Hello everyone, I know you all are still reeling from the Eggsperiment and its surprising findings. Okay, so maybe it was not that epic, but as we speak, egg prices continue to rise and backyard flocks continue to be protected (seemingly) from the flu epidemic. I say that is a success so far and our $4 a dozen eggs, which are the best around, don't seem so expensive now.

While we are lacking pictures on this one, I'll give you a little tour around the farm departments to see what is going on. UPDATE: PICTURES ADDED

Animals - well we bought three pigs - Mike, Todd and Emma - who are residing on a friend's farm. As a boarding agreement, they will get one of the pigs. We just could not put the infrastructure in place to make it work this year. They are doing well and doing what pigs do!  

Also, we are in the turkey business.  We have partnered with our oldest son, Xander, to raise turkeys. At this time we have six poults (i.e. turkey chicks) that are getting bigger every day. We got them out of the brooder and hope to get them on pasture soon. We had two casualties thus far, which is a learning lesson for all, especially Xander. Also, we are hoping we get a few to hatch out the of incubator as we took a gamble on some discounted eggs from a local hatchery. Fingers crossed.

On to chickens, the core of our operation. Egg production is down a bit, likely due to temperatures and feed restrictions. We are still getting 15+ eggs a day. We caught one egg eater and sent her to Stewpot University. We believe we still have another, but just have to catch her. We also had the flock turn on one of their own and beat her to submission. She is out of the flock and recovering, but will likely need another home after she recovers. There are thirteen birds waiting to graduate to the big leagues as they are getting acclimated to the flock in a temporary home in the fence. Eight of these are our first hatchlings, which we have an affinity to for sure. Blackbeard is a particularly handsome fella, but not sure how Charlie will like the competition. The other five are Cuckoo Maran pullets that we purchased to add some color to our egg rainbow. Of the thirteen, we have at least 3 cockerels and possibly 5. 

In the winter coop, we are growing out our second hatchlings. This group consists of 23 incubator chicks, 10 chicks from Momma Sally and 5 Welsummer chicks we purchased, again for color in the egg rainbow. They are still adjusting to the winter coop, but are loving getting out side to be chickens.

We are five weeks into our second batch of meat birds and are looking to have 80+ meat birds ready the second week of July. Hit the SALES button in the upper right corner to order. We sold out of our first batch, which left our freezer a bit bare. We had quite a bit of attrition in our first batch--from 60 to 43 birds--and we haven't quite figured out what occurred.  This batch is doing MUCH better--from 90 to 84 birds--and none lost since put on pasture. Rock on! We will be doing one more batch to finish the third week of September. Let us know if you want to fill up the freezer with delicious chicken before the snow flies.

Apiary
Lots of disappointment here, but also some hope. Really only one hive survived the winter and it is the feral swarm we caught last year. They are doing well and we actually gambled and split them last weekend to get back to two hives. Why only two? Well the two packages of bees we drove all the way to Jackson, MI to pick up did not work out. The first absconded after only a few days and due to illness in our house, we missed their swarm. The other packaged did not thrive and left that hive as well. It is possible the queen did not make it or they did not accept her. We did collect some honey following winter. We are really thinking of getting a mentor to assist us with this.

Front Square Foot Garden
Peas are getting picked, radishes are weird this year, garlic scapes have been plucked, asparagus was delicious, and strawberries are in full flush. Beans are growing and things are looking good overall. Diana just harvested some herbs and has them drying in the house in numerous bunches.

Back Garden (new addition!)
This one has been a work in progress. THE CLAY HERE IS RIDICULOUS! Last year we let it go, seeded it with cowpea, daikon radish, clover and various other things and ran the chickens on it. Afterward, we covered it in degraded hardwood mulch. We tarped it over winter (see the Mark Bernstein post) and it worked great! However, there was no significant change in soil structure. I got out the broadfork, A.K.A. The Wolverine, and went to town on the rows aerating them. This loosened the soil and we planted in the 30 inch rows, similar to Jean Martin Fortier, the Market Gardener.  

Thus far, weeds are coming up, but slowly. The plants are beginning to get over transplant shock and direct seedings are growing well.  A sprinkling of worm castings and drip irrigation line were the final touches. I am adding old paper feed bags in the rows and covering them with mulch to block weeds. This carbonaceous weedblock should break down and add to the garden structure. I plan to add some humic acid to get soil biology going and then play with other amendments (i.e. epsom salt, more mulch, etc.). We are taking a no-till approach to the back garden and will focus our soil structure adjustments on using The Wolverine.

