In the hen house

A fabulous find in one of the coops today. One of the older hens who has not laid an egg in ages is apparently producing again. Out of 7 hens we now have 6 who are laying eggs. Looks like the old ladies are trying to keep up with the youngsters. In human terms, this is like Helen Mirren giving birth.

In the greenhouse

A beautiful pink strawberry blossom. As soon as I get another 6 pack of these I'll be planting the strawberry jar. Until then it's hanging out in the open greenhouse.

I love it when a plan comes together!

Desert Garden Carrot Harvest

A long time ago Ben found on old dresser dumped in the parking lot of his office. He hauled it home and we turned it into a raised bed for carrors and radishes. It is filled with a mixture of potting soil, compost and sand and we've been very happy with the results.

This month we are harvesting a mixture of baby carrots, including chantenays, oxhearts, Paris Market, and Dragons- the beautiful crimson colored carrot. Nothing goes to waste from this raised bed- the hens love eating the carrot tops.

Growing potatoes in the desert?

I accidentally pulled these up while weeding. It looks like the experimental potato bed is coming along nicely. Now if we can just get them thru the summer months. . . (fingers crossed)

Lucy and Piccata in the chicken tractor

After 18 months of looking at the chicken tractor in our yard we finaly got around to putting the chicken wire on it. The tractor is fabulous and Picatta and Speckle love it. Lucy and Molly were not impressed. The next step is to put the tractor in our smaller raised bed garden so the hens can clear out the weeds and turn the soil.

One project completed, 23,674,992 to go!

January 2012 Garden Update

Yes, I am a slacker blogger! Sorry!

The garden did fabulous this winter. We changed a few things that we have done in the past and learned some things about the new microclimate in our yard.

First off, we decided to keep the screen porch mostly free of plants this winter. It's usually cramped with salad greens, herbs, aloe vera and what ever else we are trying to save from the frost. This winter we only kept the parsley on the porch and that was mainly for easy access while cooking.

We knew we had to go bigger this year with our garden of salad greens so DH added a 2x8 bed that we made into a mini greenhouse. using tomato cages topped with chicken wire, we built what DH affectionately called his "ghetto greenhouse." It was covered with a large plastic paint tarp from Ace Hardware. During the bone chilling (for us desert dwellers anyway) and very wet 3 week winter (LOL!)- the garden stayed warm and the greens thrived. We had several varieties of lettuce, swiss chard and broccoli.

The Ghetto Green House

Inside the Ghetto Green House

We also used the paint tarps to keep out potted herbs out of the frost. We pushed out outdoor tables together and tented them with the plastic tarps. A few bricks held the plastic down in the wind. All the potted plants stayed under the tables during the cold snap.

Last year my neighbors on either side of me replaced the old wooden fencing with new brick walls. Since then the frost warnings have meant nothing to us. When the low temp is supposed to be in the mid 40's - I have a birdbath full of ice. We've had to be extra careful this winter to make sure everything was protected.

We try and reuse and repurpose what we can. I saved some plastic containters from the trash at work. They are fairly large clear containers that caterers use to bring ice to the office during parties/meetings. They are very durable and as soon as I saw them I thought they would make terrific hot caps. We tried them out on some containers I found on clearence at Kmart (Main and Lindsey in Mesa, I love that place!). We are growing brocolli raab and so far - so good. DH and I both see lots of recipes in cookbooks that use brocolli raab but we couldn't even find it in stores. I've since learned that Sprouts carries it ($2.99 per lb -not!).

Brocolli raab with our repurposed hot cap!

The front garden was awesome on it's trial run and we will certainly be keeping it up. I was running around like crazy picking peppers and tomatoes before the frost and all for no reason at all. Although the lantana was killed last year by the frost - it did not touch anything it the front garden this winter. In fact- I still have flowers on the tomatoes. I'm going to let the current plants stay, just to see how they produce for a second season. Trial and error!

Peppers and tomatoes picked before the first frost. We let them ripen indoors. We had a few problems with hungry little birds when we let the peppers ripen on the vine so either way they would have been harvested early. They tasted great!

112 Degrees in the Shade

Ugh! It is going to get up to 112 degrees today and I am outside tending to the chickens and the solar oven. God Bless the person who invented the portable mister system that Ace Hardware sold me, I think I would be passed out right now without it.

The good news is that despite this unbearable heat, the chickens and the gardens are doing quite well.

Our youngest hens are now 25 weeks old and they are all laying several eggs a week in various hues. We had a over 5 dozen eggs in July. Considering the hot days, that's not too shabby. We had enough eggs that we were able to share them with friends and our (oh so understanding!) neighbors. Not once have they complained about the "hen party" in the backyard when things get a bit noisy.

