze things in bags w/no processing aside from a rinse off of garden dirt. It is very satisfying to have stuff you grew yourself in the dead of Winter.

I am still hoarding one bag of last year's Roma tomatoes and one last serving of pesto sauce from the basil I grew in a windowbox.

The previous owners left me a perfectly usable henhouse. Fencing is in disrepair and I need someone to do that for me as I am all thumbs when it comes to building stuff.
But from reading all the chicken-related posts on here I have now got it in my mind that 6 pullets need to join the staff of 2 Dogs Farm this summer.

I just got a subscription to Hobby Farms and along with the TSC mag I am feeling positively farmwifeish.

Cherry: I may just have to pick up that ME News....

[JSwan]

Heck, I don't need any of those publications.

I have the COTH Around The Farm forum!:lol::lol::lol:

Actually, I like the Stockman Grass Farmer. I'm not exactly rolling in vast acreages here - but that publication helps me manage the land better.

2DogsFarm - if you get pullets you'll have to change your screen name to: wait for it... UNeedaChicken.

[2DogsFarm]

2DogsFarm - if you get pullets you'll have to change your screen name to: wait for it... UNeedaChicken.

:lol:
I was thinking since they are teenage hens maybe I'd call them.....
The Pink Ladies!

[JSwan]

Ooo - you need Naked Neck Turkens!

Mine lay tinted eggs - a pinkish beige. Truly - Pink Ladies. :)

UNeedaChicken! Come on - you know you want them. What a waste of a perfectly good henhouse!

[nightsong]

I've been a Mother Earth News fan for about 30 years now. LOTS of information on how to make ALL KINDS of things, CHEAP. Organic Gardening magazine is ALSO STELLAR.

E.T.A. they also have discussion forums on a variety of topics. I'm on Green Building.

[Blue Yonder]

Another ME News afficianado here. Love the wide variety of ideas, even if some are way too big/hard/wacky for me to use.

A while back there was a great article -- my favorite ever -- about how to build your own water purifying system. As our next big project is a water cachement system, I'm all over that!

ME News has a really useful website where you can search for old articles, too. Very nice of them to make their stuff accessible.

Mildly OT, I was feeling fairly guilty about not getting the early garden in the ground yet...until we had an out-of-nowhere HAIL STORM the other day. Knocked everything down in the area. So now I'm just feeling pretty smart, watching everyone replant. ;-)

[2DogsFarm]

Ooo - you need Naked Neck Turkens!

Mine lay tinted eggs - a pinkish beige. Truly - Pink Ladies. :)

UNeedaChicken! Come on - you know you want them. What a waste of a perfectly good henhouse!

I totally agree - now I need to find me some 4H kids who need a Poultry Project to redo the fencing...

Urg - the Naked Necks kind of oog me out :dead:
I want purty hens - looking at Black Sex Links and Partridge Chanteclers if I can find them.
The BSL seem pretty common but the Chanteclers less so.
Got any you wanna share?

[JSwan]

Awww.... my Naked Necks have oodles of personality that more than make up for their unfortunate appearance. :lol: I really love my Black Australorps - gorgeous bird, gentle, kind, and a good utility bird. Only one left - but I've got more coming.

There are a few folks that sell pullets - alas, I am not one of them. Yet.

But I do have a rooster you can have. Don't turn your back on him. :D

A friend gave me an old copy of ME News (I think that was the publication) that had a really terrific design for a combination coop and garden. A person could modify that design for any type of facility. I modified it slightly and have what I think is a nice system. (a bit rednecky and everything needs to be painted though)

Anyway, it is really nothing more than having the coop/building in the middle, and a garden on one side and a yard on the other. Behind is a compost heap. You rotate the yard and garden annually or as needed.

Nice setup.

[2DogsFarm]

Awww.... my Naked Necks have oodles of personality that more than make up for their unfortunate appearance. :lol: I really love my Black Australorps - gorgeous bird, gentle, kind, and a good utility bird. Only one left - but I've got more coming.

There are a few folks that sell pullets - alas, I am not one of them. Yet.

But I do have a rooster you can have. Don't turn your back on him. :D

A friend gave me an old copy of ME News (I think that was the publication) that had a really terrific design for a combination coop and garden. A person could modify that design for any type of facility. I modified it slightly and have what I think is a nice system. (a bit rednecky and everything needs to be painted though)

Anyway, it is really nothing more than having the coop/building in the middle, and a garden on one side and a yard on the other. Behind is a compost heap. You rotate the yard and garden annually or as needed.

Nice setup.

Um...NTYVM for the boybird.
I have (mental) scars from a rooster my former trainer owned that used to chase us on horseback.
You learned to break off a big branch before you passed the chickenyard and use it to beat him off.

Sorry - I just cannot get past the ergly nekkid necks - looks too much like Thanksgiving prep to me.

Australorps look nice too - Buff Orps are one of my Backup Breeds in case the Chanteclers are too hard to get.
I figured some kids who wanted to raise show-quality hens for the Fair this Summer might end up with a 2nd rate pullet I could take off their hands. I know I've seen Barred PRs and Leghorns and RIR there, but don't recall the other breeds shown.

Hmmm...since my entire henyard fence needs to come down - even the posts are rotted and the wire is rusted through - I'll layout a plan like you describe. Makes sense to have a compost heap by the henhouse for coop-cleanings.
And maybe let the hens have their own garden so they'll leave mine alone?
:D
I wanted to have the posts high enough so I could stretch some netting over them and still walk upright into the yard myself.
Where are those dang 4hers when you need them!