I finished planting my straw bale garden yesterday. I am really happy with it. The gutter garden is filled with greens and doing well. And I started building the hay bale garden. I have the center filled with rabbit poop and will be putting compost on top. Today I will start conditioning the bales after I get the soil part planted.

I can't even begin to state how much easier this type of gardening is on my body. I am really thrilled to be able to plant so much again and grow so much of my own food this year. I've put in an outlay of $350, so once I start harvesting food, I will count that against my total. I usually come out ahead by several hundred dollars on a good garden year. And I think this is going to be a good garden year.

http://youtu.be/UqleDAp2eaw

I have planted enough tomatoes and green beans to supply my family's needs for the year. I've planted enough potatoes, that I should be able to can at least 52 quarts, which will be a jar a week. And I should have some left over to dehydrate for hash browns, and of course some for fresh eating. I would like to get more potatoes into the ground, but I don't know if that will happen. The harvesting of potatoes will be the only difficult part of harvesting this year, but the kids will help.

My ducks are almost 12 weeks old and have started swimming in the kiddie pool I gave them.



They could start laying eggs anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks from now. I am really looking forward to those first fresh duck eggs. I still have to wait a while to determine sexes for certain. But I have 4 females for sure and I think it is possible that it is 6 out of 9. Once the drake feathers come in on the males, I can then determine which ones will go to freezer camp and which ones will stay around for egg laying and breeding purposes. The drake feathers can start any time from now until about 20 weeks old, so I am keeping a sharp eye out.

The turkeys are getting huge at 8 weeks old and the little pullets at 10 weeks old are growing pretty fast, too. They just look small in comparison. In another 4 or 5 weeks, depending on size, we can start integrating the pullets in with the laying hens. They can't live with the turkeys forever, but they need to be big enough to defend themselves against the older hens. Hens can be really mean to young pullets as the new pecking order is determined, so I like them to be close to equal sizes before putting them together.

I will try to get some photos of them to put up. We for sure have one tom turkey. He has done the whole tail fan spread strut thing, which is kind of funny at this age, because it's not very big but it is definitely a fan. He also gobbles. We also have two hens. I am unsure about the fourth turkey. I am hoping it is a hen, too, but the way the tom challenges it I think it might just be a smaller tom. Then again, it could be a hen aiming for the top of the pecking order. It is the second biggest of all the turkeys.

In another 2 weeks or so we will be ready to start butchering our next batch of meat chickens. The Rainbow Rangers were pretty good and they actually looked like chickens, though they were pretty lazy. I hope the Cornish cross are even better. They better be or I won't raise them again. They are pretty sad looking and their feather growth can't keep up with their body growth, and they don't move around much at all. I feel bad for them. Still, they get to be outside during the day and have fresh air and sunshine, and that is better than the commercially raised ones live. And I know what they are being fed.

Cornish cross grow faster than Rainbow Rangers, but you know what grows even faster? Pekin ducks. And they feather properly, so I may just grow Pekins as meat birds next year.

Will we end up saving money on the cost of chicken and duck meat after feed and bedding costs are considered? Yes, but not by much. Still, to know how they lived and how they died and how they ate is worth it to me. And so far the flavor is incomparable to grocery store birds. Even the organic ones. I am not counting the cost of building their housing, because that is a one time cost.