Holy Chickens!!!!

I ordered my chicken coop Tuesday May 29, 2012
http://chickensaloon.com/the-tavern-backyard-chicken-coop/

We are so excited we can hardly stand it.  The chicken operation will have to remain covert and highly secret.  Apparently the city laws are not chicken friendly.  I however, do know that there are NUMEROUS chickens in my direct neighborhood. Roosters as well, but I digress.

We are sticking strictly to hens, for their eggs. about six little girls. I am planning on going to Grif's in Davie Saturday to check out what breeds they offer.

So we have to wait 7-12 days for the coop to arrive then the man of the house can use his tools once again.
Stay tuned for the adventures of chicken little........

First time farmer

This is our first attempt at growing vegetables in South Florida.  I had vegetables when I lived in Pennsylvania having grown up raising vegetables on a rather large scale in order to can them for winter use. I never actually considered it in Florida as I figured vegetables grown in sand would of course be "sandy". 
We actually started in early May 2012. Self sustainability intrigued us so we decided to give it a try. I googled this and I googled that regarding raised vegetable gardens..... sizes, shapes, material, and such.  Then I turned the construction over to the man of the house. We decided to put our raised garden on the South side of the property as it was in an area that the dogs did not have direct access to and was easy for us to get to. 

What I came home to was three pretty purple boxes, filled with hope and dreams! Next we picked out our seeds and starter kits from the local Home Depot. This in theory was a great idea, in reality - not so much.  Oh they grew, fast and big.  The problem occurred when it was time to transplant them into the actual garden.  The little pellets of dirt did not hold the plant stable enough to transplant.  So plan B was quickly put into place.


We visited a local nursery for established plants.  What we found was a small selection, we got four Cherry Tomato plants and one Banana Pepper plant. I ordered from an online store Tomato cages and other plant cages. I ordered a rain barrel because if you have a garden - you will need to water said garden and what better way to do that then reuse what nature gives.  

I planted the tomato plants and the pepper plant.  Oh and of course I had to have cute little signs to identify the plants. My next task was to find an online store that sold seedlings.  Easy as pie, I ordered two (2) Bell Boy Sweet Pepper plants, one (1) Detroit Dark Red Heirloom Red Beet plant, two (2)  Late Flat Dutch-Premium Heirloom Cabbage Plants, two (2) Summertime Lettuce plants, four (4) Avenger Broccoli Plants and one (1) Bloomsdale Heirloom Spinach Plant.  


I planted carrot seeds on 5/6/2012 and the above listed plants 5/14/2012. Next in were peas and beans on 5/18/2012.  I divided the beans yesterday 5/30/2012.  I also ordered three (3) Long Island Improved Brussels Sprouts, three (3) Snow Crown Cauliflower Plants, four (4) Spineless Beauty Squash Plants and two (2) Fortune Squash Plants yesterday 5/30/2012. 


We have found that the "crops" as we have nicknamed them require water twice a day.  Morning and evening. The weather in South Florida has been pretty rainy so that helps, but the days with no rain and heat wilt our little plants. I set the sprinkler system to go off in that zone each night to help them along.  I will revisit this plan after about a week to determine continuing that.  We have enjoyed the tomatoes so far and the other night I picked two banana peppers. We baked them with fish and mushrooms, I was pleasantly surprised by the taste.  Normally not a pepper fan AT ALL, I really liked them.

 

This was about the fourth picking of the little red gems!  One day I actually caught the city slicker out there with a bowl picking tomatoes.  He put a green bean from a store bought bag in his bowl and tried to convince me he grew a bean.  I didn't buy into it at all, seeing that I had just planted the beans and they had only recently broke ground.