Gardening: New Things to Try

 How many of you like to try growing something new every year? I certainly do, although I think I've had more failures with my experiments than successes. This year I'm going to try growing Japanese Indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) and woad (Isatis tinctoria).

The key to why I chose them is the "tinctoria" which indicates a dye plant. In this case, both of these are used to produce the color blue. Blue isn't a color I can forage for, so these are a good choice for more dye experiments.

There is also a "true indigo" (Indigofera tinctoria), which I'd like try too. I believe it is the one usually for sold for fiber dying. But as long as I can get a nice blue color, I'll be happy.

Woad is said to like alkaline soil, so I added wood ashes from the kitchen cookstove to the soil, along with some compost. I'm curious as to how it will do. Both of them, really. It would be lovely for a blue dye plant to be dependable to grow here. I'd love to have a homegrown source for blue dye. 

What about you? Are you growing something new in your garden this year?

Gardening: New Things to Try © May 2025

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

New Additions of the Feathered Kind

 First up, Eastern Phoebes. They built a nest in my milking room and raised a brood of four. 

Nest of Eastern Phoebes

The parents were very shy and wouldn't come in when I was in the milking room, so I tried to be very stealth when taking pictures. I never tried to peek inside the nest, but kept my distance as best I could. At night I left one of the barn windows open for them, while the rest of the barn is closed up because of the coyotes. 

They fledged one morning when I was doing the milking and feeding the goats. They all found windows and doors to fly out of and I'm guessing the happy family is around somewhere. Phoebes are common to my state, but I don't recall seeing them much.  

Also, we have new feathered additions of the domestic kind. 

Buff Orpington chicks, hatched in late April

We bought them through our feed store because we could get the number and breed of chicks we wanted.

about 2 weeks old

These came about because our current flock is getting pretty old and have not done a good job of providing us with replacements. They sometimes go broody, but quit before incubation is done. So we decided to go with the Buffs, which have been a good breed for for us for broodiness and mothering. The batch is supposedly all pullets (female), but we'll see. Eventually we'll need a rooster.

Rather than put the new chickens in the established poultry yard, we fenced off a new yard on the side of the goat barn.

Several years ago we tried to make this a yard for new ducks, but they deserted it in favor of the chicken yard. We've tried to keep the chickens and ducks separate, but the ducks insist on being in the poultry yard and chicken coop. Since they squabble so much, we decided to start the new chicks off in a new location, as soon as they're old enough.

For a chicken coop, Dan expanded our old chicken tractor. 

It's heavier, of course, but will be more of a permanent coop for the new additions.

Once they are feathered out and able to stay warm without the light, we'll move them in. To start they'll have the coop area and the protected area underneath, but eventually they'll have the entire yard to roam in. 

We think it's best when young are raised by their mother, even chicks, even though they are able to feed themselves from the get-go. It certainly makes the job easier to have a mama hen do it, plus they learn quite a bit from their mother too. In this case, however, it couldn't be helped. 

New Additions of the Feathered Kind © May 2025

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Our Coyote Shortage is Solved

We've had coyotes from time to time, but lately we've been hearing them daily. And close by. The night Ursa's twins were born the yapping and yowling sounded like they were just at the bottom of our fence in the woods. In other words, too close for comfort. It would appear that a family of coyotes has taken up residence in the neighborhood.

The first explanation offered is urban sprawl. While we have had a population influx from the north, all of the construction has been close to town or along major roads. 

We are located where the red star is, just north of city limits.

So it could be urbanization, but I find it curious that coyotes would migrate toward populated areas rather than toward increasingly unpopulated wooded areas and the mountains. Food perhaps? One  benefit of semi-rural areas like ours is that a lot of people keep chickens. Plus the area is plentiful with small game, not to mention people who let their pets roam. Another explanation might be that there's been an increase in the area coyote population and they're spreading out.

When I wrote Prepper's Livestock Handbook, I did a lot of research on livestock predators, including coyotes. I learned helpful things such as coyotes hunt in packs, hunt between dusk and dawn, prefer to hunt in isolated areas, and can jump five-foot fences. They are also known to dig under fences and bite through chicken wire. A tell-tale sign they've been in the area is that they tend to leave scat on elevated surfaces such as a log or rock. 

Coyote game of choice includes: squirrels, possums, raccoons, groundhogs, poultry, rabbits, pigs, goats and kids, sheep and lambs, calves, and small pets. They've even been known to eat skunks plus choice garden produce such as melons. 

We've been hearing them, but often the first sign on coyotes is the remains of the prey they leave behind. Signs of coyote attack include: attacking the throat, puncture wounds on head, neck, or shoulders, intestines or rumen may be dragged away from the carcass, carcass may be dismembered, calves tails may be chewed. 

Being shy, they prefer hunting away from humans, but if they are hungry, they get bolder. This came up when Dan and I were assessing how safe our goats are, and Dan said, 'well, when was the last time we saw a possum or skunk around?' This struck me because Dan has caught dozens and dozens of these critters in the past couple of years. We used to catch them nightly on the trail cam and he's made numerous trips to the park outside of town with one he caught in the live animal trap. Lately, we've seen none. That may explain why I've been able to harvest all my strawberries. And come to think of it, we hear fewer roosters crowing in the distance.

Australian Permaculturist Bill Mollison tells of being asked once by a student, of how to deal with slugs in the garden. His response was that they didn't have a slug problem, they had a duck shortage. His Austrian counterpart, Sepp Holzer, says the way to deal with predators is to let nature do it with a predator's predator. This thought is only comforting up to a point. What kind of predator would it take to decrease the coyote population?

The poultry are shut up for the night, as are the does and kids. Our bucks, though, aren't closed in and often graze at night. Their shelter is three-sided with pony wall and an overhang. There's only a gate for a door. Even so, Dan has taken to closing them in at night. Even though our 4-foot fences could be jumped, we have a rather intricate fencing arrangement due to our rotational grazing. Coyotes would have to jump three fences to get to the buck barn.

So far, all our critters have been safe. I make it a point to go to the lower gates in the late afternoon or various times during the day to bang the chain on the gate. Its loud clanging sound is hopefully a warning that humans are near. 

Losing livestock and pets to predators in just one of those things, and we've had our share of loses. The only thing for it is to be good stewards in protecting the animals we're responsible for and continuing to remain vigilant. 

Our Coyote Shortage is Solved © May 2025

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com