Lucy soaking her feet. Or is it Molly?

Lots of eggs!
Our front garden has really worked out beautifully. Over the winter we lost the Lantana to a bad frost so we tore it out and replaced the flowers with a vegetable garden. This turned out to be a fabulous idea. The area is shaded until the afternoon and the plants are doing much better that the backyard veggie garden.

In the front garden we have several Better Boy and Early Girl tomatoes which are still producing. The Sweet 100 tomatoes were very tiny but make perfect chicken snacks. We have a single zucchini plant which, as anyone who has grown zucchini can tell you, yields more than enough zucchini for 2 people.

The backyard gardens contain some heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons. Not much to say here as we have more crabgrass than garden at this point. On a lark I threw in some seeds from and Armenian cucumber that I purchased at Lee Lee's. I completely forgot about them until the big monsoon in July uncovered this. . .

I have no idea how long it had been growning under the grass and weeds but boy was it delicious. From now on I am only planting these babies.

More good news - the bell pepper curse is finally broken. My inability to grow peppers is legendary in my family and it's quite funny since I can manage to grow just about anything else. This season I finally was able to grow 2 red bell peppers in the front garden. Believe me, they are nothing to brag about and certainly wouldn't win any prizes at the county fair. Heck, they were barely big enough to add to a single dinner salad. Still, just the fact that I was able to keep the pepper plants alive and harvest a vegetable that could be clearly identified as a pepper - that is HUGE for me and I owe it all to chicken poo water.

Yes, I said chicken poo water. It smells and looks just as disgusting as it sounds but the plants love it. You see, it is so hot here in the east valley that chickens find it very difficult to cool off. Heat related deaths of backyard hens are quite common here. Thanks to the folks at Valley Permaculture Alliance and the people on the Arizona board over at BackyardChickens.com I have learned about different ideas to make life more comfortable for my girls. One way is to provide the hens with a shallow pan of water to wade in and cool off. They love it! HuzBen refers to the pans (actually cat litter pans) as the Hen Spas.

Now about the part where the "poo" comes in. Chickens are not unlike small children and won't get out of the pool to do their "business." By the end of the day the pan of water is less foot bath and substantially more chicken toilet. But - when life gives you lemons. . . or in this case, chicken poo water. . . use it to your advantage. It's free liquid fertilizer and it's fabulous. (But OMG - the smell, yuck!)

Time to go and get the bread out of the solar oven - see you soon!

April Garden Update

This year we decided to expand our veggie garden to the front yard. The big frost killed nearly everything so instead of cutting back we decided to rip out and replant. This year we have over 20 tomato plants, a mix of hybrids and heirloom varieties. I'm trying squash again since we had such a big crop last year. I even planted celery this year so it will be fun to see how that works out.
We have our big lettuce crop and tons of herbs for cooking too. As usual the plants that grow the biggest and the fastest are the weeds!

This is one of the tomatoes in the front of the house where the lantana had been for about 5 years. The lanata looked awful after the big frost and we decided it was time for it to go. Due to the lack of hours in direct sunshine- the lantana never bloomed much so it was just a big ugly bush. No great loss when we ripped it out. Like my neighbor proved last year, the tomatoes seem to like the front yard. We did minimal soil amending yet these tomatoes are doing much better than the plants in the main beds in the back yard. They get less direct sunlight here so maybe that's helping. There are peppers a few feet away and they seem to be growing very well too - a shock because I've always had a black thumb when it comes to growing any sort of pepper. I am the only gardener in Arizona who manages to kill off all my peppers every year. Most folks I know have the same bell or hot pepper plants for 3-5 years. I'm crossing my fingers for the red bells I planted last month.


In the main raised bed we have our lettuce, at least until it bolts or we eat it all. This year I threw in some mixed seed packets. We ended up with some beautiful red speckled lettuce and a very hearty long green leaf lettuce that must be some sort of romaine. It is super crunchy and great on sandwiches.

The herbs are really taking off after the recent rain. This is one of the pots of oregano. We added more oregano and parsley this year since we never seem to have enough. I finished the long overdue task of dividing the chives. I will never put that chore off again. The chives were so compacted that I ended up breaking them apart with a screwdriver. Most ended up in the garbage but the healthiest bulbs are now doing well in a bigger container. The sage is also beyond it's usefullness after 5-6 years so I planted some purple and some varigated sage. The older plants are now flowering so I hope to be able to harvest some seeds. I still have to decide where to plant the spearmmint and peppermint I purchased. We have a new wall of the southside if the yard so I want to see how plants do in that area before I commit. So far everything is growing well but that may change in the summer heat.

