GARDEN DADDY HITS NEWS PRINT BY WAY OF COUNTY MASTER GARDENER NEWSLETTER

HELLO & Welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! I must share with you the fact today that I have found myself in print in the December 2010 Madison County (Tennessee) Master Gardener Newsletter! I was asked to do an article on some of the pallet deconstruction/re-construction projects I have done over the past two years. If you regular followers remember, we have seen projects in the works here at the urban farm by way of the pallet compost bin, the potting bench for re-potting plants/storage, the garden bench seat for the community garden project this past summer. And do not forget the chicken coop nest boxes that were built last spring for the now laying pullets that use it daily with joy.

To access the article, go to: www.madisoncountymg.org/newsletters/Dec2010.pdf

This might be a little bit of again, "blowing my own shofar" , but as my Mother used to say... "why have a dog and bark yourself"!

So I leave you today with our ongoing gardening affirmation in mind: "URBAN FARMING: ONE EGG AT A TIME!"

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE

HELLO & Welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! UGH...Boy am I full! We went to eat today over at Chickasaw State Park Lodge Restaurant where for a good price you can get very filled up on all the Thanksgiving standards plus MUCH MORE and get up and leave the dishes and the 2-days worth of cooking behind for others to worry about. Not to mention sit in the restaurant on a hill and overlook the beautiful lake below through the now bare tree limbs and as we did today, watch a beautiful Cooper's Hawk swoop around the treetops and then glide down over to the lake below looking for a washed up fish or a mouse in the grasses.
But I could not let this next to the last holiday of 2010 end without sending out my warmest wishes for you and your family to have a wonderful evening and hope all your blessings and needs are met. HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE URBAN FARM...A 13-EGG DAY TODAY!

MUCKED OUT CHICKEN COOP GETS TILLED UP INTO URBAN FARM GARDEN SITE

HELLO & Welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! Yesterday, I mucked out the now quite wet chicken yard due to some damp, wet days here in Jackson this week. I had not cleaned it out for about 2-months, which has been the norm here. I could go longer but due to the close proximity of my neighbors here in the city center of Jackson, TN., I try to be a little more courteous to the neighborhood and keep it pretty cleaned out. I want you to look at how rich my already black soil is in the garden site and now with this addition and with the next 5 or so months to "cook off" during this winter and early next spring and be less toxic to the plants that will go in then. I can probably start in late February 2011 and put in some spring greens that will tolerate the nitrogen well enough to get some early plantings started.

Hopefully, if you are working with your own urban flocks or even your small farming operations and have fresh manure available, you will follow this Garden Daddy and add your own fertilizer to your garden site. I may have mentioned before that if one has enough room for a hog or two, you should make some temporary paddocks for them, with some shelter available, in an area you would like to garden in next year. Put them in the area with temporary fencing in place, let them dig and root around and get out roots, brambles and brush and along with fertilizer they will add and then next year you will have a wonderful, worked up garden site that is all ready to go. Then move them to another area. This will give you some rotation areas and then go on and on. You can do the same in your backyard with a "chicken tractor", a coop that is mobile on wheels and moves from place to place, clearing bugs, weeds, seeds, etc. and then adding fertilizer at a new place each day. That was my original plan here but decided on more birds and that would not work then.

Enough...enough...So I leave you today with our ongoing gardening affirmation in mind: "URBAN FARMING: ONE (or 1-dozen) EGG AT A TIME!"

GARDEN DADDY ASKED TO MAKE HOLIDAY DECOR DONATION FOR HOME TOUR LUNCHEON DOOR PRIZE

HELLO & Welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! I do not remember if I have shared with you that I am on the advising committee for the LANA Holiday Home Tour this year. I guess after my success last year with this very garden home being such a hit, it was thought I might give my advice and support to the "newbies" this year. In our meeting last weekend, I was asked to do a "Mike Millson Original" for a door prize donation to be given away during the home tour luncheon.
Since it is the holiday season now, with Thanksgiving less than a week away, I thought anyone in the LANA area would appreciate a traditional Holiday wreath with reds, greens and gold with traditional plaid ribbon. Red berries add some bling to the otherwise plain green wreath and make it stand out with more width and bring your eye to the entire framework of the piece. I hope it does not embarrass this garden home/Garden Daddy with its simplicity but I made something I would like to get so I figured someone else would like it as well. Again, due to our historic area here with our older homes, hopefully whoever wins this will feel the same way about something traditional.
I leave you with today's garden home affirmation: "THE GARDEN HOME: ONE WREATH AT A TIME!"