As far as what we have planted you ask? Well we have too many tomatoes for sure, but they are in. Copious amounts of peppers, two types of zucchini, patty pan squash, two types of bush beans, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, dill, basil and also fennel. I have went hot and heavy on the squash this year. The pumpkin/melon patch should provide great pumpkins for the kids to carve and possibly sell, as well as watermelon and two types of cantaloupes. Then comes the random plantings. I have winter squash and other "viney" things all over the place. Using some of the edges of our property, I have planted a number of varieties to try: butternut, acorn, Sibley squash, long pie pumpkins and some others that I cannot remember the names. I'm sure if there is a bounty of squash, you will see pics in the fall.

Finally, we tried some potato towers.  While I don't intend on building them up, I made three fenced in mounds with straw and some soil and am trying to see if this works to make a good harvest of potatoes. It is an experiment, but we shall see.

Quite a bit going on as you can see. More chicken processing is happening in the near future as batch two comes to a close. Yes, we do process our own chickens. That is another blog post. Let's just say that Diana plays a mean chicken carcass trombone. Until next time everybody!

Trevor

Most of you should know who Mark Bernstein is. If not, he is the son of the super-lawyer Sam Bernstein and is all over television during a Detroit Tigers game.  How was his face so helpful to Dandelion Hills?  You shall see!

This is the backyard garden. Our hope was to utilize the area in 2014, but that proved not to be possible. Even though we broke up the ground with a Harley/box rake last fall, the ground was unmanageable even in the wettest part of the spring. The reason . . . clay! The soil on our two acres has turned to compacted clay following its previous years of heavy farming and then several years of neglect. While weeds are slowly working to improve the soil, we would like to expedite the process. First, we sowed a number of helpful plants including different clover varieties, field peas, mangels, and daikon radishes (soil-busters). We then covered the entire area with a healthy blanket of organic hardwood mulch, which we acquired from some guy we know. As the clover and peas began flourishing, we ran our young laying hens through here. The only problem resulted from the fact that the foliage was so thick that it hid the first eggs from our layers, since the silly chickens would rather lay in a natural setting instead of our makeshift nesting box.

That is how we left it for most of the summer. Then in the fall it was time to cover the area. This follows the methods of Jean Martin Fortier and his wife, as laid out in their book "The Market Gardener." This is a very interesting and easy read on how to set up some systems in your backyard to improve production. He believes that soil should be covered in the winter to protect it from erosion and to help improve breakdown of organic matter underneath. This will draw in worms and other creatures you desire to help your soil. He uses silage tarps, found on most farm product websites, but I kept delaying on purchasing the stuff as I wondered if there was a better option. Then I came across . . . old billboards.

In my research online, I stumbled across the idea to use old billboard vinyls as a ground cover. They used to be free to whomever wanted to take them once "expired," but this is not the case anymore. I found 14' by 48' vinyls for $50 from a local advertiser. (The picture above has five of them laid out on our plot.) As many of you have now guessed, one of these vinyls may or may not have Mark Bernstein for University of Michigan Regent on it. Thanks for your face Mark! He is face-first into our dirt and organic matter as the key part of these vinyls is on the backside.

These vinyls have the desired advertising on one side, but the backside is black vinyl. In the spring, this black will absorb the sun and heat up the soil underneath to temperatures that will notify all seeds that it is time to germinate. Since we haven't planted anything, we will refer to most of these germinating plants as undesirables. After doing so, they will break through and meet the vinyl. The lack of sunlight will lead to them dying out since the vinyls will not be removed for quite some time. With most undesirable seeds germinated, than one big problem is gone! When the vinyls are removed, we hope that the soil will be much more workable, lacking weeds and ready for production. Fingers Crossed.  

If I could go back, I would have primed the soil underneath with soil amendments to encourage breakdown and add to the soil. Items such as additional organic material (i.e. leaves, straw, manure), coupled with molasses and/or other amendments (you can even use milk!) would have only added to the soil bounty in the spring.

We are hoping to divide this plot up into ten sections and run a mini-Market Gardener plan on this plot. Fortier has ten rotating plots that are the size of ours, so we will use our one plot and divide into ten areas. If all goes well, we will look at adding another plot.

