Chicks and Cukes, Mighty Cute

The chickens come in pretty handy when I have an over-abundance of cucumbers. There are only so many cucumber sandwiches, salads and sides you can serve your family before you hear rumblings of a revolt, "Cucumbers AGAIN!?!" "Why did you grow so many?" Point in fact, cucumbers are pretty finicky, some years I might get three out of the whole crop so I have a tendency to over-plant. Then I have seasons like this one where over-planting is a really bad idea because every plant and its brother flourishes and I get lots and lots and lots of cukes. So I serve them when I can and I pickle what I can then I stare at the remaining lot, overflowing in a five gallon pail. I have discovered that cucumbers are a nutritious treat for chickens. Oddly enough, my rabbits won't eat them, but the chickens love 'em. So I am getting rid of the extras and being entertained at the same time. Trust chickens to turn feeding time into dinner-theatre.

Here's three hens sharing nicely, each taking a turn to peck.

And here's Timbits [formerly known as the chicken Tiny Tim) deciding that sharing is NOT for the birds while two hens, in hot pursuit, try to convince her otherwise. Yes, that's a cucumber Timbit is carrying.

Mandellas enjoying the middles of the cukes and leaving the rinds for the chickens.

Pickles

The days are shorter and the nights are longer and both are much cooler. The green of the garden has been splashed with orange, red and yellow as the pumpkins, tomatoes and sunflowers show off their bounty. The beans and cucumbers are just about done and I have way too many. Sure signs of both a great growing season and pickling time. Whoot. Love my pickles.

I never pickled a thing before I moved here. I had to learn in self-defence or get run-over by over-ripe cucumbers moldering on the floor. With the help of a friend who not only makes pickles but jams as well, my first forays was pretty much successful ~ nobody died of botulism and things tasted like they were supposed to.

I doubt if pickling would have been as easy or accomplished if I hadn't a mentor who didn't mind me calling every 10 minutes to ask questions like "Does the brown sugar have to be packed down when I measure? Do I rinse the salt off after draining? How much water should I put in the canner?" In short I was clueless and she was very patient.

Aside from making bread and butter pickles and an awesome mustard relish, both recipes provided by the above mentioned pal, I have discovered you can pickle beans and carrots. There is one recipe I found that uses green beans, garlic and basil. Every time we are invited to a pot-luck I am asked to bring a jar of "those beans". The dilled yellow beans are pretty good and the cinnamon carrots bring an unexpected dash of colour and flavour to otherwise rather plain meals. This year I'm trying something new, dill pickles. As with all my other pickles, I'll try them first and if I don't die of food poisoning or pickle over/under flavourness, I'll serve them to others.

Pop Ups

Ah, the joys of making my own compost. The process isn't all that 'joyful', throw veggie scraps, weeds, etc. into a homemade composter and shovel it around now and then. Same process with chicken/rabbit manure. Neither, might I add, is a pleasant experience.

The end result, of course, is well worth it. Beautiful compost, rich and earthy smelling and free. Can't beat free. Now that I'm using my own exclusively, I'm getting what I call 'pop ups'. Plants that pop up in places where they have no business being. I discovered the first pop ups last year, they were all tomatoes. This year, more plants have gotten into the act. I still have the occasional tomato plant showing up but now there's the odd cucumber plant, a sunflower or two and the like.

This spring I had the idea to plant cosmos on either side of our driveway. I don't do much by the way of ornamental gardening and I would like to start doing a bit more and I thought this would be an easy way to start. Probably will be the only ornamental garden I'll do unless someone invents a day with 30 hours in it. Of course, when I put the plants in, I used my own compost. And so the most charming of the pop ups happened. A corn stalk grew right next to the cosmos. It even has a corncob. I think the effect is really cool and it does portray the essence of the DaM farm: Looks weird but it works.

