Getting to be about that time and another death in the family

Well first off some sad news.  We lost another chicken last night.  After doing some research I think it was sour crop that got her.  The worst part other than we are technically just chicken sitting is she was my last layer.  Nascar our last survivor we think suffered a stroke a few months back and is blind at least in one eye and isn't laying and I think she's pretty old too.  Our plans are to pick up three or four pullets this spring after we get back from our vacation.  Live and learn.  Apocalypse was fine on Saturday and by Monday morning she had a badly distended crop that felt like a water balloon. By the time I figured out what was wrong and how to help she was gone.  So far we lost one chicken, Chica, to what we think was being egg bound and now Apocalypse to sour crop.  Sorry Steve and Abby.  We are turning out to be terrible chicken sitters.

On a brighter note the days are slowly getting longer and warmer here in the 49th State.  And that means it's time for us to put in our annual seed order.  We get a few staples here locally, but last year we started a seed co-op and decided to order from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  One because they have a great selection of rare and oddball varities to try and two their shipping is super cheap.  This year our order is slightly smaller as a lot of people still had seeds left over, but we still put in quite an order.  Last year we also did a bunch of seed swapping, but this year  we opted for smaller individual packets.  Poor Christa spent hours dividing up all those seeds last year.

I was just looking at Baker Creek's website and they ran out of this year's printed catalog this year.  You can still see an online version on there website HERE.  I love the pictures and descriptions they provide.  It's totally garden porn.

I think I'm most excited to try the Boston Pickling Cucumbers (pg 39-40).  Last year was a pretty miserable year for the garden being cold and rainy most of the summer.  But we did have a good crop of the colder weather stuff, like potatoes, lettuce, peas, and carrots and our greenhouse green beans produced well again and we even got a few tomatoes.  As the snow is slowly starting to go away I'm getting excited for this coming growing season and being able to share it with everyone.

The green house.

When we bought our house it came with a great shed.  Love my shed.  It's  12x20 feet and has a lot of storage and a great work bench.  It also had a covered lean too next to it.  I'm not sure what the previous owners used it for, maybe to park a boat or 4 wheels.  We decided to make it a green house.  The only draw back was it was facing the wrong direction  and was on the wrong side of the shed to take full advantage of the sun, but it still gets plenty hot and has plenty of light.  

I wish I had taken more photos of the building of the green house to show the progression, but I didn't.

I had made the tables in the greenhouse a few years ago for various purposes and they worked great for the green house

The only draw back to the tables was that they were too tall.  So for our second year of growing I cut them all in half.

I even got a little more plant space out of it.  We also had a left over small piece of counter top that I put in here for a planting table. And I added a few planter boxes to the the front and back.