Saturday, January 5, 2013

Winter Gardening: Tin Can Garden Redux

My pea plant was starting to get wild, so I had to move it.  Now that the Christmas tree is down (took it down on Thursday), I had both the table the tree had been on, and room.  So my first move was this:

This drying rack hadn't been used in some time, and it was just taking up space in the basement. With a little cotton yarn, this was easily converted into a growing station.  Well, this was a couple days ago and the plants are thriving in this corner of the room; the tomatoes have doubled in size!

Since i'm also starting a recycling move, I have plenty more clean empty cans - time for more plants.  I currently have two more pea plants, and four of green onions all set and ready to go.  The scene on the table got modified somewhat.

I brought out a second Ott lamp to add more light, and the large planter in the back is for the chickens.  No, I'm not growing chickens in the living room!  What is planted in there is called "Chicken Salad" a seed mix from My Pet Chicken. I won several packets of these seeds in the summer thanks to a contest run by The Chicken Chick. We planted some in the summer, and the chickens devoured the stuff.  Here's the  photo of them, younger and smaller, going to town:

The seed mix contains Dwarf Essex Rape, Purple Top Turnip, Bracco White Mustard, Forage Kale, and Landino Clover.  We have yet to let the mix grow past 6-8 weeks, as recommended on the package - maybe the next round.  I decided it was time to grow the girls some greens, for while they are getting out to peck every day, there's just not much green around here right now. And they love it.

If you're interested in trying them out for yourself, they're available at My Pet Chicken. They've got all kinds of chicken related stuff there as well, including chicken diapers!  

Today's egg count - two.  Got two yesterday as well.

EDIT:

This just came though my Facebook Feed - and what an amazing idea this is! If we'd have known, we'd have had squash that survived this year!  Hand Pollinating Squash. I figure that even though I don't have any planted yet, this line of discussion is the perfect place for it.  And yes, it's going on the "Good Things" page as well!



1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the link on hand pollinating squash. I didn't get one squash last year and was about to just give up. I'm going to give it another try this year by hand pollinating!

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