Bucket Gardening 101

Gardening is big. And getting bigger. This is a great thing, really. Fresh food grown at home, no mysteries, loaded with good stuff and tastier than anything in just about any store. What's not to like? Oh, gardens are also big. There's no reason that this should leave anyone out of the fun, though. It's not necessary to have 1/4 acre of yard to till up just to grow your own veggies. Because.. buckets!

Ok, yeah I know a lot of people have tried buckets and failed for various reasons. No offense intended, but that's not the fault of the bucket. It's important to remember that a bucket full of dirt isn't the same as the ground. It has strengths and weaknesses compared to planting directly in the ground, and if we know what some of these are we can actually use buckets to our advantage, whether we have a 1/4 acre garden or an apartment patio.

What to plant?
Well, that's really the big question, isn't it? Not all plants are well-suited to containers. Sweet corn, for example. I suppose you could do it, but there are more reasons this idea will fail than will succeed. Potatoes are another idea that sounds great but doesn't work very well. In a sense, potatoes do work in containers, but only much larger ones such as large trash cans and the various forms of potato towers. Since we can't really make an all-inclusive list of what does and doesn't work well in containers, particularly 5 gallon buckets and other things we tend to have easily available, I'm going to lay out some basic factors and guidelines that I use when considering something for a container.

Size - Generally, nothing larger than a determinate tomato plant will thrive in a 5 gallon bucket. There are some exceptions to this, as I've seen lemon trees and other things growing in them, but generally, nothing bigger than an average tomato plant.

Root penetration - Obviously, a bucket is a limited space in which to grow. This goes hand in hand with plant size, although there are some plants that just can't make it in such a limited space. This is more of an issue with perennials as they are more and more likely to become rootbound the older they get.

Moisture requirements - Maintaining adequate soil moisture is harder in a bucket than in the ground. Generally, you combat this issue by simply watering more often. For some plants, however, this still isn't enough. Especially for plants that require consistent soil moisture. Plants that can't tolerate even slight drying will have problems. I don't think I would try to grow something like celery, and even many herbs and greens will have problems if you forget to water for a day. Even lettuce. Yep. I've forgot a pot of lettuce before, followed by a 90 degree windy day and it's wilted down to the ground by mid afternoon the next day. There are things we can do about this, though, which I'll address later.

Soil temperature requirements - The soil temp in a bucket will be much higher than in the ground, and though there are things we can do about this too, the options are limited. Personally, the only issue I've seen as a result of this is general stress on plants, as well as some tendency for tomatoes to drop blossoms. Generally, though, this is a manageable issue for most garden plants. In some cases, it's a huge advantage.


So where does that leave us? Well, honestly, most things can be grown with at least some success in buckets or similar containers. Keep these factors in mind when choosing plants, and you can then find ways to deal with the disadvantages of buckets for each plant. Or you can just keep reading...


Choosing Containers

Size - My rule of thumb is that the width of the container should be at least half of the recommended plant spacing for any given plant, and the height of the container should be about 1/2 the mature height of the plant. Remember, you aren't going to fill the bucket all the way to the top, so the depth of the soil mix in the container should meet this requirement. Obviously this doesn't always hold true, but generally it will at least be close. As an example, if your tomato plant says 24 inch spacing, then a bucket is about right. When you get into large indeterminate varieties like Brandywine and Amish Paste, these do better with a spacing closer to 30 inches. I have successfully grown both in buckets, with reduced yields vs what they would have seen in the ground. I'm not saying it's not worth it, just know what you're getting into if you plant a Brandywine in a bucket.

Applying this, we get that things like tomatoes go in 5 gallon buckets, peppers go in 2-3 gallon containers, greens can go in just about anything that's at least reasonable, and many herbs can be planted in large coffee cans. I like to stick with buckets, so this usually means I grow two pepper plants in a 5 gallon bucket, although I'll plant in just about anything. I've used old litter boxes, old glass coffee pots, those tubs that Legos come in, and whatever else I can think of. Just stick to the basic size recommendations and you'll have some level of success.

Color - White. Unless you live in an area that is perpetually cold, overcast, etc, white is the best color. There are exceptions to this, but in most cases, I use white buckets or some other light colored container. I wouldn't say don't use dark colored buckets, but know ahead of time that they are going to get very, very hot if the sun beats on them in August. NOTE: Color won't matter if you're using wood containers.

