August | 2012 | Life in the Garden

The summer has flown by with a large array of experiences in and out of the garden. We are feeling the shift towards fall and dreaming of a winter garden. It’s time to pull out the seeds and start planting them in pots to sprout for fall transplants. We’ve gotten two types of kale, rainbow chard, lettuce mixes, turnips, onions, broccoli…the list seems to keep growing!

Tagine, Piccata, Iowa Blue

Wellsummer

As the summer has progressed, the baby chicks from May have become pretty big. Last week, we put the new chicks in with the old flock. It’s been fascinating to watch how they respond to each other. One of the new chickens has been slow growing. She is half the size of the others, even the same breed, and still sounds and looks like a chick instead of an adolescent chicken. Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! she says as she wanders around. She is very friendly and completely fearless. I was very concerned about her when we put them out in the chicken yard, but I couldn’t wait any longer. They had run out of room and needed to be able to roam!

Much to my surprise, the older flock completely ignores her and have not even been overly concerned about the others. A few pecks to let them know who’s boss, which is natural, but otherwise it has all gone smoothly. Whew!

Tagine

Tagine and Piccata

Lao continues to think he should be wandering with the new flock and tries to get to them through the fence. Silly Lao!

Here’s Caramel, one of the older flock who has continued to mature quite beautifully!

Caramel

It’s purple season in the Sugi Garden – prune plums, eggplants, figs, purple kale, purple tomatoes, grapes and more… As the sunflowers shine their faces to the early autumn sun, their seeds are slowly finding a resting place in the soil to sprout anew next spring; along with the bowing heads of the amaranth who will also spread lovingly around the garden next year. Feverfew, tomatoes, zucchinni, borage, sweet peas and cosmos are willing volunteers as well and will join us next time.