Gardening as therapy.

Being the youngest and a girl I was always spared from having to help on butchering days. I can remember coming home from school to find the kitchen filled with bodies as my mom prepped them for the freezer, the butchering, plucking and drawing was usually men's work.

You all are making me feel like such a wimp! When we were children my dad often threatened to get a chicken to have us do the process he grew up with in the country. We were city kids and wanted no part of it, always telling him he wouldn’t eat a chicken we “knew” He was always a bit disappointed in his city kids! Still can’t stand the thought, I like my meat nice and impersonal on a styrofoam tray at the grocery store 🤗 I’ll stick to flowers, wimp that I am!

I've been around a farm all my life. There are things I don't like to do, but I do the work anyway. We take a steer and a hog to the meat processor across the river. Probably will take the chickens too. I ordered 500 so minus roosters and what I keep for eggs - the rest of the girls will go across the river.

The latest term used around here by our local chicken farms is not killing or butchering, but processing. It sounds less gruesome for the customers, but same difference for the chickens.

smeshque- I know how you feel about killing chickens. We keep chickens for eggs only. Whenever we have a sick chicken that has to be put down, my husband does the deed. I tell him to spare me the details. I don't want to know.

CM- How did you come to own ex-battery hens?

I love roosters. They are so beautiful. I raised a few before when the kids and I hatched eggs and ended up with some. We raise them until they start to crow then have to give them away. No roosters allowed in my city.

Our kind neighbours gave us a beautiful rooster, bantam cross, after one of my chickens went (pointlessly) broody and was breaking her heart over it.

Ex-battery hens have never met a boy and don't know what they are. Poor little Hamish tried his best but Alice, head hen, wasn't having any of it. It's a lonely life for a cockerel when all the girls just laugh at you and beat you up.

My baby chicks are thriving, the weather has been pleasant for a bit, so I take them outside to a pen, and then bring them back in at night. I have a rooster that needs to go on the chopping block. My poor hens need a break. I am going to have to get rid of him.
We stopped killing chickens around here. When I was a kid, we would have chicken picking day. UGH! I hated it. Oh how I hated it. When DH and I started farming, I declared I will not be a part of processing any meat. So when they would butcher something, I would take my dog Gracie and go to town until it was all over. But fortunately there has not been any butchering going on in a long time. I much like that better.
Potatoes are growing well and all the other veggies are thriving. Praise God! because this weather has been crazy.

Coq au vin! I would love to perfect my own recipe with a supply of roosters, but someone else has to kill and pluck. :-/

I ordered 500 hens, but you always get a few roosters in the lot. They're always the first to hit the chopping block. If you cook roosters in the pressure cooker they're good for chicken and dumplings.

No PB she is going to sell them to the neighbors as alarm clocks, after about three days though they will hit the grill.

cw- roosters for the fryer?

Mom used to raise roosters, it was so exciting when the box full of little chicks arrived!

My baby chicks are scheduled to arrive next Monday. I have feeders, lights, heat and pen ready in the barn. Still to cold outside at night. I had my liquid manure spread last month on top of the snow. So I should be ready to till and plant at the end of May. I have plants, onion sets, bulbs and seeds ordered for May to mid-June planting. Planting a much bigger vegetable garden this year.

My crazy neighbour has planted 6 tiny spruce trees in his front yard today. Six. In a yard not much bigger than two parked cars. Err, I suppose I could have pointed out that they WILL grow and he will have a forest in front of his house, but I was just relieved to see that he hadn't planted them along the property line.🙄

CW my first real bonding with a chicken happened when I lifted a pot in my greenhouse and dropped it again - ANTS! YARRGGH! SWARMING! WAAAAAHHH..!

Lightbulb came on. I scampered to the hen's run, scooped up DeeDee and Dolly, and ran back to the greenhouse with one under each arm. Boy did they make short work of those delicious ants' eggs 😋

Three foot?

Unless you've clipped their wings - surely not! - I should make that five.

You'll also want to anchor it at six inch intervals along the bottom. And patrol it, looking out for new dust bath sites, which they may for some reason decide have to be right up close to the barrier... and deeper and deeper... day by day...

Hehehe - I'll report back if any fly over the 3 ft netting barrier.

