Building a Hobby Farm- from woods to eggs

[scgargoyle]

Congratulations! Are cigars in order?...or... I don't know, I've never been to an egg-laying before.

[barneyrb]

Congrats!!!!!!!! Is it am omlette or overy easy?

[polo1665]

C'mon Tony, the world wants to know. What choice did you make? Was it boiled, poached, fried, scrambled,or devilled? Did you have them with bacon, sausage, grits, homefries, and toast with jelly. Most important though, did they taste sweeter knowing that they came from your own Hobby Farm?

[tony123]

Thanks Phil, Toro, SC, Barney and Polo.

I think the first one was just done as a fried egg over hard. We also did a store bought egg at the same time for an accurate A to B comparison.

Now we are regularly getting 4 eggs a day. As others have said, they do add up quickly. In no time we'll be giving eggs away. Here's a photo of the egg bin from the fridge. It steadily stays about this full.



The girls are getting to free range about 4 hours a day, and we're still on the second bag of feed since easter! They really will pay for themselves to be around.

[tony123]

The veggies are feeling the stresses of a hot summer. The watermelon's are doing okay, and the Pumpkin are coming along strong. All else is doing below average at this point. The squash have all but shriveled up to nothing, which is odd, as squash has always been so easy in the past.

We've had our first encounter with the wildlife. One of the large watermelon was missing the other day, and I followed a trail of watermelon pieces off into the woods. I'm guessing racoon, but this was about a 10 pound melon. It could have rolled itself downhill though with a little encouragement.

Getting prepaired for some fall crops now too. We were very pleased with spinach, and look forward to a few more months of that.

Starting to toss around a few ideas to get the "orchid" started. We'll likely end up with about 4 apple trees, 4 peach trees and about 16 grape vines. I don't know anything about varieties, etc., but do know that all these things grow well here in my area. That'll be something to research through the fall/winter.

[scgargoyle]

Tony- Glad to see the hens are earning their keep! Have you considered blueberries? They grow well in SC, and are lower maintenance than other fruits, other than covering them from birds when they ripen. Or are you waiting for me to get mine in, and do a little bartering?

[charlz]

Originally Posted by tony123

The squash have all but shriveled up to nothing, which is odd, as squash has always been so easy in the past.

Do you have squash bugs? They can put a serious hurt on certain types of squash in a hurry.

VegEdge: Squash Bug

[tony123]

SC, we do want to do some blueberry. Do you know any place I can dig up some bushes? Just kidding, I wouldn't touch them. I'm haveing a hard time juggling projects at the moment, and blueberries are falling to the bottom of the list for a bit.

Charlz, thanks for the link. I have seen those out there. I don't think I'm overrun with them, but have seen a few. I like the suggestion of laying a board down for them to sleep under and then going in the morning to kill them. I'll never have more than 5-6 squash plants, so that should be an easy way to manage them in the future.

Update on my watermelon theif! This morning we had another small melon missing. I found it down the hill a hundred feet or more with these teeth marks in it.





I can rule out deer, but beyond that, I'm confused. I would think racoon, but look at the spacing of the teeth. Compared to a dogs teeth, that would be a huge coon. There's a set on each side opposite each other. I hope that doesn't mean that this thing had the whole melon in its mouth. That would make for a hundred pound animal. Any ideas? I see no prints around, which is not surprising with how dry it is around here.

Also noticed this morning that one of the tomatoe plants has been stripped completely of all its foliage.

In short, the varmin have found our little garden. I can already see that having to fight them off will take most of the fun out of this for us. Maybe its time to get a trap. I'll need one at some point anyhow.

[Happyman]

tony123, you could have a bear .
I thought I might have one when things around the house were getting pushed over at night (barbecue grill, planters, etc).
Turns out we DO have a black bear. I am seeing him at least twice a week on my game camera thats mounted by the deer feeder in the woods.
I had a rubber raft by our pond that suddenly came up deflated one morning. It had bite marks on it the size of whats on your melon.
Get yourself a Moultrie Game Camera: Digital Game Cameras / Trail Cameras | Moultrie Game Spy
and see what's out there .
BTW, our deer population is very healthy because they strip the pear, apple and peach trees as well as the grape vines and blackberry's. The only way to keep them away is netting or fencing. But right now I'm not too concerned with it. We get so much venison each year that at least I know my deer are healthy and tasty .

[scgargoyle]

I would look for a hornworm stripping your tomato leaves. It'll be a big honkin' green caterpillar. Not to scare you, but a bear wouldn't be out of the question on that melon. That, or a dog, but I doubt a dog would steal a watermelon.