Munch, Munch, Munch

One of my favorite chores is feeding the rabbits their daily fresh greens. When they see me coming with my bucket, everybody perks up with interest and excitement, ears get a little straighter, noses get twitchier, eyes brighten up and the heat of the day falls away from the rabbits as they anticipate their cool, moisture laden supper. I dump the greens in and see the scramble. Invariably some over-eager bunny is directly where I dump the food and gets covered in vegetation and has to munch her way out. Often two rabbits will 'share' a leaf or twig. Well, not exactly share, one will be eating it and another will decide that it looks mighty tasty and will start nibbling on it. The first rabbit will start chewing faster and the second will determinedly hang on to his end. In about 30 seconds the drama is over and both move on to other greener pastures.

There's a lot less waste in the garden because of the rabbits. They eat beet and carrot tops as well as any thinnings from those two crops. After the snow peas and beans are spent, they eat the plant. I dry the cornstalks for them after harvesting the corn. They also like sunflower, strawberry and nasturtium leaves, dill, basil, parsley, celery tops, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, mint, chard and raspberry canes. From the lawn, they'll devour dandelion, plantain and clover. And when the end result of their meal shows up, I dump it either in the worm bin or compost box and it will make its way back to the garden where the whole process will start again. Nice little 'circle of life' routine going on there.

Tomatoes and Teepees

I was out tying up the tomato plants the other day. What I want to do is get the lower branches that tend to lay on the ground up a bit so the tomatoes don't become bug infested and rot. There's a lot of bugs in my garden that wouldn't dream of climbing a tomato plant in search of food but will happily dig around in a tomato conveniently on the ground. That works well in the big scheme of things, I suppose. The tomatoes growing high are safe yet if one falls, the bugs will make short work of it. While I certainly appreciate the intricate nature of co-operation in the garden, I don't particularly want to lose part of my tomato crop to the ground bugs.

It's a tricky business, tying up the branches. First of all, they're on the ground because they are tomato laden. So the branches are heavy and they are also resistant to change. They've grown down for a while and don't see any need to reverse direction. So when I lift up a branch I do it carefully, slowly and gingerly because the last thing I want to hear is a snap-crack as the branch breaks because I lifted it a little too much. I'd rather lose tomatoes to the bugs and rot than to my own carelessness. Secondly, I don't want to tie them up too high so that it's almost impossible to get to the tomatoes on the higher, inner branches. It's much easier to harvest when I can actually see what I'm trying to pick.

In the quiet of the garden with just the rustle of leaves and the occasional chirp of a confused cricket, I get to thinking. Or may-be Nature's quiet whisper of wisdom and experience wends its way to me in the garden. Without distractions of daily life and the easy comfort of the garden's quiet growing, perhaps Nature's voice can be felt if not heard. It's easy to see how the tomato plant and teepee depend of each other. There is a co-operation going on without dialogue or intent, it's just there. The teepees themselves aren't very steady, I'm barely able to push them into the hard packed ground more than a couple of inches. The tomatoes are firmly anchored in the earth and give the teepees stability and strength. The teepees support the tomato plants giving them balance as well as supporting the branches weighted with tomatoes. I see this kind of co-operation in nature constantly and it's nice to know I have a small part in bringing it to my garden. Oh so I hope. Tomorrow the remnants of Hurricane Bill will come through and I'll see if I have learnt the art of real co-operation Nature has down pat.

Pretty Comfrey

Five years ago a friend asked me if I wanted a clump of comfrey for my garden. I asked her what comfrey was used for. She answered, "Oh this and that. It comes in pretty handy in most circumstances." I took the comfrey, not quite knowing what to do with it. Now I can't ever see being without it, talk about a plant that can multi-task!

Way back when, comfrey was commonly known as 'knitbone' and 'woundwort' because of its healing properties when it came to broken bones, sprains and bruises. I always have a jar of dried comfrey leaves to steep in boiled water for stubbed toes, bumped knees and so forth. For broken bones, I much prefer casts and slings but when my daughter broke her collar bone and a cast couldn't be used, a comfrey poultice came in pretty handy after a bath and before she put her sling on.