- Trevor

Here are some random things that have occurred around the farm since the fall update:

The eventual back garden, which we will use for most of our annual production, covered with tarps for the winter. Check back for a future post that explains why we are doing this!

The bees are tucked in for the winter. We have our fingers crossed that they will survive since we had so much fun with them this year. What you see is old lumber tarps from a local lumber yard wrapped around steel t-posts with the black side out. The hope is that the tarp will provide wind protection and the black will absorb heat and create a warm pocket for them. The open side is the south side, which is where the sun will be shining from . . . when it is shining.

Ya for eggs! Production has increased and despite lack of sun and cold temperatures, we will get up to ten or twelve eggs a day; however, this was only after we found their hiding spot. We thought five eggs a day was what we were going to get, until we determined the sneaky hens had a secret stash. We missed a grand total of 39 eggs before we caught on. Needless to say, the dog and new kitty are happy we missed them as we cook the eggs up and off them as a treat every other day or so.

The new shed was finally finished. Huge thanks to my father and father-in-law for their help. Look forward to a post on this shed where I breakdown why it looks like a baseball field press box and some of the materials we used. We still are missing the double doors, but it's tarped off for the winter . . . and already full!

The Winter Coop.  Another post will explain what we did here, but we had to have a winter housing option for the hens and this is the direction we went. It is actually a carport with a ventilation hole in the top. The future post will show you the inner confines of this hen sanctuary.

This is a fodder system for turning dry seed into sprouts for the chickens. In the winter they do not get much fresh food from foraging so we are setting out to make it for them. In doing so, we also hope to save on some feed costs as sprouting seeds can turn one pounds of seed into 5-6 pounds of feed. While still a work in progress, we have successfully increased the yield by at least double. More fine tuning should get us closer to the desirable mark of 4-5 times more feed. The fodder system also greatly increases the nutritional value (vs. feeding seeds) for the chickens. A future post will explain how this came together for ZERO DOLLARS!

More to Come!

Trevor

Most of you have been introduced to our first fifteen egg-laying ladies.  No eggs yet and not expected for another 6 weeks or so.  They are enjoying their time out on pasture, enjoying their chicken tractor and love being in the compost area.  We do throw some food on the pile, but they will spend a lot of their time on this pile getting bugs and other delicacies.  We will be putting them to work soon as we have decided not to utilize our second garden spot as the soil was too low in nitrogen and rock hard clay.  We sowed a number of seeds on the plot (i.e. buckwheat, mangles, clover, field peas, "soil buster" radishes and others) to work on breaking up the soil and adding nitrogen.  We then covered it in mulch, which will hopefully break down a bit and add some topsoil to the mix.  In a couple of weeks, the pullets will be in paddocks on the garden and they will get to work eating the seeds and greens and dropping their own nitrogen all over the place.  If all goes well, we will have much better soil ready to go for next year.

Because we are crazy, we felt this was not enough.  The chicken tractor has enough roost space for over thirty, so why not?  We decided that in addition to getting 50 or so meat birds, let's get a few more pullets.  So we have added fifteen more ladies to the bunch for a total of thirty.  They were already 5 weeks old, so we saved on brooder time and feed and only kept them in for a week before we tested them out in Baxter's dog kennel.  We then moved that kennel in with the original fifteen pullets to help with them getting acclimated before letting them out.  They were small and they would go in and out of the electronet fencing.  Not to mention, they continuously get bullied by the older pullets.  That's what they call it a "pecking order."  Due to age differences, we only got Black Star/Black Sex Links and Araucanas/Easter Egg Layers.  The Silver-Laced Wyandottes at the hatchery were much younger than the other two breeds.

Like I said before, we also got 55 meat or broiler chicks.  The hope was to get 50+ Cornish Cross birds, but Duck 'N' Coop Hatchery, where we get them from, did not have enough.  So some of these chicks are also Freedom Rangers (they are the more brown looking chicks).  

We have lost four of these chicks through the process of brooding.  Expected losses should have been more like two, so we are analyzing what we may have been doing wrong.  One thing that has helped is Diana found an excellent organic feed from Raub-Rae Farms in Brown City, MI.  This feed just smells good and the chicks loved it when we gave it to them.  Prior to this, we were feeding them Nutrena feed from TSC.  It was the best we could find that did not have antibiotics in it. We will be raising these chicks in a Salatin-style manner following their brood time.  Joel Salatin has revolutionized pastured poultry by putting his meat birds on pasture, with food supplements, and raising them up to butcher weight in only 6-8 weeks.  His process calls for 80-90 birds in a 10' x 12' pen.  

