Oscar the fish has now been with us over 2 1/2 months!! So far so good. And like a good little meat eating fish, Oscar has been busy adding his particular brand of nutrients to the aquaponic water. Imagine our relief when the growth stunted tomatoes started to ripen!
I haven’t done many updates on our aquaponics system, but I’ve been considering pulling out the existing plants and making a run at growing fresh spinach at home for my morning omelette. Thus far I’ve extracted the top portion of one of the two rather large tomato plants, but I’ve yet to attempt to pull out the roots system. Of course now that these tomatoes are growing and ripening again, I’m having second thoughts. In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying this Yellow Boy tomato on a sandwich real soon.
It’s quite amazing that little girls can take to chickens as pets as readily as these girls have. Don’t get me started on the mess they can make in the backyard, but it is refreshing to have pets that don’t shed in the house and will actually produce something edible, unlike our beloved pet cat or dog (not trying to take anything away from our fur-babies!!). The four main hens are kicking out about three eggs per day presently.
The younger hen that we introduced to the flock, New Chick, isn’t old enough to lay just yet. But we are extremely pleased that the main hens are not picking on New Chick too badly. They aren’t thick as thieves just yet, but as she strengthens and grows, it is our sincere hope that New Chick will be fully integrated into our small flock.
In the picture below, our Steeler fan Chloe is introducing Blondie, our alpha-hen, to a baby bird camped out in our compost area. What a neat treat to see this baby bird up close. Soon after the introduction, the baby bird hopped away never to be seen again.
Welcome to Humbleville, USA!! September has been beautiful in SE Michigan. The deer, however, has emphasized the HUMBLE in Humbleville. We will be considering putting up fencing at some point if this continues to be an issue.
We have only spread about 7 of the 10 full yards of FREE wood chips we took delivery on a month ago. Although it’ll take quite a bit of human energy to get them placed where we desire, you can’t beat the price. The project will include us laying down cardboard from reclaimed cardboard boxes to kill any weeds or grass, and then heaping a minimum of six inches of mulch on top. Not only will this help us keep the weeds and grass from growing in our gardening area, but as these wood chips break down over time it will actually recondition the soil beneath it, potentially increasing our usable and viable garden space!
The mint and chives are the crop of the season. Very easy to grow. We also harvested and ate the watermelon we grew which quit growing when it was under the size of a basketball. The crown jewel of the garden this year is the single pumpkin. Unfortunately the butternut squash we were looking forward to have been eaten by Muchie, the deer. The peas are done, but they were fun. And I’m not sure it mattered that we forgot to plan cucumbers this year as the deer have eaten nearly everything that we had growing on the trellis.
Another success? Container gardening! We didn’t do the container tomato update in this video, but we show you a couple of our “porch peppers”. We will need to consider doing more container gardening along with some sort of fence project in 2017.
Speaking of the blog … we also have a new blog at www.HumblevilleUSA.com!! Have a look and see! Please continue to join us on our journey by SUBSCRIBING to this channel. It really helps. Thank you and God Bless !!
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:2 | NIV
Fall mushroom hunting in Michigan is a lot of fun. We are definitely novice mushroom hunters, but having a focus or purpose coupled with a beautiful autumn walk in the woods is simply divine. There are a few samples we brought back for further study. If you recognize any of these mushrooms pictured below, would you be so kind as to comment below?
