Friday, January 10, 2020

Gardening in January?

I was out in the yard earlier, and I saw that arugula was growing in the hugelkultur garden:
Now, generally speaking, I would never expect to see fresh arugula growing in the yard unprotected, but the weather has been incredibly warm for this time of year for quite a while, and the seeds have decided it's time to sprout.  Since it's been to warm to freeze the ground, I was also able to harvest some baby carrots:


While outside, I heard one of the hens make her "I laid an egg!" sounds.  I saw her come out from under a tarp, and went to check.  Sure enough, there was a huge clutch of eggs there!  We thought the chickens were not laying, but it turns out, they have been laying sneakily.  So I stapled some fabric scraps over the nesting boxes:

Some people make chicken curtains to encourage the chickens to lay in the boxes.  I've never had to do this before; they've always just laid where they are supposed to.  However, these hens have been finicky.  They were laying on the floor of the coop in a little "nested" area they made.  I tried to discourage that, and although they did lay in the real boxes for a bit, they apparently decided to find a new place.  Luckily, I found it, and I hope with the "curtains" they will start laying appropriately.  I really don't want to have to go searching for eggs all the time!

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