We decided to do a "half-size" Salatin pen of 6' x 12' to start off.  We got the chicks in there yesterday and despite their initial fear of sunshine, they eventually wandered over to their food and water.  Check out the forthcoming "builds" blog post as I go through the construction of this pen and how it works.  We placed the pen on our front lawn as the lawn there is good for now, but will burn up as the summer heat commences. By that time these guys will be in the freezer, or pretty close and we will put the next batch on a better stretch of lawn.  If you would like to snatch up some of these birds, just give us a call.  We are not keeping all fifty and would be happy to bring in our first dividends for the farm.

Final total, 15 older pullets, 15 younger pullets (all thirty out on pasture) and 52 broiler/meat chicks means chickens chickens everywhere!    

- Trevor

I just had a salad for dinner today.  It was delicious and it had everything to do with the fresh greens from the garden.  Lettuce and spinach are doing well and we are harvesting whenever possible.  Here is a pic of our front raised bed garden, which was established last year.

This was our second raised bed garden as the first one was constructed with leftover treated wood and was on the site of what we are now calling the "back garden."  We are reworking this area for next year.  I built these boxes last spring with untreated wood and followed the methods of "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew.  We did make some "Mel's Mix," from amendments purchased from Will's Greenhouse in Vassar, MI.  One-third compost, one-third vermiculite, one-third peat moss.  We had a good year last year and "freshened up" the boxes this spring.  The silver trellises are electrical conduit I bent and connected together.  Diana tied on the nylon trellis netting and they stand with the help of half buried reinforcement bars (rebar) that fit perfectly in the conduit.  Cinder blocks were used to make a usable boundary, but this has not been overly successful as we had hoped to grow onions and garlic in them.  We are still trying and won't give up on it yet.  Some flowers have done well in them.  The boxes to the left are leftover treated boxes from the back garden.  They have normal soil in them and will only be used for flowers.  

Changes this year include a three foot polyfence as the rabbits ate our beets last year and had already started on some of our greens.  Corners are secured on four foot medium grade fence posts and the yellow poles are fiberglass driveway markers that are woven through the fence for stability.  I made the gates out of ripped 2x4s that were left over from the chicken tractor.  No hinges, just attached with some wire that was repurposed from the old garden boxes.  The gates sit on the cinder blocks and have polyfence hanging down to keep out the rascally rabbits.  One problem: the entire garden sits on weed block.  Not a problem last year and did work as it was a lush front lawn that we killed with vinegar and dish soap.  However, if we were to do it again, we would use the "lasagna" method.  I have seen people use soaked cardboard and newspaper, which I think would have worked and created a natural, organic solution to the weed block.  Oh well, I'm not going to rip it out until those boxes rot out.  


Below are more pics of the plants, most of which have been either direct sown right into the soil, or started briefly indoors and in our small greenhouse.  This made a huge difference this year with our starters as they did not get leggy, as they have the past two years when starting them in front of a window.

In this picture you can see white flags in the middle of a lawn (well, it was a lawn and hopefully will morph into something more in the coming years).  Each flag is a small fruit or nut tree.  Peaches, nectarines, plums, plumcots, apricots, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts are there, just to name a few.  Some currants and elderberries are in there as well.  We will be continuing to add more to this "food forest" as we go and transition this from an annoying yard to mow, to a low upkeep production area.  As the trees grow, we will guild other plants with them so they will grow in symbiosis.  Until then, mowing this annoying lawn actually got a whole lot harder . . . for now.

As we ventured around and learned about the plants on the property, we found a number of rogue volunteer plants that ended up becoming surprises.  After clearing the front overgrown area, we found wild raspberries growing in there.  I guess this makes it a good place to plant berries, so that is what we did.  We cleared the back property of all scrub brush/autumn olives so we could pasture chickens and almost pulled out a hidden apple tree.  Thankfully we noticed and it got to live and was trimmed this spring to start growing in a beneficial manner.

Finally, we have this year's project--next year's garden.  As noted in another post, we had hoped to plant this area for our market garden.  Upon further investigation, we decided to wait and improve it.  It was low in nitrogen and high in hardpan clay.  So we sowed seeds to break up the soil and add nitrogen and also plants that chickens love.  In a few weeks they will be on sections of this garden adding their "nitrogen" to the mix.  Asparagus in the middle has been doing very well and the black color is actually organic hardwood mulch from Grice's Tree Farm and Nursery. Here is to next year and all the bounty this garden may produce.  Our plan is to approach this garden in a format similar to Jean-Martin Fortier, who wrote "The Market Gardener."

