THE ARM CHAIR GARDENER !

View from our back deck.  

                                                               
                                                                                                                                                                  BUNCH OF CLUCKIN  CHICKENS !
                                                                                                                  
  I tell  ya, I think this winter planning for the garden is some stressful stuff now !   I have been trying to decide how much and what I would need and want to plant this coming season.   I plan on expanding the garden and adding more. It did so well / I still have carrots and onions in the bed wintering over, we have been eating and feeding the Wabbits .   I also plan on saving my own seeds from know on. So as to eliminate the cost of having to buy every year .                             The PRICES                                   OF ORGANIC , HEIRLOOM SEEDS !!!!!        Makes you want to think ! Think ! and RE-THINK just what it is you really want and need to grow.  Iv been working on it for a while now, and I still can't bring myself to pick-up the phone and make the orders. Seed potatoes  from one place , onions another , rest of veggies from yet another !   I can't find ONE place that has it all.  Than I switched over from that, to give myself a break and decided to start investigating hatcheries for ordering the chickens I want to get this year.    SHIITAKE  MUSHROOMS !   It's a foreign language !   Greek I think !  It takes more to ship than it does to buy .  I just wanted some all around birds, there trying to tell me I have to pick- broiler-fryer-Cornish-BBQ ?  Can't ship little ones with bigger ones, no turkeys with chickens. Easter eggers-brown eggers-dark brown eggers- white eggers-rainbow malty colored ?  Think I might try an old time standard  Red Ranger chickens and maybe some Cornish game hens.  Red Rangers  get to be a good 5-6 1/2 lbs  in 80 days. They're broody ( in Greek ) that means they will sit and hatch there own chic's ,  so I won't  have to keep buying them. And they are good brown egg layers / 150 eggs per hen per year .  I figure can take us down to 5 hens and a rooster for winter . Saving coast of feed , putting the rest in the freezer .  Now the Cornish hens can be, shall we say" harvested"  in 1 month at 2-2 1/2 maybe 3 lbs. and they can be free ranged . I think that's a good plan for the birds and the freezer. Now , if I could just get the garden seeds ordered !   BEFORE THEY SELL OUT .     T