country n news-its a strange one

COUNTRY N NEWS-ITS A STRANGE ONE

as i walk around our property doing my spring clean up
that i usually do in april and sometimes may
i see so many things that say spring is just early
and
that our winter was real mild

well
it was mild except for one night here when it got
down to 12 degrees
enough that it damaged all the cactus on our property
even the native prickly pear cactus took a beating
also our bay tree got nipped on the top branches
our monterey or mexican white oaks all lost its leaves
usually in a warm winter they dont lose them at all

our early peach tree i dont know what type it is
its definitely a short freeze hour one
bloomed over a month ago
it is now loaded with peaches small ones
which i will have to thin out to about every
6 inches so we will get bigger more delicious peaches
these are the best peaches that we make
when they make
now if we get that cold snap that usually hits
we could lose them all if it gets down in the 20s
fingers crossed

last week i took this picture of our first two
bluebonnets
they usually pop out in april to mid april
not this year
they will all be march bloomers

when you sit on our lower deck
you hear this constant humming
like a nature concert
all day long
its bees covering up our crossvine blooms
they arrive at dawn and dont leave until
the sun goes down

a beautiful site as you walk up to our house
a beautiful sound also

each year i accumulate a lot of leaves
that folks give me
this is a stack of about a 100 bags
that i tore apart and placed in my chicken coop
and in my large c shaped chicken run around
my garden

these girls
they actually go nutso over bags of leaves
they dig down in there
scratching around
finding seeds small seedlings bugs
to eat
its like when you hold a baby who is breastfeeding
you know that humming sound that contentment
sound they make
well
those girls
they make this sound thats a sound of happiness
and contentment
while they work those leaves
eventually shredding the leaves to smithereens
pooping all over them
mixing them all up
making
the absolute richest compost you can make
plus
they also reward us
with all these eggs
as thanks for giving them these leaves

so
here at the country n
its such a peaceful beautiful place this time of year

we enjoy it and appreciate it every day

the organicgreen doctor

browns to greens

BROWNS TO GREENS
im the leaf buster
my old black truck is always ready to go
all you have to do is call
and
ill come running

yesterday thats what i did
got a call
hey doc my neighbor just scalped and raked his lawn
do you want the bags of stuff he collected
its full of dried dead grass leaves twigs and other debris

yes i said
ill be there tomorrow

so off i went in my trusty old black truck
knowing that this would be a load of stuff
i knew exactly where it would go
those country n chicken they gonna love this stuff

so drove up to this house
there they were
15 bags of ecstasy for those hens
i could see eggs and more eggs
veggies and more veggies
in my dreams

i loaded them up after briefly inspecting them
then off i went
on the trip back home
all i could think of was those hens are gonna be happy

ill put them here
this is the spot the chickens like the most
between the fence and the 3 ft horse panels
heck at the bottom of that pile i have old paperwork
that will compost down with all the other stuff
i throw in

this is also where we throw our kitchen scraps
the chickens attack it like sharks after chum

when its all over with and we grow stuff
it all turns green

like this crockpot of greens i cooked last week
pot liquor was good
if you dont know what that is then you aint from the south
its not alcohol
but its better

i also recently trimmed my asparagus bed down to the ground
since all the fronds i guess thats what you call them
had frozen to the ground
then i added my compost from my compost pile that the
chickens prepared for me
then i covered it with leaves mostly live oaks that i
obtained from many of you last year
it acts as a mulch to keep the beds warm and moist
now we need to wait a couple months


and those asparagus spears will start popping out of
the ground
more greens
from the browns

my version of garden artistry

the organicgreen doctor

leaves for grass

LEAVES FOR GRASS
by william nash

i am told by several folks that i am a writer
which by the way i dont feel like i am
i just think stuff up like this blog and put what
is in my brain into my fingers and tap it on my
computer

i do a free flow of thoughts
then go back and do corrections
sometimes i follow those autocorrect recommendations
but
they dont quite understand how i like to write

now today i am going to write this blog
will some hesitation
well a lot of hesitation

what i am going to tell you to do
at your house may greatly affect
my ability to garden as i like to garden
and
probably cost me money as i will have to
buy more of this stuff
compost

first i have a confession to make
i have 15 trees on the one acre that is fenced in around
our house
plus even more in my pastures

each year in the fall after the weather turns cold
the leaves all turn brown
then slowly they all are let loose to fall gently
to the ground
so for that many trees thats a lot of leaves

now confession time
i dont ever rake those leaves
i just let nature blow them around all winter long
looks good in my landscape
not really sure where they all go
but i dont see much evidence of them in the spring

                                                        thisoldhouse.com

yesterday in my barn i found my old leaf rake that
is covered with layers and layers of dust
forgotten and shoved into a far corner of our barn

now there are several of you and your friends
who painfully rake your leaves
bag them up
sometimes paying your kids or
sometimes forcing them to do the work for you

then thank goodness
you call me the ogd to come get your bagged up leaves
if im lucky they are in those paper bags
i just chuck them over the fence into my big chicken
run compost pile
nature breaks down the bag
the country n chickens then act as my shredder
and fine shreds them to smithereens
then they dig out the seeds
poop all over it
then
after months of waiting i have the best compost you can use
the one that you make your self
or should i say
the country n hens make themselves

jerry the rooster just seems to stand around
and supervises
like
i guess you do when your kids rake the leaves in the yard


now for the part im hesitant to tell you
you dont have to rake those leaves and bag them
just as you dont have to bag your grass clippings
just mow over the leaves several times
they get shredded to smithereens like the country n chickens
do
and
you now have mulch and eventually compost in your yard

its almost free to do it this way
they tend to be acid which around here is needed in our soil
since its so alkaline
plus
that composted lawnmowered leaves add nitrogen to your
soil
so you almost dont need to add fertilizer each year
especially
if you leave those grass clippings on your yard

