Ramps and Chicken Tractors

Nadia’s head feathers have all grown back now. She looks quite elegant, don’t you think?

Nadia with all her head feathers

Twice last week there were two white eggs in the Little Red Hen Retirement Home, which means that Nadia and Gracie are both laying. Pat S. pointed out that since they have come out of retirement, we should call their coop a shelter for battered women. One of our local shelters is called “Home of the Sparrow,” so I am now going to call the Little Red Barn the “Home of the Chicken.”

Two white eggs

We had warm but windy weather this weekend. The bare root native plants I ordered from Prairie Moon arrived on Thursday. 

A box of bare root stock

I ordered some fairly aggressive species in the hope of crowding out the prolific garlic mustard. I finally got my order in early enough to score three ramps, or wild leek. I’ve wanted to grow ramps as long as I’ve known about them. I even secretly contemplated swiping some from a state park that shall remain nameless, but my mania was not sufficient to goad me to illegal activity. Three (or four?) years ago, when Prairie Moon was sold out of bare root by the time I ordered, I got a packet of seed. Well. I found when I read the instructions that I couldn’t even plant them until the next spring. They took months of stratification. I dutifully put them in a baggie with damp potting soil and stuck it in the refrigerator. I also direct seeded some back by the creek in the fall, marked and protected by a cage. When spring rolled around, I spread the contents of the bag on top of more potting soil in the green house. A sprout emerged! It grew into some kind of sedge! Crap! Back by the creek, nothing. I gave up and planted cardinal flowers on the site.

I was very excited to get the bare root ramps. I also got May apple, white trout lily, Dutchman’s breeches, and maidenhair fern. I dug out holes to the specified depth and filled them with good soil. I put the roots in, made sure the soil was packed all around, marked them with a stick and a pin flag, and mulched them. 

May apple

Ramps

Trout lily

Dutchman's breeches

I also mulched around some of the other plants I had back there. To be honest, the biggest danger is Terry and his weed whacker. I found this out two years ago when he whacked off my wild ginger. But I’m not bitter, that’s the important thing.

I moved the cage from the jack-in-the-pulpits to my precious ramps. 

Ramps in a cage

I took the smaller cages off the cardinal flowers to protect the maidenhair fern and the Dutchman’s breeches. When I brushed the leaves away from the cardinal flowers so I could mulch around them, lo and behold, there were three very ramp-like sprouts! After all this time, the seeds finally did something.

The two blade-like leaves with red stems may be ramps; the small basal rosette in the front is a cardinal flower

After my work back at the creek, I walked around looking at stuff. This is my vision of retirement, spending all day putzing around. There are no signs of asparagus yet. Buds are swollen but not yet opening on the fruit trees. The New England Aster that I planted last weekend is doing well.

Transplanted New England aster looking good

Probably the best thing about having baby plants back by the creek is that I will make time to walk back and water them every couple of days. When I went back this morning, the ramps were already looking perkier.

Ramps on their second day

Hilda spent yesterday at GardenFest. In one of her classes, she learned how to grow oyster mushrooms on a log. The instructor had some extra kits, and Hilda bought one for me. After I was done with my kitchen work, I put the spore-inoculated plugs into the drilled holes in a log.

Spore-inoculated plugs positioned in holes

I tapped them in with a hammer and covered them with a waxy substance that did not need to be heated.

Covering the plugs with wax

In the final step, I put the whole log in a giant plastic bag and secured it loosely with a paper clip. The idea is to let it have air but keep it from drying out. As soon as we see mycelia, we take it out of the bag and put it on the ground in the shade. How exciting!

Log in bag in garage until the mycelia emerge

Today’s afternoon project was setting up Coop 2 by the garden. We are experimenting with a chicken tractor this year. That means that we are going to move the hens down to the garden and let them eat grubs and weed seeds. I hope they get all the slugs and cucumber beetles. They also till (scratching) and fertilize. We’ll see how it goes. Mostly we need to give the run a rest because it is a mud pit. I need to aerate and seed it.

I was surprised and pleased to find inexpensive nest boxes at Farm and Fleet. Terry installed them in Coop 2.

Nest boxes in Coop 2

Terry pulled the coop down and hauled all the equipment in the back of the Gater. He helped me set up the fence and put posts in the corners. (I should note that Hilda wanted to help but was riddled with disease and pestilence, having come down with a cold on Thursday night.)

Coop 2 by the garden

Right down the middle of the garden, there were sandhill crane tracks! I wish I'd been home to see that. You see something like that, and you just know that birds are dinosaurs.

Sandhill crane tracks down the middle of the garden

After Terry had helped me with everything he could do, I was left with the irritating job of mending the fence where those damned turkeys had pecked it last fall. Stupid turkeys. I could never stand being a fisherman and having to mend nets.

A new piece of fence tied over a damaged piece

I put wood chips in the bottom and got the feeder and waterer installed. Just after sunset, when the chickens can’t see very well, we will move them to Coop 2 for the night. They need to start out in the coop so they learn it is their new home. We’ll move the Home of the Chicken later. I’ve had enough for today.