These are the last of the winter/spring desert wildflowers in the front yard. I was lucky enough to be home before the storms hit this weekend and I was able to gather seeds this year. I'd like to have flowers in the back yard next year so I plant them in the fall.

Our Very Own Backyard Chickens

We thought about it for years and this weekend we finally took the plunge and got our very own chickens. We are now the proud owners of two Black Minorcas and a cute little Blue Old English Game Bantam. The girls started work right away and we had 2 eggs in the first 24 hours. Nice!

When I say we thought about it for years I am not exaggerating. I first learned about keeping backyard chickens like most city folks did, in an issue of Martha Stewart Living. At that time I was single and living in an apartment so all I could do was look at the fabulous photos of the beautiful hens and their multicolored eggs.

Fast forward to 2009 when I discovered the Valley Permaculture Alliance (then the Phoenix Permaculture Guild). I was looking for info on veggie gardens in the desert but I was thrilled to find a group of people chatting about raising hens all over the valley. That's when we figured out that it was "do-able."

We finally got serious about chickens after participating in the first Tour De Coops where we met people just like us and saw how they incorporated chickens in their suburban neighborhoods. We stopped looking at chickens as pets that lay eggs and started considering the benefits they would bring to our gardens and compost pile. Oh, and they eat kitchen scraps and bugs? Bonus!

Our next step was to take the "Raising Chickens In Your Backyard" class taught by Rachel Bess with Valley Permaculture Alliance. Rachel's class is better than any book you can read. Most books are general but Rachel has been raising chickens for years in the Valley so she understands the needs of a desert chicken. She's also honest and says that having your own chickens is hard work and it isn't for everyone. Her class waaaaaaay under priced at $10.

In Rachel's class we also learned that you could purchase custom coops from people advertising on Craig's List. Bingo! We found Kyle, who not only builds custom coops, but he delivers too! He asked us about our needs and made suggestions about things we might like. He was fabulous! Three days after speaking to him on the phone he pulled into our driveway with our new coop. (see below for you can find Kyle's Craig's List ad "Chicken Coop for the Valley" or call him at 480-363-5775)

That brings us to this weekend when hubby bought me a trio of hens for my birthday. We are already planning a coop addition with Kyle. and we hope to add an Ameraucana to the flock soon.

Solar Oven Eggs and Cheese

Solar Oven Eggs and Cheese

Today was windy but sunny. Too windy to work in the garden but a perfect day to get out the SOS Sport Solar Oven and make breakfast. I set the oven out to preheat and I added a brick. The brick is painted with black bbq grill paint and actually serves 3 purposes in the oven. It elevates the dish for more even cooking, and holds heat so the oven stays hotter if a cloud passes in front on the sun. The bonus is that it also keeps the oven from blowing off the table on windy days.

I used the same ingredients I use to make an omelette on the stovetop (1 whole egg, 2 egg whites, 1 oz grated cheese, 1 tsp non fat milk). Cheese is a must. I am trying to lose weight and live heart healthy so I try and keep cheese to a minimum. Trader Joe's carries interesting but inexpensive cheese and I picked up Cotswald Double Glouchester this week. It has a great flavor that goes well with eggs and I love the chives added in.

I mixed everything together and poured the mix into an old First Class cabin casserole dish that I found at the US Airways Company Store for about 50 cents. Buttering the dish makes for easy cleanup. The eggs and cheese took about 30 minutes in the preheated oven. I topped the dish with more fresh chives out of the herb garden. Breakfast for one without turning on the stove - gotta love it.

Getting Things Done

Breakfast from the garden - a baby watermelon

It is a beautiful morning, pretty hot but cloud free. Just perfect for making a roast in the solar oven which I've been trying to do since Tuesday. As soon as I woke up I looked out the front door then ran for the oven to put it in the back yard to pre-heat. I cut up the roast so it will cook faster. After sprinkling it with dry onion soup mix I poured about a teaspoon of bbq sauce on each piece. That's all you need to do and it makes a very flavorful roast with lots of juice you can use indoors on the stove to make gravy. Cooking times varies as do the cooking temperatures but it's usually about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

The garden yield has slowed to almost nothing after all the very hot days we've had here in Mesa. Ben went to visit family in Tucson recently and we were lucky enough to be able to send some crook neck squash, zucchini and heirloom tomatoes to his mom. The tomatoes have stopped producing and the zucchini are much smaller. If you're used to seeing zucchini in the supermarket, that's about the size of the vegetables I am getting now. No more super sized veggies that made my coworkers laugh. The baby watermelons are still on the vine and doing well. The cushion of weeds they are sitting on sure helps to keep them from rotting on the ground. At least, that's my excuse for not weeding. :-)

We plan to add another raised bed in a month. It will be in a perfect spot so we can grow lettuce and tomatoes all winter. Also on the "to do" list is to remove all the soil from the big raised bed. Grass has taken over and quite frankly, the 10 year old soil isn't producing like it did in seasons past. Even though we add compost and manure yearly, it looks like it's time to make a fresh start.


