Update on the Garden & Chickens

While most of the nation has been suffering under intense heat, in my neck of the woods, we've had unusually gloomy and cool weather. This combined with pest and chicken issues has made my early August garden disappointing. It's not the lush, lovely thing it was last year. But I don't want anyone to ever think I don't share my disappointments as well as my triumphs, so come, take a peek into my yard:
My front bed. It doesn't look too bad; there's nasturtiums for eating, plus crocosmia and gladiolas just for looks.
Another section of the front bed. I planted one of these tomatoes; two are volunteers from last year. Plus there are volunteer wonderberries, a Brussels sprout, strawberries, onions, and some gladiolas. Things are looking a bit too crowded, and if I don't act soon, the weeds will take over. You can't even see the zucchini and beans in there:
By now, I'd normally have harvested lots of beans. These are my first of this year.

I'm glad I planted marigold's this year. They make the garden more cheery and help fill in when I'm waiting on other things. Here, my second batch of peas is planted and I'm waiting for them to sprout. Normally, I'd be on round three of peas.

In my 10 years of living here, I've never seen so many ladybugs in the garden. That's a great thing, since I usually have an aphid problem. This year, I've only seen a few aphids.

My lovely cabbages are tasty and thriving. One of my failures was that I planted cabbages in lots of places in our yard this year - only to have them obliterated by the chickens.

We bought some thornless blackberries last year. This year, we have these first little berries.

Another disappointment: My potatoes. This is my second year trying to grow spuds and my second year failing at it. This year, I put them in a grow bag, but the snails have eaten them so badly, I'm sure they won't produce much, if anything. I lost a lot of seedlings to slugs and snails this year, too. We live in an area where the slimy critters are infamous; normally I use Cory's Snail Bait against them, but I was afraid to use it with the chickens around. I need a better plan for next year.

More evidence of hungry snails. Believe it or not, that taller plant in the back is kohlrabi.

My columnar apple trees are doing well and the lettuce I planted beneath them is still going strong, even though it's August!

I planted this chard in the spring. It is just barely now of a size that I can thin it.

Our blueberry bushes (new last year) gave us a delicious crop and our strawberries have been quite prolific.
We're getting about three eggs a day now - and boy, are they yummy!

Four of our hens are laying now - even the one we were sure was a rooster. One - much smaller than the others - isn't. We've had to separate that bird from the flock due to excessive pecking by the other birds. My husband build her a little coop of her own...At least we hope she's a she. She hasn't laid any eggs yet.

How's your garden doing?

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