Posted by admin | Posted in Building Chicken Coops | Posted on 29-04-2010
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Chicken Pen
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Chicken Pen attached to Hen House
In order to save our lawn and garden I had to build a new
chicken pen to attach to the chicken coop I built last year. We let our hens run free all Fall and Winter and they practically destroyed the backyard. Once the plants and grass are grown back in this summer we will let them out again. I looked at alot of chicken pens online and decided this was the best design for our hens. We added one a feature to it that I am sure no other
chicken pen has. We added a compost screener to the top.
I will create a video shortly to show you how this works but for now I will just explain it. The top of the
chicken pen is half inch hardclothe so we built a separate frame around that hardclothe that creates the top of the pen and we can remove to shift our compost.
Posted by admin | Posted in Bees Make Honey | Posted on 27-04-2010
Posted by admin | Posted in Tomato Blight | Posted on 31-03-2010

Summer Garden Bounty
Tomato Blight is a spore that infects tomato plants without warning. It is blown by the winds from the southern United States and can travel up to 30 miles per day. Last year 2009 was a very bad year for northeast tomato growers. Most tomatoe plants purchased from the stores and nursery’s were infected and even if you planted your own seeds they became infected from the traveling spores.
Commonly known as late blight this spore was the same as the one that infected the potatoes during the Irish Potato Famine.
The best protection from the tomato blight is prevention. Here are three simple rules to follow that will help.
- Do not rush to plant your tomatoes early in the season. Wait until the nights are consistently above 50 degrees Faranheit.
- Plant your tomatoes in a raised bed instead of flat ground allowing for better soil drainage.
- Use compost as a soil base and nutrient for your tomatoes.
The last of these rules is probably the most important. The fall leaves from your trees possess all the nutrients that your tomatoes need to be healthy and ward off diseases like tomato blight. My wife and I followed these rules in 2009 and had a great tomato crop in 2009. We always compost our fruit and vegetable scraps with our fall leaves and grass clips. It makes a nutrient rich soil that our plants love.