Chickens do wonders for compost. They do a great job of breaking down leaves in the fall. But one disadvantage of having free range chickens (or as free range as they can possibly be in a ~50' x ~75' backyard), is that they occasionally lay eggs in places other than the chicken coop. Well, it's only natural I guess; they see us as the people that take their eggs, so...they want to make sure their eggs are safe. Ordinarily we'll find one egg here this week, and another over there the next, but today I found five eggs in the compost pile. Fortunately we have baby gates from when the boys were younger, only now it's a chicken gate.
Don't feel too bad for the chickens. They still get the lion's share of yard waste and much of our food scraps. Much of what goes into the compost pile is the bedding from their coop.
I planted peas on March 10 of this year, under the protection of a cold case. Because of height limitations within the cold case, I only built a small trellis out of last year's sunflower stalks.
Clearly, the peas had outgrown my attempt at a within-the-confines-of-a-cold-case trellis. Last fall, in preparation for Hurricane Sandy, we accidently broke our umbrella clothes line. But rather than throw it away, my wife disassembled it and thought it would be useful for something some day. And that day was today, as a pea plant trellis.
A little bit of twine through the eyelets of the old clothesline made a nice trellis. And lesson learned; next year I won't plant peas in the cold case, and I'll build a proper trellis before planting.
Don't feel too bad for the chickens. They still get the lion's share of yard waste and much of our food scraps. Much of what goes into the compost pile is the bedding from their coop.
I planted peas on March 10 of this year, under the protection of a cold case. Because of height limitations within the cold case, I only built a small trellis out of last year's sunflower stalks.
Clearly, the peas had outgrown my attempt at a within-the-confines-of-a-cold-case trellis. Last fall, in preparation for Hurricane Sandy, we accidently broke our umbrella clothes line. But rather than throw it away, my wife disassembled it and thought it would be useful for something some day. And that day was today, as a pea plant trellis.
A little bit of twine through the eyelets of the old clothesline made a nice trellis. And lesson learned; next year I won't plant peas in the cold case, and I'll build a proper trellis before planting.
Live and learn, right?! We need to add a few more rung of twine to our pea supports as they are rapidly outgrowing what we've strung so far. Great repurposing all around!
ReplyDelete