YET ANOTHER RECORD EGG DAY HERE AT THE URBAN FARM

HELLO & Welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! Can you believe it? Here at this time of the year, when most pullets SHOULD be slowing down laying, my little girls are picking up the pace. But those of you who have been following my postings all along since the chicks started arriving last April will remember that I made the plans and ordered good, winter/cold weather laying hens that would lay all winter long. Unlike some of the Leghorns and other layers that slow down in winter, most of my birds should keep laying well all winter. I just love the colors I get now, especially the dark ones from the Cuckoo Marans which you see one very dark one a lighter one that is not quite as dark but has darker specks on it. I love those best of all...at least the egg colors. I have some birds I think are more attractive but love those dark eggs!

Not much other news today here at the urban farm. I remain busy helping with the LANA Holiday Home Tour efforts as time nears for that and will be busy till after about the middle of December. Other than that, things are slow here and I leave you today with our ongoing gardening affirmation: "URBAN FARMING: ONE EGG AT A TIME!"

RECORD BREAKING EGG DAY HERE AT THE URBAN FARM

HELLO & welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm. I would like to tell you that as of today, Wednesday, I have gotten a total of 14-eggs this afternoon! With 18-pullets in the flock, it is a pretty good average to get that many eggs from them at this point as winter gets started and we are just one week out from Thanksgiving 2010. I had imagined back last April on the day I brought home the first batch of chicks from the feed store where I had ordered them that I would some day actually maybe get some 12 to 15 eggs a day from my chicks. I have given away 3-pullets and had to put one down as you know so I have gone from 22 birds down to my current total of 18.
I have donated some to our local soup kitchen, where their eyes lite up with joy and surprise with the thought of fresh, healthy, non-medicated/steroid free eggs for their clients. I have given some to every neighbor, friends at work and some other acquaintances here in town. As of today, I feel the work, worry, feed and every drama has been worth it now in the large payoff. This batch is going to Memphis tomorrow to some elderly friends in an independent living home. I had plans to try to make at least feed money from them and might still in the future but the reward otherwise in all the joy I get in giving these eggs away more than makes up for any other reward that might be gotten from selling any.
Sorry I have not been with you for several days but after the past few weeks of having all this garden home's plumbing replaced and upgraded and the installation of my first dishwasher here in the house - EVER - I hopefully am back with you, even if in word and not pictures at this time of the start of the hibernating season. So I leave you, as always, with our ongoing gardening affirmation in mind, especially with the record setting number of eggs today: "URBAN FARMING: ONE EGG AT A TIME!"

URBAN FARM HEADS INTO WINTER SLEEP

HELLO & welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! While gathering eggs at a steady pace now of anywhere from 10 to 12 eggs a day now, the remainder of my center city operation of gardening and urban farming heads into a "winter sleep" as I have cleaned off all gardening debris and tilled the remainder into the earth for "on-site" composting to take place over these dark, cold winter months.
I am making plans for the holiday season fast approaching as far as decorating both inside and out are concerned. Of course, it will not be like last year with the LANA Holiday Home Tour decorating. If you have been following GARDEN DADDY this past year or so, you will remember that this garden home was the feature home during that holiday home tour season. And of course to brag a little...it was not only a feature home but the tour favorite of everyone who made the tour of all the homes. Anyway, I plan to put up only one tree this year and it will be a fresh cut tree this year. I am putting it up in the living room area. It will be a large, 9-ft Frasier Fir tree with plans at this time to make it, I think anyway, blue, silver, white and natural forest &/or apple-green on it. And of course clear lights as well. I have all the exterior decor in mind as well and have that pretty set in stone as to that decor. You will have to just keep reading and following future postings to see what this Garden Daddy comes up with.
Otherwise, in chicken news...on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010, there will be a "chicken swap" here in Jackson at the local Tractor Supply, starting around 8-ish o'clock in the morning. I will not have any chickens to sell or trade but will be there to show support for the West TN Poultry Club and to show off some of the Cuckoo Marans dark brown eggs to the breeder I purchased them from and brag on my flock. I have some other winterizing things to share with you for education on winter preps for both the garden home and your backyard chicken flock. That is in upcoming postings. I have been busy here otherwise with the preps for all new plumbing to be installed this week under this garden home from the bottom up to all fixtures as well as the first dishwasher this home has ever had. YEAH....No more dishpan hands for this Garden Daddy after this weekend!
So this almost ready to hibernate Garden Daddy says goodbye for today and as always leaving you with our ongoing gardening affirmation in mind: "URBAN FARMING: ONE EGG AT A TIME!"