now
if you dont want to do all this
its ok with me
cause ill still continue to take your leaves

what nature giveth
dont giveth away
unless
they are headed my way

the end

the organicgreen doctor

whats left

WHATS LEFT

take thousands and thousands of these guys and put them
in a bag
you know a lot of you do this every year and put them on the
curb to be disposed of in usually land fields

we use to like to rake them up and jump in them and scatter them
i guess because we didnt have snow
we made leaf angels

thanks to the campises guynes butlers and nagles last year
hope i didnt leaf anyone out
and
thanks to my wife she and even me on occasion jumping
out of our car or truck and taking some of those bags off
your curb
hope you didnt mind
we accumulated close to a hundred bags of their and your leaves

so what did we do with your leaves and whats left of them

whats left allowed me to take this











an onion set i only plant the 1015 onions do so in january
300+ of them
then
in june i pull up the completed onion

this one is sitting right now on my kitchen cabinet
plucked from our garden in june
waiting to be used tonight on our pizza

heres what happened to your leaf

we placed the leaves in a layer about 1-2 ft deep in our
chicken run which runs around three sides of our garden
for a total of 90 ft
it is about 3 ft wide
think of a c laying on its back

then the chickens from march to now december walk through
these leaves
pick out any weed seeds any insects
then scratches and scratches and scratches them
if you have ever seen chickens scratch then you know what i mean
if you havent then its your loss

so that now in december they are shredded down to fine particles
which when combined with months of chicken deposits
and moisture and composting
make the best compost ever
it smells you know how good dirt and compost smells
so good you could almost eat it
almost

here is a picture of one leg of my chicken run or my compost pile
this week

this layer of compost is 3-4 inches deep
is 3 ft wide
is 90 ft long
running this information in the cubic foot calculator from the
natural gardener
i calculate that i have about 3 cu yards of the best compost
that you can ever use on your garden
that that you make yourself

i dug some of this up and after clearing off my 4 ft x 12 ft bed
where last year we had tomatoes planted
this year will be my onion bed
the bed is a combo of the anthill or hugelkulter method 
and
the keyhole garden method

i then place a 3-4 inch layer of my or your leaf compost on
the bed and spread it out evenly
i scattered an organic fertilizer in this case i used ladybug 8-2-4
you can use medina growin green or any good organic fertilizer
commercial fertilizers can build up salts in the garden
contaminate our water system
and can harm the dirts bacteria fungi and worms etc
then
i lightly scatter cottonseed meal over the bed

then
i cover it with a mulch i use in this case pine straw as it easily
lets in water but provides protection and warmth from the cold
sometimes i use your leaves for the mulch

now i wait
and let all this marinate now for two months
let it get good and rich and get that right flavor
then
i rake off the pine straw
poke a hole in the ground with my gloveless index finger
i like the dirt on my finger and under my nails
it seems to connect me better with my garden
i lightly sprinkle in some earth worm castings
then
i drop in the green onion plant and this all starts over again
and
we make these onion chimes again

you should try this
saving your leaves
make your own mulch
plant your own garden
see whats left
of your leaf

thanks again to the above mentioned families for their
kind donations to the country n organic garden

the organicgreen gardener

leaves

LEAVES
i wish to thank those of you that have donated
leaves to me for use in my compost pile and
my organic garden

each year i collect bags of leaves
lots of leaves
last year it was somewhere between 75-100 bags of
leaves that would have gone into your land fields

a cardiologist i knows wife is a big organic farmer
and whom i will let remain nameless
they drive around the neighborhood where they live
and steal bags and bags of leaves
ok im a sucker for leaves also and have been known
to stop and fill the car trunk or truck with bags of leaves

over a two year process these leaves go from your yard
to my chicken coop area to my compost piles and then
into my garden beds
the chickens shred the leaves and add nitrogen to the
carbon from the leaves ie they take dumps of poop
while playing in the leaves

this picture is from an aerial view of our property
taken a few years ago
the black tank is one of my rainwater tanks thats used
to irrigate the garden with
i have since moved them to a higher elevation behind
my barn so ill have greater pressure for my drip irrigation

the white stuff in my garden is row cover thats used
when the temperature is cold
this picture was taken in the early winter before my winter
garden started growing well

here is the layout of my garden
the chicken coop is on the far left side the metal roof
is visible
the coop has about 10 ft x 40 ft area thats connected
to the coop
10 chickens equal 40 ft apiece when they are locked up

however there is a chicken run that is c shaped or horseshoe
shaped that wraps around my 900 square foot garden space
the garden space extends from the right of the aerial picture
to the edge of the coop area
the chickens have free run of this c shaped area during the day
they will dig scratch shred the leaves that i have spread out
along this c shaped run

also they love to dig in my compost pile that is 4 ft x 20 ft x 2 ft
they can reduce a 3 ft pile of composting leaves etc to almost
nothing in a few weeks

i leave the leaves in the chicken runs for about 6-9 months
they add the nitrogen poop to the leaves which they eventually
shred down to nothing and also add feathers as the molt them
each year

then once a year i rake this all up and place it in my compost
pile which they continue to jump in and reduce its size even more
we also add kitchen scraps and newspapers to the compost pile
and add any leaves or grasses or plant trimmings from our garden
or yard

what i have left is this great mixture of materials that makes the
best compost ive ever had

then i spread this in a 3-4 inch layer over my garden beds usually
in the winter so it can mature until its planting time in the spring

the end result is this bed of winter greens which we use
almost on a daily basis in the winter time in our kitchen
and a spring summer fall garden that provides much
produce all year

so again
thanks to all of you leaf donors
be sure and donate or use your leaves yourself

the organicgreen doctor