There is a lot going on regarding gardens, not to mention the "hugel" mound.  Perhaps we have bit off more than we can chew at times, but it's all getting done and for sure we are avoiding the moniker "analysis paralysis" as we are "doing" a lot and are willing to learn (make mistakes) along the way.

- Trevor

On a day in which my dad was here with his tractor, I had the impulse to have him dig a hole.  Now the hole had a purpose, but it was going to save me a lot of work as I wanted to try my hand at "hugelkultur."  Short version, dig a hole, fill with woody material, mound dirt back on top and plant.  The wood base will work as a water sponge and hold water in place.  We had the woody material from trimming the neighbor's apple trees and ripping out all the grapevine and autumn olive in the front berry garden area.

My dad used the forks on his tractor to "grab" the woody material and place in the hole.  I was in the trench with the chainsaw cutting it down to fit better in the trench.  My dad then used the bucket on the tractor to put a couple of scoops of mulch from tree trimmers in there, put on the old soil and then put some old garden soil from the previous owners of the home (sorry to the rabbits who had taken up residence in the pile).  We had some leftover mulch and sprinkled that on top.  Afterward, we soaked it with water to let the wood get wet.  Wish we would have done that first.  Our extra seedlings have been planted on this, as well as a giant bag of old seeds that may or may not germinate.  Ideally, a hugelkultur bed would have logs and large pieces of wood, but we used what we had and this will be a good experiment.  My guess is that next year it will be even better as it captures that spring snow melt and early rains for the remainder of the year.      

- Trevor

The roadside edge of our property is plagued with invasive weeds--in particular, trees of heaven and autumn olives. While the neighbors have successfully eradicated these "weed" shrubs and trees with multiple applications of herbicides, we have allowed them to grow and thrive on our lot.

In all honesty, we allowed them to stay, in part, due to a general lack of caring. We had been prioritizing other jobs on the property, especially the garden (which we either move or add onto every year) and just hadn't had much time to worry about the plants growing along the road.  Now that we are adding a farm stand along the driveway, though, we decided we should clear away some shrubs to open visibility to the stand. We quickly identified the "problem" shrubs as Elaeagnus umbellate (autumn olive) and the trees as Ailanthus altissima, or  tree of heaven.

Both of these species are excellent in permaculture settings, especially as biomass accumulators. They will grow back vigorously after being cut back. We could use the "chop and drop" method, just lopping off the top of the plants and dropping the branches on the ground to leave as a natural ground cover and edge for native species, or we could keep the wood to use for firewood, trellises, mulch, or hugelkultur.

For some reason I have always really liked the trees of heaven. They are quite beautiful and have a tropical-type appearance, and since we really don't have any other trees on the property yet, we have been very hesitant to cut them down. We also learned that the roots, leaves, and bark of the tree of heaven have been used for thousands of years in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Even modern pharmaceutical companies are researching the trunk and root of this tree as a potential drug. We may experiment making a simple tincture using the root-bark. Outside of gathering a bit of root bark and lopping off the top of the trees, we are allowing the trees of heaven to stay put.

Even more valuable, arguably, are the autumn olives; however, we decided to cut them back anyway, simply because they were completely blocking visibility of our driveway. Luckily, they will grow back thicker than ever and we can continue to harvest their fruit, and chop and drop.

At one time, autumn olives were widely planted by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service for purposes of attracting wildlife and serving as a windbreak. Plants can start bearing fruit in their third year, and just one mature plant may produce several pounds of edible fruit. The ripe, red fruits, which are extremely high in lycopene (15 times higher than tomatoes) are especially favored by birds, who readily scatter seeds. Some farms are even planting autumn olive as a cash crop.  

Need more reasons not to hate autumn olives? They are also great nitrogen fixers and nectar producers. We are considering including autumn olives in the fruit tree guilds of our soon-to-be planted food forest. Get more info on the value of autumn olives as a cash crop here.

Since both of these plants are considered to be invasive and threatening to native species, we would not likely order in autumn olives or trees of heaven and introduce them to our property. But fortunately for us, they are already here.

If you can't beat them, join them!


- Diana