The Rab Farm // October 2017
So there’s a lot happening around here. Chickens seem to being going through a small molt. Not fun because that means less eggs as they use energy to produce new feathers. We still have plenty of eggs but I don’t like the ratio we’re getting daily. I’ve increased their feed and added in some protein in forms of scrambled eggs, pumpkin, and a few other things. With some cooler weather coming, the extra food will help them stay warm.
The chicken run is pretty much now just dirt as they’ve eaten all the grass. Plan for the spring is to make a grazing area that has wire over it so they have access to some grass and other things I plant but can’t rip up the roots and ruin it. They still get to graze during the day but I’m not 100% comfortable leaving them out in the yard if we’re not home. There’s a hawk that circles every single afternoon looking at my hens. Not happening!
The flowers are pretty much done for the summer. I have a second batch of zinnias growing and I’m hoping that they live and grow a little more. I’ve loved having fresh cut flowers in the house. I’ve already made my list of bulbs to plant, I just need to order them! If you want to plant bulbs for spring blooms, you should plant in the fall. I’m ordering from Blooming Bulb and they’ve got a great selection and are “guaranteed to grow”! Bulbs are easy to work with and last a very long time. In some climates, bulbs are recommended to dig up each year, but here in Louisiana they are kind of the set-it-and-forget-it flowers.
The fall garden is a work in progress. The pumpkins pretty much failed. We’re not digging them up yet but we sure have learned some things about them. We have tomato plants a plenty and some tomatoes but they seem to be taking forever to ripen. The propagated tomato plants are growing! I was so excited to find two little cherry tomatoes on the plant, then very disappointed when there were a couple caterpillars eating them. Other than that, the garden has spinach, a few types of lettuce, a few types of carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and a couple types of herbs. We halved the garden and did 3 rows of those items and are repeating 3 more rows of the same things this weekend. We didn’t want our harvest to be too crazy big. So now we can have a variety for longer. We’re excited to see if this works.
Before the “winter” there’s a few things left to do for the chicken coop, the run, and the garden, but it’s not much and things seem to be set. There is already a plan for spring 2018 and we’re so excited about it! What will you be planting this fall or next spring?
