Tropical Chickens??

We are in beautiful Kauai for the next week or so. I saw comments as I was planning from people complaining about chickens on the island. I figured it would not bother us in the least.

I had no idea!!! They are EVERYWHERE!!!

It is like our yard took over an island. They are more prevalent than squirrels in Florida. It is a hoot.

We definitely picked the right island and as we are stuck in slow traffic we shout out "chickens" every time we see one...it is sort of like a chant.

My hubby does now question the source of all chicken we eat in restaurants. I assure him that roadside chicken would surely be tougher than what we are eating. He is still dubious.

Love it!

Perennials -- a lazy gardeners best friend

Perennials are plants that come back every year without replanting. Once frost gets a tomato plant it is gone forever. Perennials die back and then magically reemerge in the spring. Awesome Opossum.
The fun trick for us out here in the bush is that it is really hard to find plants that actually will come back We are a zone 2-3 which means we have really cold winters where temperatures drop to -30 (not talking wind chill, I mean straight up -30). It is also windy and in recent years we do not get the snow cover we used to. Snow can act like and insulator to protect plants from a quick dip to crazy cold temperatures. We are also on permafrost (a frozen layer of soil/ice a few feet below the surface). Permafrost keeps the ground from ever truly warming up. Our soil is also silty, lacks much organic matter, and is usually acidic.

To sum it up we factor in the following...
Short growing season (rules out most fruit trees because they cannot grow fast enough)
Crappy soil (acidic glacial silt)
Cold soil (we sit on permafrost)
Cold winters (can kill off most perennials)

I love perennials. We have to do so much to garden that it is nice to have some sure things that I know will just grow no matter what. While options are limited I do have a couple tried and trues. I also invest a little each year and try out new plants each year.

      (Three of my rhubarb plants 3 weeks after our last frost...and I love my view)

Rhubarb is of course the easiest sure bet. I did a whole post on them. They grow in pretty much any soil. They are the first thing to come back. Most importantly they are BEAUTIFUL and tropical looking. Nothing else gets that big and green. The fact that they have full leaves out the second the snow melts is a bonus. 

Our family favorite plant is raspberries. Early in our gardening we made a raised bed just for raspberries. It took off like crazy. We loved it so much we decided to expand the bed. Since then we have not had the same success we used to. I have been adding root stock every year for the past 4-5 and we only get a couple plants to come back each year. I have found that Latham Raspberries are the variety that does best for us with our climate and conditions.

Raspberries are thorny and weed-like.You get berries off the stem once. While it is fruiting it sends off shoots that sprout up near it. The next summer those will be your berry producing shoots and this years stems will die off. I have heard that you are supposed to cut all the stems back to the ground each fall. I don't do it because I think they need the slight head start. I just cut back the dead stems at some point in the summer and leave the shoots. I don't weed much around them and just let them do their thing. This year we put a couple root stalks along the edge of the garden slope to see if they will take off there and give a little stability and barrier to the edge of the plot. If I try a different variety of raspberry I always go for the "early" producers. We still don't get berries until August.

Of all my "experimental" plants I have tried Currants have turned out to be the best. I have had this plant for 4-5 years and it comes back early and pretty every year. It is the first to flower and get fruit going. I think I may invest in a couple more. Currants make nice jam and wine. I only have this one plant so we really don't do much with the fruit, but if I get a couple more I can really have some fun with them.


Strawberries have been hit or miss for us, but I know a lot of people who have them come back like champs every year. I started planting them along the bottom of my garden slope a couple years ago where they stay nice and wet (my slope wicks up water from the pond at the base) and it is sunny. I had them coming back and then this year we accidentally buried them when we moved some beds to the base of the slope. I will get some more going next year. I usually go with a mix of early producers. I think I did Ft. Laramie and Honeoye.


Some of our experiments have been to transplant local plants to our beds. Our favorite local berry (berries grow like crazy on the tundra) is one called a Nagoon Berry. Raspberries are my hubby's favorite and these little stinkers are like raspberries on steroids. You can mix a handful of these with a quart of another berry and all you will taste is the Nagoon. My other theory is that they taste better because they are such a pain in the rear to gather. They grow under grass  or back in willow thickets. Basically you are crawling around on the ground in the buggiest spots you can imagine and they are small so a lot of work only nets you a few berries. We now have two spots where these are growing in the yard. I plan to try to expand. They grow one berry on a single stem sort of like a strawberry or salmonberry. The plants do come back but do not always produce fruit and we don't know why. They make pretty green ground cover with dark pink flowers and since they are local they should grow without much messing around with the soil too.

Failed experimental plants have included wild grapes (came back one year but never produced fruit), many varieties of mongolian/siberian/russian apricots/crab apples/choke cherries (you get the picture), blackberries, gooseberries, & non-local blueberries. I have four fruit tree starts out there this year and they are leafing up. They always leaf up the summer I plant them. They are right next to the dead weeping willow and siberian choke cherries from last year. There is some saying about learning from our mistakes...maybe one summer I will run into another gem like my currants though so I keep trying.

