Win a backyard mini-Composter!

Head over to the Fresh Eggs daily blog to enter to win a very cool mini-composter!
 http://fresh-eggs-daily.blogspot.com/2012/08/envirocycle-composer-composteamaker.html

Meet Bandit the Blue Andalusian

Good Morning!  Meet Bandit.  She is a Blue Andalusian chicken.  And when I say she, I don't use the term lightly.  After I snapped this photo, my husband gasped as he realized his favorite chicken had spurs!

We began the preparations of finding Bandit a new home, much to my husbands dismay as this is his favorite chicken.   We already had to cull one hen-turned-rooster and he was one of dear-ol-husbands favorites too (apparently it doesn't pay to be his favorite chicken). My husband was a bit 'broody' that night and ended up serenading the chickens with this song (lyrics printed for your enjoyment, since it's a little tough to hear.  And sorry for the sideways view-this was very impromptu.  In fact, I was over filling chicken waterers when this happened...).

"I love me some chickens, yes I doooo.  I love me some chickens, yes I dooooo.  I love me some chickens, the ones with big SPIKES.  I love me some big chickens, I hope they're name ain't MIKE.  I love me some chickens yes I dooooo!"

-Truly an original, written and performed by Joe

MAN, if our neighbors didn't think we were hillbillies before....they sure do now!
All serenading aside, me being the information seeker that I am, I searched gobs of photos of Blue Andalusian chickens at 4 months old.  This chicken looked like all of the hen photos to me, as the roosters had a very different look to them, including a collar of black feathers and much larger combs.  I posted some photos of Bandit on the wonderful forums at www.backyardchickens.com (a great resource for learning about keeping chickens) and asked if there were any experts that could help me determine if this one was going to crow or lay eggs.  Come to find out, the development of spurs is not a good gender indicator and in certain breeds, especially Mediterranean types, the hens can develop some pretty nasty spurs.  They all said that this was a girl (or pullet in chicken talk).  **Lets all listen as we breathe a sigh of relief on the backyard farm.**
SO, we are anxiously awaiting, again, for Bandit to lay.  She will be our only white egg layer, as all the others lay brown.  Her breed is not supposed to be very winter hardy, but are very dependable and prolific layers.  Bandit has a great personality-she is super sweet and loves to settle into your lap for a nap!  She's also the first hen to bed before dusk-definitely NOT a party-girl!  While she is quite skittish and flighty, this is a great breed with a wonderful personality.  I am so glad she is a SHE and that we can see her lay some eggs soon!!  However, she is quite flighty, as evidenced by the fact that she loves to fly up on the dog run fence and watch whats going on inside.  Sometimes we here a slight knocking on the window....

How it all started-the raised vegetable garden

Well, I promised that I would begin to tell you how I came to have a backyard filled with chickens, vegetables, fruit and a rabbit.

Several years ago my husband and I bought our wonderful city home here in Highlands Ranch; a suburb South of Denver Colorado.  We chose this area for the neighborhood, schools and layout of the city, with its endless trails and family atmosphere.  Chickens were never part of the decision to move here.  When discussing plans for the backyard, I announced that I wanted to try a vegetable garden.  I don't think my husband said anything at first, he just gave me 'a look.'  You see, I don't have any live plants in my house, because I kill them.  I think I love them too much.  Maybe underwater, over water, or not enough light.  ANYWAY, green-thumb I am not.  So, I explained that I wanted to try my hand at growing some fresh food, now that I had a place to do it.  And thus began the journey.  My wonderful husband obliged me and built a beautiful fence around a small section on the North side of the patio (and he thought he didn't know what he was doing either).  I had begun researching vegetable gardens and found that I would need an area that would receive mostly sun (4-6+ hrs), or the vegetables would never grow.  I also learned that when planting in raised beds (a decision I made in order to have optimum soil conditions), they need to run in a North-South direction.  So, I used some friends kids, as well as my own, and we got the plot cleared of LOTS of rock.  My husband built me two basic 2.5' x 10' rectangular wooden frames for the raised bed.  Nothing special; we just put brackets on each corner, leveled out the ground and filled it with dirt made for outdoor vegetable gardening.

PLANTING: As the building was progressing, I was researching.  My great grandfather used to garden and my mother handed over a copy of the book titled "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew.  This book takes planting your garden 1 square foot at a time.  With this method, in a 1 square foot area you could plant 16 carrots or 9 spinach.  4 lettuce or 1 eggplant.  1 tomato or 8 pole beans.  In a simple 4' x4' area you could plant all of the following: 2 tomatoes, 4 cucumbers, 9 bush beans, 12 heads of lettuce, 4 swiss chard, 9 chives, 16 carrots, 16 radishes, 16 beets, 16 onions, 4 nasturtium and 4 marigold flowers.  And that's only a 4'x4' area! 

I bought seeds for what I wanted to grow and printed some garden-grid sheets from vegetablegardeningonline.com to draw out my gardening plan prior to planting.  I took string and blocked out my garden beds in 1 foot squares, then got to work!

The square foot gardening method is also less time consuming in the long run, as the compact planting area doesn't allow for much weed growth.  When the lettuce is harvested, then something else can take it's place; more carrots perhaps, and so on.  This method has given me high yields of food in a small space.  We have fresh vegetables weekly during the summer for our meals.  This year I have so many tomatoes ripening, that I will be learning how to can.  Another post, to be sure.  I've already gotten some good tips from a cousin back East who has a homestead of her own (Thanks Meghan)!  Next year we've decided there will be beans, cucumbers, and squash climbing up trellises along the length of the back fence (along with a compost area and some berry bushes somewhere).  Like I said, all I see anymore is wasted space that could be used to grow food!

The re-located spot of my raised vegetable gardens

Anyone interested in growing even a small pot of their own food can do this easily-even on the balcony of an apartment (as long as you have 4-6+ hrs of sun)!  Just pick a good sized pot for what you want to grow, make sure it has good drainage, fill it with some good dirt and plant what you like to eat!  

You will find some new rewards in growing some of your own food, and it will taste better than anything you have ever bought at the store!  

Who knows, maybe you will soon find yourself relaxing on your patio to the sound of soft clucking while watching chickens chase bugs around your yard ;-)