Germination Determination

Yesterday I attended my first Citizen Gardener class where we talked about everything from compost to seed starting. I started getting nervous after the instructor stated that if we didn't already start our tomato seeds we were going to have to buy transplants because it was way too late to start seeds. Wait what? Are you kidding. My goal is to start everything from seed this year. I really enjoyed the experience of raising the girls from when they were a day old to where they are now and figured if I could grow a tomato, pepper, or pretty much anything from just a teeny tiny seed to something I could eat, I would feel good and accomplished.


After the first garden class(I have two left), I was inspired to get my seeds started. I have to tell you, I am a little intimidated by all of this seed starting, composting, mulching stuff. I am just so green when it comes gardening and no matter how much I read and saturate my mind with all the literature out there, I still feel its like learning a different language. So this spring I'm starting small and will consider it my trial and error period and by the fall I will at least know if I can grow anything successfully. This is really the first time i have ever tried this, so here goes nothing.


I went to a great garden store today and picked out the seeds i need to get started indoors now to grow this spring. The staff was super helpful and I got a great mix of seeds. I went ahead and did it the easy way and bought trays and used a good germinator mix. As of now the seeds I have started are Broccoli, Tomatoes, brussel Sprouts, Serrano peppers, Green peppers, and a Garden candy tomato mix. In addition I will add cucumbers, green beans, okra, carrot, potatoes, Swiss chard, a Mesclun salad mix, and a mix of herbs. I covered my trays with wet burlap to keep the moisture in. I was lucky enough to get about 100 coffee burlap sacks from my friend Jess. He and His wife E own the Austin Roasting Company and he was generous enough to give me all of his coffee sacks. They will be great for mulch and also I am going to try to use them as a weed barrier under my raised beds.  Right now its just a waiting game to see if I will have some green shooting up in a few days or weeks. Fingers crossed.

Seeds Germinating in the Dining room. I have used the burlap to help keep moisture in

Boy meets girl

So here is what happens when the boys discover that they have sisters. The girls like to come up to the back door and the Nug and Viejo want to turn these pretty feathered girls into a boneless skinless delight.


Still researching the best way to go about the introduction.

Free Ranging

And runnin  and runnin, Barb leading the pack

This is Penny. Supposed to be a Black Australorp. But I think she morphed into a Silver Laced Wyandotte

Fried Chicken in the Arctic

The girls/one potential boy have been outside now for about twelve days. So far so good.  It's amazing how much anxiety those chickens gave me in the first few days they were outside.  On the third night they were out it started pouring rain at about 400 am. It woke me up and I stumbled out of bed and checked to make sure their heat lamp was still on. Surprisingly it was. You see, I am running electricity out there via 3 extension cords. I know I know, I probably shouldn't hook 3 cords together as the directions on the cord say, but its the only way right now to provide electricity to the coop. Anyway, 15 minutes later my anxiety got the best of me and I stumbled out of the bed again and peeked through the blinds and the light was off. Great. I grabbed the iphone and checked the weather. Crap. 33 degrees. I peeked through the blind again and I  swear I saw a flash. Great.  I electrocuted them.


I am not scared of many things. In fact only two things will send me over the edge running for safety.  Snakes I can't do and the thought of electricity + water scare the hell out of me. Ever since I was a kid and saw the warning label  on a blowdryer I have been afraid of the thought of anything plugged in coming into contact with water. I know you are all thinking, its a common worry. A good one actually. Hell, no one should be plugging in things when its raining right. But i won't even let a blow dryer be used in the vicinity of me brushing my teeth. Seriously, I worry that much.


So there it was 400 am and 33 degrees and I couldn't fall back asleep. Not only had I electrocuted the girls/one potential boy, but I had no Idea how I was going to unplug the extension cords from the plug without frying myself as well.  Hmmm.  I wondered if wearing my rubber boots would ground it. No, I would be standing in water. Crap. Ok what if I hang on the gate and then in less than a second, in lightening speed  I unplug it. Yep, that might work. I am going to have to be fast though. I replayed this over and over in my mind.  These and other thoughts kept me awake until 600 am when the sun finally came out and I could finally go and check on them. That night I was seriously contemplating why I had gotten these chickens and was embarrassed that I may have to tell the good ole therapist that these girls/one potential boy were some serious anxiety producers.


