Beyond gardening, I am raising chicken for the first time. In mid-May, I picked up 20 Cornish cross chicks from the local hatchery. One died a couple of weeks later, though I’m not sure why. I think it had internal issues, and seemed really lethargic.

Happy chicks in the crawlspace

We put the chicks in a whelping box in the utility room underneath the house. While those accommodations worked well for the first month, they quickly became way too stinky for the crawlspace.

My lovely pen.

At about 4 weeks, I built a pen for them out of some old wood we had hanging around. The pen isn’t pretty, but it’s cheap, keeps the rain out, and can easily be taken apart. When I put the chickens out, I was concerned they might be cold, as they hadn’t feathered out completely. However, they did fine, though I noticed that their food consumption went way up.

The chickens at 4 weeks

Dinner

A few days ago, I had a friend help me move the pen onto fresh ground, but in the process we accidentally crushed one of the chicken’s feet. We decided this would be a good time to try out first homegrown chicken. It was delicious! It was definitely leaner that the chicken you get at the store, but in a good way. Still very tender. Here’s the recipe I used to BBQ it.

The rest will be in the freezer soon. Butchering and plucking will be a new experience for me, so we’ll see how it goes!

Having just finished weeding my garden in the rain, I thought it might be a good idea to add a picture of its current state…

The garden at the end of June

The early harvest: kale, mustard greens, and radishes

The transplants for the year

It’s been an incredibly busy summer, and as such, my blogging has suffered. This is my desperate attempt to catch up on what has been happening in the garden:

I planted in mid-May, which is a bit early for Alaska. Luckily, it was a very warm May and the plants did well. This year I experimented with using cardboard as mulch. I had a lot of big cardboard boxes left over from installing cabinets, and decided to lay them over my cabbage, broccoli, and carrots.

The cardboard has been working wonderfully on the cabbages and broccoli that are planted further apart. I simply used a utility knife to cut holes where I put in the transplants. It has eliminated the need for weeding, and does a great job of conserving soil moisture.

The prepared garden

As you can see from the picture below, I had to use large rocks to hold the cardboard down.

The garden in early June

The cardboard didn’t work as well on the carrots. The rows are too close together, and it means that the weeds are able to sneak through one side or the other.

The carrot bed

More gardening updates to come!

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