January 25, 2011

Well, today was kind of odd.  One reason it was like that is due to a nap I took mid-morning.  It was raining and I had nothing better to do, so I gave in to my tiredness.  I did spend an inordinate amount of time on Backyard Chickens.com researching brooders to make sure I could use an 18 gallon Rubbermaid container for the first month or so.  Thankfully it's been successfully used by many others, so I'm safe.  For the next month I hope to get by with the box our new ottoman came in, if my boys don't destroy it "inventing" something first.  Lastly, if necessary I think I'll bring in the surplus kiddie pool and ring it with chicken wire.  I don't have the Super Gate that my kids used as toddlers. That would have been ideal as it was a large octagon and would have made for a nice mobile paddock later.  Maybe I'll find one on Craigslist.

This evening after the kids went down, I headed over to my brother's to get our seeds ordered.  We had a great conversation about seeds, seed starting, newspaper pots vs. soil blocks, chicken breeds, and chicken coops. It was way past his bedtime when we FINALLY got around to thinking to order our seeds.  Unfortunately he was too tired or didn't have his order ready, so the one thing I went over to do didn't get done.  Grrrr.  My fault for being distracted.  I just don't see my brother enough. I did come away with a tentative plan to postpone the purchase of any chicks until late March, early April.  It will mean my chicks are only 2 weeks apart in age, not a month.  I also got him to consider revisions to our coop plans to make it more portable.  The issue was the eventually toxicity of any static chicken run.

Anyway, the one thing I did for my garden today was my wife's idea. Almost all of my Italianshier and Buttercrunch lettuces have sprouted, while none of my Red Sails or Salad bowl have.  Since my light system is set up in an unheated bedroom, it is too cold up there for germination to occur.  That means I must keep the tray in the kitchen until complete germination is done.  I've got a CFL bulb over the plants, but it was about 1 foot above the tips of the plants, not 1 inch like it's supposed to be.  So I was considering raising the tray when I mentioned my problem to my wife.  She said, "why don't you move it to the top of the TV instead."  It is much higher on that side of the stove.  So, I quickly jury rigged a way to "level" the top of the little TV with the cable box on top.  As you can see below, it's not perfectly level in the slightest, but the light is MUCH closer to the plants. I'll just have to take it down to water it.  No biggie.



Sure hope the deliver of my seeds happens fast.  I don't want my tomatoes that far off each other.  Again, it was my fault for being distracted tonight.  There was too much to talk about gardening wise.  You could say I've got the winter gardening itch... do you?