Pittsburgh Backyard Farmings Weekly Update 5/29/14

Pittsburgh Backyard Farmings

Weekly Update 5/29/13

We hope everyone had a great safe holiday weekend! The weather couldn't have been any better here in SWPA! As I type this I am enjoying our first harvest from the strawberry patch!

Remember to be sure all your farm animals have cool fresh water and shade in this hot humid weather, humidity is a chickens worst enemy. Our girls got some nice cold watermelon as their treat and they were loving it!

News around our backyard farm:

• Meet our newest member of our backyard farm! Miles :)

• We finally planted out sweet potato slips! They seem like they are loving this heat and rain!

• We had the opportunity to finally meet one of fans!

• The daycare Ashley works at is going to be starting an egg incubation project!

• We've been busy cleaning up the yard/porch for my sisters graduation party.

What's Going On In Our Garden

Cilantro has battled through all the rain! 

You can see our container plants are doing great!

Potato box is doing alright, a few plants are slow growing!

Our 30+ tomato plants are off to a great start!

Sweet Potatoes growing nicely!

Lettuce is ready to be used!

Blueberries are starting to look like berries! ;)

Tiny grapes are forming!

We are going to have a ton of black raspberries!

Yummy strawberries starting to ripen!

Our first harvest 5/29/2014

Garlic is getting bigger and bigger everyday!

Shallots are some crazy looking things!

Can't wait to see what we get!

Potato buds!

Our potato towers we built! 

Grow bags are still growing!

All our corn is up! 

Horseradish is flowering 

Ashley is adding new sand to the run/coop

She also added vanilla air fresheners to deter flies!

We've still be shaking our homemade vanilla! It's almost DONE!!!

Our Avocados are showing a lot of new growth now once they are outside!

I think we figured out the mystery plant... mustard 

So there's our garden this week! I hope you guys are enjoying these updates along with our page! We want to see some pictures of your gardens so please, post some to our page!!!

Help Prevent Blossom End Rot With Egg Shells

Help Prevent Blossom End Rot 

With Egg Shells

So chicken owners, what do you guys do with all those egg shells? Throw them out? Toss'em in a compost? Well here's one thing we started to do which will help those calcium needy plants! Read more if you guys wanna see how we use them!

Things you'll need:
Egg Shells
Drying Rack/Pan
Hammer
Food Processor
A Few Container of Some Type

Step 1: Save Those Shells and Let Them Dry

We start saving our egg shells in February. By the time planting comes around we have more then enough! As you use your eggs rinse them out real quick and place them somewhere to dry. You can just throw them in a container or putting on a drying rack for a few days. You don't have to rinse them it just helps with the smell over time!

Step 2: Smashing the Shells Down

As you start getting a collection of dry egg shells you can throw them in a bowl or container. We use old oatmeal containers to hold all of our egg shells. To save space breaking them up with your hammers or anything you wish! 

Step 3: Grind Them Up

When your containers of shells are full go ahead and place them in the food processor! When grinding them up you are going to want to make them as fine as you can get! When you get them into a fine powder go and place them back into your container. Those processed shells are now ready to be used!

So why are we telling you to grind up your egg shells??? Keep on reading!

Step 4, 5, & 6 Planting your Tomatoes and Peppers

The reason why we ground the shells up into a powder is so we can supply your tomatoes and peppers with a slow release of calcium through out the season!

Step 4: So it's pretty simple: 

Dig your recommended hole for your plant and place 1/2 cup of your shell powder at the bottom and then plant your plant as you would. 

Step 5: Add Some To The Top:

Once you get your plants in the ground if you have any shells left its safe to sprinkle it around the base of your plants! This will also slowly release calcium to the soil but also prevent soft body insects from climbing up and eating the leaves! 

Step 6: Add More As Needed 

This is up to you, if you want to keep saving eggs shells and doing it this way you can add more powder as the season goes on! We usually have more then enough during the time we save. So we end up throwing those egg shells in the compost buckets!

Pittsburgh Backyard Farmings Weekly Update 5/20/14

Pittsburgh Backyard Farmings

Weekly Update 5/20/14

We are so excited things have finally started to warm up! We've gotten the garden mostly planted and we couldn't be happier! We are going to try to use our blog more giving you guys weekly updates with our garden along with any projects we do! 

News around our backyard farm: 

• If you guys haven't seen our most recent post about the chicken ordinances of pleasant hills, here's a link from the trib! 
• Pleasant Hills Chicken Ordinance Still Undecided
• Any thought? We would like to hear!

• We finally found wheat and oats that are not treated on out trip out to Penn State! We are in the process of starting our fodder system! We will  be doing a step by step blog post about how to get it started and maintain it for your flock!

• We have everything in the garden except for out sweet potatoes! It's still a little to cold for them! 
• Have you guys planted everything yet???

Why do you love your backyard flock?

The Girls are giving us 5-6 eggs a day!

Here's some pictures of whats going on in our garden!

Our 4 potato bags are doing awesome! I was digging around the one and it already has little tubers forming :)

The potatoes in our barrel have poked through!

We are going to have tons of strawberries! If you know of a great way to use them please let us know! We already plan to make jam/jelly, and pies :)

The curry plant is doing alright! This is the first time we are growing it! My mom will love using fresh curry in her devil eggs!

The cilantro is starting to peak through the rocks onto top of the rain barrel!

Our 4 chive plants are in full blossom!

We planted out hanging baskets :)

Potatoes in the garden are doing fantastic!

The garlic has doubled in size this week!

Broccoli has started to take off!

The first 3 rows of corn is starting to come up! We just planted 2 more rows that should be coming up in the next few days! 

The three blueberry bushes are starting to lose their flowers and form little berries!

The Dots taking a dust bath... We are sad to say all 4 are most likely boys :/

The girls enjoying some water on this warm afternoon!

So thats's that! What do you guys think? Pictures better then words? We want your opinions and we want people to enjoy seeing what we do! Send us a message we are open for suggestions and comments! 

Have a wonderful rest of the week :)