The roast ready to go into the SOS Sport Solar Oven

Another item on my list of things to get done was to get a good sour dough starter going. We love sour dough bread and liked the idea of making my own starter from scratch. I found everthing you need to know about sourdough here - http://sourdoughhome.com and I mixed my first starter on Monday night. It did well for 3 days, nice and bubbly with a good sour smell. Then it finally died yesterday. No bubbles, no rising, just mush. Our water isn't the best here in Mesa so I am guessing that it was the constantly changing chlorine levels that did it in. I'll have Ben pick up some Evian today and I'll try again. Ooh La La - French sourdough! :-)

Late June Garden Yield

Out in the garden this morning, weeding and watering. This baby watermelon was only about the size of a nickel a week ago.

The heirloom cherry tomatoes are doing nicely. They don't yield as much as a Sweet 100 tomato but the taste is far superior and the color is beautiful, they ripen to a deep burgundy. The regular heirloom tomato plant has grown very large but is still setting blooms even in the 100+ degree desert temps. Lots of large tomatoes on the plant but nothing close to ripening yet.

As usual, the zucchini is taking over the yard. It must be doing well in the neighbor's garden as well since they knocked on our door last week offering to share their haul. I told Ben to tell them we'll take one zucchini from their garden if they take two from ours. They're all ready to go . . .

Growing Veggies

From the garden today- Our very first zucchini of the season.

In The Garden

The corn is starting to get silks on top so it won't be long until we're happily munching on corn on the cob. The zucchini are plentiful and about 3 inches in length. I'd love to stuff and deep fry some of the flowers but when my cardiologist said to increase my vegetable intake I don't think that's what he had in mind. :-) The temperatures are increasing so it surprises me that the remaining lettuce is doing great.

The parsley we have growing in a big pot in the yard went to seed within weeks of breaking through the soil. I must have planted the seeds of a variety that doesn't like the hot Arizona spring because we usually have no issues growing parsley year round here. Ben uses lots of parsley in Chicken Piccata so we planted a bunch in a clay pot on the screen porch. It's cooler there because of the added shade and seems to happy in that spot. I am surprised the cats don't bother with it. I had to bribe Posh with some kitty treats to get her in this photo.

April 2010 Garden

First zucchini of the season.

Our weather has been rainy with mild temperatures so that should make for perfect gardening. The zucchini is doing well but everything else looks a little rough. The romaine went to seed much earlier than usual considering the favorable conditions. The remaining green and red leaf lettuce is starting to brown on the tips but is still tasty.

The heirloom tomatoes that I started much too early are thin and I only see one lone tomato between the three plants. The larger tomato seens to be doing well and has about a dozen flowers. Our pepper plants are also thin and frail looking. Everyone in the Valley has great luck with peppers except me. It's a running joke between me and my brother in Apache Junction. He has beautiful peppers but cannot grow thyme at all. I have awful peppers but as they say, thyme is on my side.

A trip to the nursey yesterday made it evident that I am not the only one with issues this season. The peppers at the nursery didn't look any better than mine. We purchased two heirloom tomatoes and a half dozen herb varieties. The tomatoes will replace the lettuce one it gets too warm to grow greens and the herbs will take over the spot where we planted garlic that the cats dug up.

Starting Seeds

Since the laundry room gets the best dose of sunshine, we are starting our seeds on the window over the washer and dryer. So far we've sowed the heirloom tomato seeds, both the regular and cherry tomatoes that I bought on my visit to the downtown Mesa Farmer's Market. The dill seeds were harvested from our herb garden this year. After Christmas I'll be starting more herbs, the other varieties of tomatoes and hopefully some squash and peppers.

First Experience With Solar Cooking

When summer temps get over 100 degrees here I am always looking for alternative ways to get dinner on the table without heating up the house. I happened to see a posting on a message board at the Phoenix Permaculture Guild about solar ovens. I looked at solar ovens about 10 years ago but gave up on the idea because they were too expensive to purchase and the do-it-yourself projects were way beyond my skills.