I have friends who have had luck with some local irises and some bulb flowers. I usually only mess with stuff I can eat so I have never gone there. I do have a couple bulbs I am trying this summer because my girls wanted more flowers. They are coming up and are a zone 2, but only winter will tell if they make it back or not.

For the Love of Rhubarb

Rhubarb is the best, most prolific, a monkey can do it, perennial for our harsh climate. I swear the second the snow melts I can see the plants getting ready to leaf up. The plants have big tropical giant leaves and are so pretty in a yard....especially a yard surrounded by tundra.

I decided to make a rhubarb fence a couple years ago and it is getting better each year. The back of my lot is lined with lush big leafed plants that I harvest and harvest and harvest. It is the first thing people comment on and they are dumb-dumb easy to maintain.

Basically you just plant a bulb-like start and they grow and grow and grow. Mine grow in crappy glacial-silt sand. I have one runty one but the rest are fabulous. Every year (or two) you can/should divide the "heads" with a shovel. You can see the divider spots and it is seriously hard to kill them once they are established. If you don't use a shovel to take off a couple heads every 3-4 years it can kill off the plant.

I have, and you can, start them from seed. It is slower going though. It takes about two seasons to get them off and running. I have had lightening in a bottle results with established roots that you can just plant straight away. 

The first year you should not harvest anything. Then the sky is the limit. In my short growing season I can usually get 4-6 harvests per year. I typically do not take all of the leaves at once. I more or less "prune" the plant. When it is getting cold and frost is eminent I take them all.

With Rhubarb only eat the stems. The leaves are actually poisonous. I turn the leaves into organic pesticide. They really are the best, easiest, most under-utilized plant in the gardening world.

My favorite use of rhubarb is a raspberry rhubarb pie with streussel topping. I usually don't use recipes but I will try to make one and post it at some point. Mine are kind of tart and I use coconut milk instead of butter. Yum!

The Chicken Chronicles - Eviction Day!

Within about 3 seconds of setting starts down in the greenhouse the chicks were trying to eat them. Ooo it made me mad. Since they were not going to be nice neighbors I decided it was time for eviction.

I fortified the chicken yard and blocked all the spots where there there is larger mesh fencing. I used the old door that was ripped off by the wind and some scrap lumber. It is trashy looking but works just fine.

Then I had the girls guard the greenhouse door while I chased chicks all over it. I had to catch them two at a time. It was a scene. I had to dodge my upside down tomato planters and I must have cracked my head 3 different times. I started them in the coop and they all seemed content to explore in there with the exception of one brave little Buff Orpington who thinks she is a big dog. What was odd was that the big birds sort of surrounded her. It may have been a coincidence but it looked a lot like a protective ring.

This morning all chicks were alive and hanging out in the yard. I came home for lunch and the big chickens were in the yard and chicks were back in the coop. I guess they are rotating. I am pleased that none of the stinkers has figured out how to get out of the fence and that so far they are all alive and kicking.

It is just a matter of time before we weed out a couple weak ones...

Upgrade! (maybe)

Summer is about as here as it is going to get and I need to get my garden going. I am usually planted by this time.

Ducks have been living in my Pea Bed and Chicks have been in the greenhouse. To get the garden planted we had to move them all around again yesterday. I began by shoveling 11 wheelbarrow loads of composted poo out of the pig pen.

I have all of it dumped onto my south-facing garden slope and will turn it into the dirt tomorrow. I was promised a couple loads of top soil when I had the back of our lot sloped for gardening, but he forgot so all I have is glacial silt sand. I have been lazy the last two summers and have not done much to it to get it in better shape. It desperately needs more organic matter mixed into it. Luckily a monkey can grow potatoes and it has not mattered much for that endeavor. The real problem is that in dry weather a good wind will make a big dust storm out of it and then we are scraping dirt out of our ears. Once I get more compost into it I am hoping it will both be better for the other things I grow and it will stay put better in a breeze. If it were up to my kids it would be their own giant private sand box to get filthy in all summer.

After taking my compost pike out of the pen my hubby dug a "pool" at one end that he lined with a tarp. We covered the ground and inside of the pen with fresh hay and turned the birds loose. They have a lot more room and this is a nice safe permanent home. They also have an actual shelter to hang out in. The weather will get nasty. It always gets nasty. They only had a lean-to in the Pea Bed.

In a couple weeks I will try teach them to spend their days out on the pond but I want them fully feathered out and I want the geese big and scary before I take the plunge into the wild.

UPDATE: I went to check the birds first thing this morning and found a dead duck floating in the "pool". The water level had dropped and left sort of a trough of water. I think it could not get out and eventually chilled and died. I am very disappointed. It weighed a good 4-5 pounds and was only 5 weeks old! I could have EATEN IT! Actually at work we debated whether we should go ahead and eat it anyway since we know how it died. I think I am going to pass...but it still stinks!

I have covered what water is left in the pool for today and we will rethink it tonight and see if we can upgrade it into a safer swimming hole. It had seemed perfect. :(