Material - With the exception of building your own wooden containers, plastic is the best. A lot of people talk about using food grade plastic, but my opinion is that there's no need for this. The amount of any chemical that is going to leech from a plastic bucket into even a carrot is likely very, very small. Obviously things that have previously had toxic chemicals in them are out - no old diesel tanks or metal paint thinner cans. No treated lumber or similar materials. Not so much because you might get sick, but because your plants won't thrive. Use your head on this one, and if in doubt don't use it. I'm also going to take a moment to talk about tires. I've written bits about this before, so I won't go deep into it. Don't use tires. Under no circumstances short of starvation would I suggest using tires. If you want to read more about my very strong opinion on that matter, you can go here: Old Tires as Garden Containers?

Shape - Watcha got? Just about any shape container has a use, somewhere.

Media - What to fill them with?
Oh, I suppose you could just dig up some of your soil and use that. I've done it. It kind of works. You can do a lot better though. One of the issues with planting in containers is that there is a limited amount of nutrients in that container. If your soil isn't great, you're going to handicap your plants right from the start. Especially if the container tends to be a bit smaller than it should be. Lots of people will tell you to go buy potting mix or potting soil or composted horse manure or something else like that. You really don't need to, although you do need to do something to both lighten the soil and add nutrients. My method for doing both of these is to add finished compost. My container mix is 1/2 soil and 1/2 finished compost. I also side dress the plants at least once per summer (preferably several times) with another cup or so of finished compost. My finished compost contains considerable amount of composted chicken manure, so it's pretty rich compost. If yours isn't, or if you don't have any at all, go buy a bag from your local garden shop. I hate suggesting anyone buy anything, but you'll be glad you did if you have no other source of good compost.

I'm going to point out here that there is a specific reason that we want to lighten the soil, aside from simply allowing roots to grow better. Containers dry out faster than soil, therefore we water them more often. The more we water, the worse the soil compacts. If you just use soil, by the end of the year, it will be harder than the soil under your walking paths in your garden. When soil is that compacted, it doesn't matter how much you water, the water doesn't penetrate and nothing grows. It's MORE important that we maintain a workable porous soil in a container than it is when planting in the ground. This leads us to some other things worth mentioning.

Properties of planting containers
It's time we go over the nature of the "container ecosystem" if you will, and discuss how the characteristics inherent to growing something in a container can be both strengths and weaknesses.

Soil temperature will almost always be higher, during the growing season. We generally see this as a stressing factor on plants, and generally that is true. We can deal with this in a few ways, but the simplest is to shade the buckets. Don't shade the plants, just the buckets. For me this means that I line up all my buckets north to south, and I have a couple 24 inch wide lengths of plywood that I lean up against the west side of the buckets. Aside from just keeping the sun off the container, this creates a cool area behind the board, allowing heat to dissipate from the containers. You can also accomplish this by grouping your containers, using each of them to shade each other.

This elevated soil temperature can also be a big advantage, especially early in the season. My container plants almost always grow faster than the same varieties planted in the ground, through the months of April and May. I live in zone 4, and many years we don't get the kind of heat necessary to grow nice peppers. I plant many peppers in containers, and then set them along the west side of my house. The heat radiating off the side of the house warms the soil leading to much, much better growth than my peppers planted in the ground. In fact, last year, almost all of my pepper harvest came from those in containers even though I had twice as many pepper plants in the ground. It just wasn't warm enough for peppers to produce well last summer.

It's important to add some kind of fertilizer throughout the growing season. As mentioned earlier, containers have a limited amount of nutrients in them. In the soil, plants can send roots out laterally and vertically looking for moisture and nutrients. This isn't the case in a container, and the soil mixture in a container can become nutrient deficient rather easily even if you start out with a rich compost mixture in the spring. My method to combat this is to add either finished compost or composted chicken manure as a side dressing several times through the growing season. You could use any other fertilizer as well.

We've already discussed watering, but it's worth going a little further. Containers lose moisture faster than the soil for various reasons, so plan to water your containers every day during most of the year, and even twice per day during the hottest parts of the growing season. Anything you can do to automate this process will help considerably. I've seen watering globes used with success, although drip irrigation would be even better. Whenever possible, you should have a catch pan under your containers. Later in the season when plants have deep roots you can simply bottom water. This has the advantage of compacting the soil mixture less, also.