According to the conversation, solar ovens have come a long way in the last few years. There are two models that are reasonably priced and seemed to be popular among the locals. The Sport Solar Oven (above) from the Solar Oven Society and the Sun Oven. The discussion said that both were well made and suitable for use here in the Valley. The main difference is that the Sport is large enough to bake on a cookie sheet, but the smaller Sun Oven will heat to higher temperatures. Since I like to bake, I opted for the Sport which my wonderful husband purchased for me as an early Christmas gift. Although many of the experienced users said they didn't need the optional reflector, I purchased it anyway.

The more I surfed the web for info on solar cooking, the more excited I got. Not only was solar cooking a great way to go "green" but the recipes sounded easy and delicious. Another Valley of the Sun resident has been blogging about using the Sun Oven every day for a year. If you're going to purchase a solar oven, the Solar Oven Chef is a great place to start for tips and recipes.

I probably didn't pick the best day for my initial leap into solar cooking, but it was my only day off. It had been raining all night and was only about 45 degrees outside. The yard was a mud pit and it was cold and windy outside. Since the weather wasn't the best I decided to preheat with the reflector on and see what happened. The oven temp reached 200 degress in a half hour so I decided to keep the reflector on and go for it.

I wanted to start with some easy dishes. Sprouts had sirloin tip roasts on sale and I purchased some of their wild rice blend from the bulk section as a side dish. I cut the roast into 4 pieces and sprinkled it with Lipton Onion Soup Mix. No need for any water when cooking meat in the solar ovens. To the rice blend I added the necessary amount of water, some Mrs. Dash Onion and Herb Seasoning, a dash of tumeric, a little bit of salt, and half a chopped onion. The Sport comes with an oven thermometer and two black cooking pots so it makes it easy to do a complete meal at one time.

At the 2 hour mark I checked on the oven and noticed that there was condensation building up on the door, an indicator that the food is done. Not bad! The roast was perfect and was swimming in lots of broth that I used on the stove top to make gravy. The rice was slightly overdone but still tasty. HuzBen was impressed and loved the meal. I liked the "set it and forget it" aspect of the cooking. I checked on the oven every 30 minutes but I found out quickly that I didn't need to reposition the oven at all. I can't wait to try chicken and potato dishes, and maybe some baking. Anyone for solar baked Christmas cookies?

The Roast


The Rice Pilaf

September Garden Update

(above) The potted chives going to seed at the end of summer

Now that the daily temperature should start dropping below 110 in the shade most days, it's time to start planning our winter vegetable gardens. Looking back on the last year it's clear that some changes need to be made. The tomatoes in the raised bed did not do well. The Big Boy and Early Girl tomatoes were the size of cherry tomatoes and the Sweet 100's were no bigger than marbles.

While we do change about half the soil in the raised bed each year, I think the nutrients are just tapped out. Tomato crops do best when rotated and we've been using the same raised bed year after year.

This coming winter we've decided to add a second raised bed for tomatoes, peppers and perhaps some squash. The older raised bed will be used for spinach, salad greens and herbs. Ben uses a lot of flat leaf parsley in his cooking and it will be nice to have a large amount of it, instead of a pot with 3 to 4 plants.

To make the new raised bed we are on the lookout for an old, inexpensive bookshelf. We'll just remove the back, tip it over, fill it with soil and voila - instant raised bed. Ben is checking out the second hand stores on 50% off days to see what we can find that will suit our needs.

I hope to pick up more large plastic pots too. The potted herbs did very well this year. The lemon balm has some toasted edges and the parsley went to seed in August, but the sage and thyme are loving all the heat.

More Lemon Recipes

The windy weather has kept my friend Ahmed busy picking up lemons in his yard. I am lucky enough be a frequent recipient of this leftovers. Time to get busy in the kitchen!

Lemonade

8-10 lemons 1 1/2-2 cups of lemon juice
1 cup sugar (or to taste)
2 qts water

Juice the lemons and combine all in a tall pitcher. Serve over ice.


Strawberry Lemonade

http://www.eastvalleylife.com/2008/03/strawberry-lemonade.html

Lemon Bars

2 sticks butter
2 cups flour
1/2 cup confectioners sugar plus 1 tbsp for dusting on top
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups sugar
4 tbsp flour
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp grated lemon peel

Preparation:
Heat oven to 325°. Blend butter, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar. Pat into ungreased 13x9x2-inch pan lined with parchment paper for easy removal. Bake for 15-20 minutes. For filling, blend together eggs, sugar, 4 tbsp flour, lemon juice, and lemon peel. Pour over first layer. Return to oven and bake at 325° for 20 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes then sift confectioners' sugar over the top just prior to serving.