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The kind of comfrey I have is commonly known as Canadian Comfrey and grows quite high, I can cut it down three times a year easy. Which is good because I use a lot of it. A couple of times through the summer I will take a big black garbage can and fill it with cut comfrey, add water, put the lid on tight and let it sit for three weeks. Occasionally, I will give it a stir with a rake or pitchfork just to keep everything aerated. After three weeks, that garbage can just reeks! I have to steady myself and steel my nerves before opening the lid, it's one of the worst smells I have ever encountered. But it's a great liquid fertilizer for my garden, it does wonders for my corn and tomatoes. I take a shower afterwards and leave my rubber boots outside until they stop smelling, that takes about a week. The garden will smell funny a few days too but the plants just love their comfrey tea.

Comfrey also comes in handy for the rabbits. Usually my rabbits will ignore comfrey if I put it in with their greens. But if a bunny is not feeling well, she will eat comfrey if her ailment is a digestive issue. So comfrey helps me diagnose the problem and helps in tummy troubles.

Comfrey is a pretty plant. Mine will grow over five feet high and it sprouts new shoots easily, making it a breeze to propagate. I now have it growing in three different spots and when it gets too big, I cut it down and pop it in the compost box to add a little boost in nutrients. I gave a clump to a neighbour to grow since he was having trouble with an old shoulder injury. He has since started using it as a decorative plant. He says it makes a nice backdrop to his garden. I'm beginning to line one part of our old wooden fence with it and it does look very pretty with it's broad green leaves and delicate purple flowers. The flowers, pale and raindrop shaped, show up in little shy groups at the top of the plants. The dark green leaves brings out the weathered grey in the fence and adds a touch of strength to the washed out color.

Some people do use comfrey internally, usually in a tea or even salads. But a few years ago, a couple of studies came out saying when consistently fed to rats comfrey caused liver problems including cancer. Well hell, anything seems to cause cancer in rats if fed in high enough quantities as far as I can tell. Don't feed it to rats! All joking aside, I just use comfrey externally and avoid the whole issue. Comfrey certainly helps around here in many different ways. I guess I could say it makes life a little more 'comfreytable'.

Drying Stuff or How My Dining Room Became a Jungle

When I was young, I remember house hunting with my parents. Mom (Eileen) always commented on the dining room. A house that had a dining room always moved to the top of the 'potential' list. I got the impression that a dining room added class, prestige and a touch of style. Not in my house, it doesn't, not anymore anyhow. Functionality has overtaken showmanship.

This is a picture of the door of my dining room that leads into the kitchen. Right now you can actually see it. In about two weeks, you won't be able to. I doubt very much if you'd be able to look out the window or the french doors. The table, a beautiful mahogany oval that can sit eight very comfortably will be covered with seeds and pods drying for next Spring's planting. (That's kind of depressing, thinking about next Spring already, so let's not.) In fact, getting through the dining room is going to be an exercise in strategic movement as we try to avoid drying racks and stray branches reaching out into doorways. When people tell you things stop growing once you pick them, don't believe them. I swear things that are hanging above doorways get longer and the next thing you know, they grab you by the hair. Or it could be I do a lousy job tying them up and the knots get loose and the string drops a bit.

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The dining room became my makeshift drying room because it's the only room the works. You need a dry, no direct sunlight room to dry stuff and the dining room is the only room that fits the bill. The only window is north facing and the french doors have the porch roof prevent direct sunlight. I suppose the living room would work but I don't even want to imagine the howls of protest if anything should come between the kids and the TV screen. The big kitchen has too much traffic and the little kitchen is too small. The basement is too damp. That leaves the dining room.

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We're used to it, and don't even give it a second thought. The kids get a little bummed because if Mom has turned the dining room into an aromatic pit they may or may not be able to navigate it means that school must be getting close at hand. Visitors still do a double take when they see raspberry canes heaped on my old greenhouse frame, beans, nasturtiums and cornstalks drying from string, herbs here, there and everywhere. Sometimes I think I should have the Guns and Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle" playing when people come over, just to prepare them a little.