Sunday, April 18, 2010

Teenage chickens and veggies galore!


Pouf (on the left) and Milkshake (on the right below) are both showing really pretty coloring. It is hard to see on the picture of Milkshake, but the kind of golden caramel color around her head outlines the edges of her feathers so she has kind of what they call a "laced" pattern. We are still not sure if Pouf is male or female but I'm still thinking maybe male - but only time will tell!

Cadbury is also a laced pattern - she has black feathers with a silver outline. Amelia for all her bravery is rather dull looking - her body is mostly a kind of ashy gray with a sort of golden layer over the gray and then black feathers on her head.
She looks like she is getting kind of a ruff or beard of feathers around her chin- that may give her a bit more style! What lady doesn't look better with a beard! :)



Not only are the chicks growing but so is the garden! It has rained for a week and the garden has been loving it. The asparagus that I planted has shot up so I was able to fill in the bed with dirt around the little stalks and they are ready to just grow for a year and hopefully put down strong roots and have some I can harvest next year. The spears are so thin right now that they are about half the size of a pencil - next year they should be a little bigger. I am so excited to have my own asparagus!

The tomatoes have set tiny fruit the size of a pencil eraser (below right) and there are quarter sized heads of broccoli also forming on several of the plants. The tomatillos are loaded with flowers and are also setting fruit - that is the little green thing that looks like a paper lantern. I love tomatillo salsa and chicken enchiladas verde so hopefully I will be making some with my own tomatillos this year! I need to find out what to do about the plum tree - the branches are so loaded with fruit that they are bent way over - so I think I need to probably removes some fruit from each branch to keep the branches from breaking as they ripen and to allow the tree to put more energy into the remaining fruit. My daughter is thrilled - she was very disappointed last year when we didn't get any plums.


1 comment:

  1. That's a heck of a garden you have going there! And the chickens are really looking great. All these pictures remind me I need tomatoes for the great 'Upside Down Tomato Experiment'!

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