If you do experience soil compaction in your containers, do something about it. The first thing I usually notice when this happens is that the water runs down the sides of the container and right out the bottom, never penetrating the soil. I know most people will cringe at the thought, but if this happens, take a small stake and make some holes around the plant for water to soak into. I use a length of 3/8 rebar for this. Loosen the soil as much as you can without damaging the plant and its roots. Even add more soil around the inside edge of the container to keep water from running down the sides. Whatever you can do to make the water soak into all of the soil mixture in the container. Starting with a good soil mixture is really the best way to prevent this problem, though.



Preparing containers

Whatever container you choose, it needs to have some drain holes. If it doesn't already, drill a few 1/4 inch holes in the bottom of it. Slightly larger holes work too, although once you approach 1/2 inch, that's too big, soil will wash right through those holes. I use 1/4 inch holes because if I want, I can still use the bucket for chicken feed or something else, just by putting a little duct tape over the holes. For a 5 gallon bucket, you're going to need at least 4 holes, and probably more like 6 or 8. I like to place these holes generally in the center of the container rather than around the edges. Water should drain freely, and too few holes means that they could become plugged. Inevitably, there will be a heavy rain or two throughout the summer that will fill your containers right up to the top with water. This should drain within 15-30 minutes or so. If it doesn't, you have too few drain holes in that container.

Containers should be clean, at a minimum spray them out with a hose, and if you aren't sure just what was in them last, scrub them out with some soap and a brush before rinsing.

Add soil mixture as described before. 1/2 good soil and 1/2 finished compost, pre-mixed in another container. If you prefer, yes you can use commercial potting mixtures or make your own mixture. I use dirt and compost because it's readily available and works well for me. Containers should be filled at least 3/4 full, regardless of what you're putting in them. Initially, they should be more full than your goal, because the mixture is going to settle some. I will usually fill the container and then water it well to see where it will settle to, and then plant into the wet mixture. This also helps make sure you don't wash your seeds away when you plant. Under filled containers shade small plants and create a mini-greenhouse climate that can be way too hot for plants in the heat of the summer. For me, 3/4 full is perfect for a 5 gallon bucket. This allows me to put saran wrap or similar plastic over them to retain moisture and heat for very small plants early in the year, too.

You're ready to plant! I direct seed most plants, or you can transplant too. Direct seeds, I cover with plastic to keep the soil moist for the first few days until germination. If you direct seed, plant a few extra seeds, just in case. Transplants and small plants will benefit from being in a container as the lip of the container shields them somewhat from the wind, vs being planted in the ground.

The rest of the growing season

One of the best things about container gardening is you have FAR less weeding to do. Last summer I had about 40 containers, and I was able to weed all of them in 10 minutes a week.

Have I mentioned yet that you need to be diligent with watering? At least check the soil every single day. If you have to leave your plants for a few days, make sure the containers are shaded somehow and soak them really well before leaving.

Supporting plants, especially tomatoes, can be interesting in containers. Typically, I use a stake to support the main stem, although in a large enough container a cage is certainly an option.

Many plants grown in containers will not yield as well as they would in the ground, this is especially true of larger plants. This doesn't mean you shouldn't plant them, just know ahead of time that you might want two plants instead of one.

Summary
Growing in containers brings some challenges to gardening, as well as some advantages. Understanding what you're getting into will help increase your chances of success dramatically.

Garden Weeding - What is a weed anyway?

Not all weeds are actually weeds

Most gardeners are doing it wrong. Yes. I said it. They're doing more work than they need to and spending money to correct the mistake they're making without even knowing they're making it.

When I was a kid helping mom in her gardens, I learned to pull anything that I (or she) didn't plant there specifically. Anything. A perfect garden bed was an organized grid of clean rows with bare soil between them. That meant hand pulling, hoeing, tilling, whatever is necessary to prevent weed growth. This makes perfect sense when we consider that most gardening practices of 20-30 years ago in the midwest USA were simply scaled down row crop farming practices. In the 1980s, a farmer with a field of corn and nothing else had something to be proud of. Many (probably most) gardeners still use these practices. Oh sure they've added a few other tricks, but I'm betting that for most gardeners, the sight of a dandelion between their tomatoes triggers a compulsion to pull it.

I understand, the same thing happens to me. But is that really the best response?

What is a weed?