I checked on them first. I figured I better make sure they are ok before I electrocute myself. I guess the whole put the O2 mask on first really comes into play in the real world. I walked to the coop preparing myself for what lie ahead. Fried chicken I thought. Or, even worse frozen chicken since the lamp had shut off and it was cold and rainy. I just knew they were all dead. I opened the door to the coop and carefully opened the door to the henhouse and they were.................all alive with not a care in the world,  as comfortable as can be. Ok,  I thought smiling. Not going to tell the therapist about this one. They are more than ready to be outside and in the elements. I then confidently unplugged the heat lamp and am alive today as I type this. Whew.


Anyway, the past few days here have been kinda rainy. I put up a fence along the back and side so that the girls can free range in the yard without getting out or something coming in and attacking them. The problem is we have a creek in the yard and I had to build the fence across the creek. I thought about it for a long time and came up with a solution. Hopefully it will stand up to the rains. We shall see in a couple of days when the forecast predicts more rain.

I was hoping to till and level the past two days but all the rains have made it really really wet. I will have to wait for it to dry out a bit. In the mean time, I finished a little side project today. We poured a patio slab a couple weeks ago.  To extend the patio and add a fire pit we went and bought some concrete AC pads and put them at the edge of the patio. Today I dug and leveled the remaining two. I think in the spring when we plant some grass in between them they will look pretty cool.

Note the coop in the back. 

The girls/one potential boy free ranged for the past two days and they love it. We still haven't introduced the boys to them yet and so they remain inside or in the front yard while I'm working in the back. In the next week or so we will introduce them as we are still researching the proper way to do this.  I snapped this pic of Viejo today as he watched all morning through the back door. The girls/one potential boy would walk right up to him and stare. He was pretty good. No barking, but I swear I saw him lick his lips.

"Just give it a little more time sweetie..........."

Thats what the lady at the feed store said the other day when I called about Henri's blossoming manhood. I had been concerned for a few weeks about Henri's redder comb and growing wattle. I had been combing the internet looking for how to distinguish barred rock hens from roosters at 10 weeks old and they all said the same thing.....slow to gain tail feathers, redder comb, thicker legs with growing spurs, and a lighter gray color than the others. Well got damn.......that describes my little Henri to a T.  So, I called the feed store. Frances, the sweet lady on the other end of the line assured me that there is only a 1% chance that she could in fact be a rooster. She said that many of her own hens had bigger combs than the others and they turned out to be great laying hens. She said "give it a little more time sweetie and in a couple months you will be able to tell, she will either crow or lay an egg."


My mom was in Austin for christmas, and she even said "Oh no. Don't worry if your brother's hen didn't lay eggs I would swear it was a rooster." Mom knows best right? But just to make sure I emailed my brother and asked what size his barred rock hen's comb had grown to be. His girl was medium size and he assured me that Henri was probably just "butch" and if not it was time for a chicken gumbo.


Denial is a funny thing. I say this because the morning I was getting ready to go to louisiana I was sitting in the living room and heard a half hearted attempt at a crow. I ran into the laundry room where they were still living and lo and behold, right in front of my face Henri crowed like there was no tomorrow. My heart sank and yet even now I am still holding out hope that she is still a pullet.  Only time will tell. She is one of my sweetest ones. She always jumps up to see me in the morning, eats out of my hand, and  rides on my shoulder just like Penny out to the coop.  This is the first time in my life where I feel like I am blinded at will to something that is so obvious. I guess I just don't want to accept it because I have become attached to her. I am going to give it another month before I change her name from Henri to Henry.

What do you think?

In other big news the girls are spending there first night out tonight.  I promised Claire that I would move them out as soon as the New Year came around and well tonight is the night. Seriously they were taking over the laundry room. Here is some proof..........

Breaking out of the box...yet again 

I am putting a heat lamp out for their first night because it is cold and rainy. I know it's probably overkill but I want to be sure nothing happens on their first night out.  I just snuck out there to see if all of them could get into the hen house by way of the ladder since it is dark and surprisingly all of them had made it. They were all snuggled up ready to go to bed. It's amazing how instinctual they are.


I have a couple of side projects going on at the moment here at Uprooted Bamboo. I finished the gate and am working on putting up a fence in the back. Mom did some hard work when she was here and helped clear out some of the remaining dead bamboo. This should make putting up the back fence a snap now that its cleared out a bit more. We had a back patio poured and made a fire pit out of an old wheel barrow( a genius idea stolen from two lovely ladies Chelsea and Kerry).  Other than that, I need to start tilling, leveling, and working on the garden boxes. So far 2011 is off to a good start..........

Free ranging on Christmas Day 

Sonny discovering and loving to eat the succulents 

Penny's favorite spot