Guineas and Gardens

After all these years, I still have two guinea fowl - both males.  They seldom roost with the chickens, and prefer to sleep in the rafters of the barn.  They make funny whistles and squeaks when I disturb them on my way to close the chicken coop and do my nightly animal checks.  They keep an eye on things around the farm, and Wendigo knows to be alert when the guineas sound the alarm.  My parents are currently raising fifteen guinea keets.  I can't wait to hear them all sounding the alarm at the same time - they are going to make such a racket!  

I'm enjoying the herb spiral near the back door this year.  I forced myself to do some weed management, and I think the plants are enjoying a little elbow room.  The milkweed is dominating the spiral, and I counted over twenty stems, all from that single transplant a few years ago.  I was complaining to a friend that the milkweed was taking over the herbs and turning my spiral into a butterfly garden and he reminded me that it has "weed" in its name for a reason!  

But look, the oregano is holding it's own amidst the forest of milkweed stems.  There's also a volunteer black locust tree that I keep cutting off and letting send up new shoots.  I transplanted some dill from the greenhouse to the very tip of the spiral, and it's getting ready to bloom.  Monarchs love the milkweed and swallowtails love the dill.  I should probably rename the herb spiral the butterfly spiral after all.  

Look, Mom, the lemon balm I transplanted from your garden is really taking off!  The mint is doing pretty good too.  Wouldn't it be nice if the whole spiral was perennial plants, and they came back thick enough to choke out the weeds?  

I pulled all the weeds from the row of green beans in the summer garden.  You can hardly see the bean plants, but they are there, just to the left of the row of mustard greens.  It's past time to harvest mustard greens.  I guess I know what I'll be cooking for dinner!  

I planted onion bulbs in two different areas in the garden.  I asked Brandon yesterday if he could remember what animal stall we emptied onto the north side of the garden, because the onions in that area are three times the size of the other onions.  We think it was really thick goat bedding,  Whatever it is, the plants love it!  

The spaghetti squash and zucchini are also in this part of the garden, and they are thick and dark green.  I put tomato cages, on their sides, over the planted seeds to keep the chickens from scratching them up, and now the plants have grown so much I can't get all the cages up without pulling up the plants!  Doh!  

I managed to get a sunburn on the back of my legs and the top of my feet yesterday while I messed around making a garden fence out of tomato cages.  I used some pieces of deck railing that we salvaged from a friend, and sort of wove the cages together and made a big circle, that's open in one spot for access to the center of the circle.  In theory, chickens can not get to the inside of the circle.

I dumped bedding from the chicken coop into the cages, to suppress weeds, and planted about thirty feet of green beans just on the inside of the circle.  My hope is that the beans will climb the wall of cages, and we can pick from outside and inside the circle.  I didn't stake the cages down, so I anticipate the whole thing being knocked over by a wind, or a goat.  I can't say that I wasn't warned, huh?