Cwillie - that's a good idea. I used to have grass in the backyard until the chickens ate everything. Now there's none. Maybe I can try growing some grass again.

Years ago when I was fantasizing and reading a lot of "back to the land" books and magazines I saw plans for a lovely chicken coop with fenced areas on each side, one for the chickens and one for the garden - the idea was to trade sides every year so the chickens could act eat up the grubs and fertilize the garden plot.

Yes, it's the"keeping the chickens on one side" I was picturing... and remembering the fate of my lovely young cornflowers when my chickens had been "kept to one side..."

Wicked, wicked hens.

You'd better put a stool pigeon among them to report on any escape committees they're forming.

Polar- I am excited for you.

CM and smeshque - Once I have the poultry netting up to keep the chickens on one side, I can plant veggies on the other side. Yes, they do love to eat young corn and cabbage. I didn't know they shouldn't eat spinach and sorrel. Right now, I have tomato seedlings. Sweet potato vines are ready to go into the ground too. I am going to put down some lettuce and collard seeds next. I'm excited.

Polar you can do as I do and plant a little garden just for your chickens, they love lettuce and turnip greens

How thoughtful, Polar. The chickens will be delighted to help you with the tomatoes, as well as peas, cabbages and perhaps a little sweet corn? Only no spinach or sorrel, thank you, as the iron in them binds to calcium and is dangerous for egg-binding.

Just ordered a few rolls of poultry netting to use in the backyard to fence off half of the backyard for the chickens. The other half I'm taking back so I can plant vegetables. Can't wait. I haven't been able to plant veggies and tomatoes in the backyard for years. Big, meaty, heirloom yellow tomatoes...coming soon. Yum.

First year I have grown broccoli and it is doing well. I see the baby broccoli's. Cold spell took out all but one lone canteloupe, but I have back ups started in greenhouse. Tomatoes are doing well and abundance of turnips. The spinach and Kale is flourishing and tastes so good.

Was doing research on our new bee additions. And the royal jelly is what the queen eats. But did you know they sell it and that it has been shown to help Alzheimer s, as well as so many medicinal properties. I thought that was interesting and will pursue it further.
Wildflowers are growing pretty.
Hope you all are well and happy gardening.

GA, Mexican heather is very hardy here, a perennial. My son calls it the “bee bush” as it’s always covered in bees in summer. It gets about 2 feet high and wide with lovely small purple flowers spring through fall.

Daughter- you are welcome. If you live in US I have plenty of seeds, if you cant find any.
GA-I am in zone 7, will check the suggestions and see if they will do well here, unless you already know? I love lilies. must check out oriental lilies. I am pretty sure elephant ears will do ok here as I have seen them around, i think.

I live in Wisconsin, so our season starts a bit late. Today I went to visit Amish greenhouses and had so much fun! Ended up with a cherry tree, pink pussy willow, holly berry bush and an assortment of flowers and herbs. Can't wait to start planting! Great break from 24/7 care giving for my 88 year old mom.

Rose, lilac, lavender, hummingbird mint. Seeding, cosmos, poppies, and coleus.

Glad, you have to provide a plan for the HOA? Wow!
Are you aware that BHG and I believe Fine Gardening at one time offered software to design gardens? I'm not sure if they still do, and for me it would require spending too much time squinting at a commercial program, but it might "blow away" the HOA people if they realize you're a planner by profession.


CWillie, I've been toying with the idea of raised beds for years; I like the concept, and the ease of maintenance, but, I guess I'm lazy when I think about building them.

Sorry about having to buy new tires. Plants are so much more fun! Do you compost on the area that's so dry?


Daughter, I've never seen Mexican heather. Is it more or less hardy than "traditional" heather? I assume it's perennial? I understand that loropetulum is in the witch hazel family. Do you use it for any witch hazel type preparations?


Smeshque. what zone are you in? I ask b/c of the bulbs you want to plant. Are you looking for annuals or perennials? Would dahlias or colacasia (elephant ears) overwinter safely in your area? I've grown Asiatic and Oriental lilies - beautiful selections. They're bulbs and if happy will spread and spread over the years. I grew Trumpet Lilies at one point; they're quite dramatic.

Cockscombs! Haven’t thought of them in so long! My very loved grandmother always had them next to her back porch, dark red ones. Now I want to find some! Thanks for the memory and reminder