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  1. RickF

    What does your compost bin/pile look like?

    Hmm.. More on Chicken Composting can be found here.. Enjoy! :weight
  2. RickF

    Chicken question..

    So.. I figured I'd ask a few chicken questions now that we're effectively starting over with our birds -- our last set of 2.5+ year olds is gone (sent away to the old-chickens home) and we've got a set of 4 new pullets that are close to 1 month old.. Our old birds were training us more than...
  3. RickF

    What does your compost bin/pile look like?

    I REALLY like this idea! We've got a set of 4 new young hens that are <1 month old and we're thinking about putting them out in the hen-house before winter arrives (which will be in.. umm.. perhaps December?) but leave them to live in the coop/run.. The original set of 4-6 birds we had within...
  4. RickF

    Anybody else have chickens that aren't paying their rent?

    We had a pair of BO's that we recently re-homed to a nice lady in a nearby town -- to keep with her existing small flock.. Our BO's were more than 2.5 years old and still laying but getting weird in their old years. Anyway, we were visiting my mother in Oregon and stopped at a ladys place on...
  5. RickF

    Anybody else have chickens that aren't paying their rent?

    We had a pair of BO's that we recently re-homed to a nice lady in a nearby town -- to keep with her existing small flock.. Our BO's were more than 2.5 years old and still laying but getting weird in their old years. Anyway, we were visiting my mother in Oregon and stopped at a ladys place on...
  6. RickF

    Anybody else have chickens that aren't paying their rent?

    Duplicate.. please delete.
  7. RickF

    Seed starting failures.. How many unstarting seeds is typical?

    Hi all.. So I started a bunch of seeds weeks ago (ok - 50 to be exact) in one of those indoor rootRiot kits with the lid. Most things came up just fine but a few varieties did NOTHING -- not one came up.. One was a variety of lettuce (tennis ball by Landreth seeds) and the other was a type of...
  8. RickF

    He's BAAAAck!

    Good to hear that you're back again to provide us with all of your years of gardening wisdom! Everyone was very concerned about how you were doing and whatnot.. By the way, when you do get home there will probably be a card in the mail on behalf of our group sent by SweetMissDaisy a while...
  9. RickF

    A new use for that iPad when your hens stop laying..

    Just passing this story along.. Found it amusing! http://ereaderjoy.blogspot.com/2012/05/ipad-helps-chicken-lay-eggs-again.html -- Rick
  10. RickF

    Mother's Day Ice Cream

    Lots of fond memories of doing the hand-crank ice cream thing when I was a kid.. We have a motorized version but as previously mentioned it doesn't do the greatest job of hardening the ice cream.. Next time I'll probably see about buying about 2-3 lb of dry ice (prefereably in pellet form) to...
  11. RickF

    My Teeny Urban Garden (updated; even more photos post 43/page 5)

    Thanks for the heads-up on these.. I'm thinking we've had this issue in the past -- it never killed the plants but they never really matured well and had very poor tomato production.. I'll take a look at our plants from last year (yes, we've still got them growing -- they never died over the...
  12. RickF

    mint!!!

    If you've got mice invading anyplace, take some sprigs of mint, crush the leaves a little and place it all over where the mice live and they will disappear. We had mice at night in the chicken coop that were eating the food and leaving poop behind.. We cleaned it up added the mint and haven't...
  13. RickF

    Pineapple troubles

    Cool.. Only on top of the soil -- not buried even a little? I'll give it a shot next time I see a pineapple.. Thx!
  14. RickF

    Not exactly for the garden...

    Does that mean I might be able to take a set of freshly hatched chicks and see if my one of my 2 year old Orpingtons might adopt them as their own and let them take care of them? I hadn't thought about that.. P.S. Sorry to hear about one bird not making it..
  15. RickF

    Pineapple troubles

    What's the best way to start a pineapple top? Is it just a matter of sitting it in a bowl of water for a while until roots sprout or should the top be part buried in soil and kept very moist? In terms of them liking the tropics, what about keeping them (once growing) in a greenhouse that is...
  16. RickF

    When is it too late to plant veggies?

    I'm down in the So-cal area south of you and you can grow stuff mostly year-round.. It's NOT too late to plant just about anything -- I just started 50 seedlings a bit over a week ago.. The lettuce is up and the tomato's have just started poking their heads up too.. Still waiting on others yet..
  17. RickF

    trying artichoke..

    We just bought 8 more artichokes this past weekend in 4" pots at the local Armstrong garden center.. They're all pretty decent looking but they dry out REALLY quickly.. I've got them all sitting in an upside down garbage can lid (flat type) with about 1/2" deep of water which I figure will last...
  18. RickF

    Pictures of our greenhouse reconstruct

    April.. Do you mind me asking how long your greenhouse is? I'd love to have something (albeit a bit smaller) in our backyard to have better bug control, keep the chickens out among other things and allow us to grow tomatos, and various other veggies -- even in the winter when it cooler out...
  19. RickF

    When to harvest Swiss Chard?

    Also keep in mind that if you've got any recipes that call for Spinach, you can substitute chard 1 for 1 in place of the spinach.. The taste when cooked (IMHO) is very similar.
  20. RickF

    trying artichoke..

    We've currently got one plant that we've had for close to a year and now that it's in a better sized pot it's got ONE lone artichoke starting to form -- currently about the size of a small-ish tennis ball.. I'll be watering it from now on with only hydroponic water to ensure it's well fed. We...
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