I think, before we can go too far into this, we need to define what a weed is. Traditionally, anything that wasn't intentionally planted was a weed. This could even mean volunteer tomatoes or squash. I can't tell you how many volunteer tomato plants I pulled over the first 10 years of gardening. I almost feel guilty about it now. But is that a fair definition of a weed?

How about we change that a little? Let's say that a weed is anything that doesn't contribute to the garden or benefit us in a way. Does that change what we pull and what we don't? Doesn't it make sense to let a beneficial situation persist? If that dandelion growing between the tomatoes is actually helping us somehow, should we still pull it? Some will say that dandelion isn't helping, it's robbing nutrients and water from the tomatoes. That may be so in some cases, but it's also doing something that tomatoes don't do very well.


Dynamic Accumulators

Many of the plants we consider weeds are called Dynamic Accumulators. This means that they gather nutrients of some sort in their tissues, locking it up for later use. For you, a dynamic accumulator is a reservoir of nutrients. A plant that has locked up a quantity of something you want to store for later.

Many of these dynamic accumulators also send deep roots. Deeper than most things we plant in the garden. That's why they're so hard to get rid of. They're weeds, right? They survive when nothing else does. Have you ever dug up a dandelion? A dandelion tap root can go 18 inches or more into the soil. Most of our garden veggies don't reach deeper than 6-10 inches. What that means for you is that the dandelion is pulling moisture and nutrients from a depth of soil where nothing in your garden can use it. Woah.


No Man's Land (Or No Plant's Land)

Most typical garden plants don't push roots deeper than 8, sometimes 10 inches. This means that any nutrients that have leeched deeper than that are usually lost. They're just gone. Untouchable. Unless you have a few dynamic accumulators in your garden salvaging them. The sweetheart of dynamic accumulators, Comfrey, can grow roots up to 10 feet deep. This guy is the deep sea salvage diver of the plant world, going deep and bringing back valuable nutrients to be stored in leafy growth at the top of the plant. Clovers of all types are nitrogen fixers - they absorb nitrogen from the air and lock it in their tissues. This is free fertilizer, and most people pull it and throw it away.

Not all weeds are beneficial

Certainly, not everything that finds a home in your garden is going to benefit you or your garden in some way. In general, plants that grow a deep root system and do not become invasive are going to help you, and plants that spread rapidly, choking out other growth with spreading shallow root systems are not going to be beneficial. This means that while a dandelion or three is a good thing, grasses of nearly all types are still undesirable even under our more lenient view of what a weed is. To help clarify this a little more, I'll attach some lists of dynamic accumulators at the bottom of this post.

Putting the pieces together

So just HOW do we take advantage of dynamic accumulators in our gardens? By composting. Whether you grow plants specifically for composting as many people in the permaculture world do, or you're more like me and you go pull all those dandelions in the fall and throw them in the compost pile, you're turning something that is traditionally viewed as a scourge into something beneficial.

Let's take a walk through my garden, and I'll tell you what I'm doing now, and how I think all this applies to me and also to you.

The first thing you notice when you enter my garden is that there isn't much bare dirt. There are some areas where crops have been finished and are sitting with a layer of finished compost on top, waiting for fall plantings of garlic, but for the most part, everything is green. The first raised bed we come to has different varieties of tomato plants in cages, some laying on the ground. The area right around the plants is mulched with grass clippings, but the spaces between the plants are filled with different varieties of clover, dandelion, curly dock, wild lettuce, and probably some elm tree seedlings. I leave these plants go until they get so large that they crowd or shade the tomatoes. At that point I grab on and pull. The whole plant goes into the compost bin. Otherwise, I leave them to grow. This doesn't hurt yields one bit. My Amish Paste plants are still approaching 5 feet tall in mid August, even though they were direct seeded (I don't use many transplants, but that's a different story). That carpet of green in between them is helping to preserve moisture and collect nutrients from deep in the soil. The only real management I do, other than removing plants that have started to crowd or shade, is to deadhead anything growing a seed pod. For dandelions this means pulling all the flowers off. On wild lettuce I remove any flowers before they form seeds. I like to leave the flowers as long as possible for the pollinators. Deadheading is easier than weeding, takes less time, leaves a beneficial plant to do its job, and keeps it from overtaking your garden, all at once. Plus, deadheading wild lettuce with a machete can actually be kind of fun.  :)

You'll notice that there is no grass. I hate grass. I've let my lawn go mostly wild, it's up to about 30% clover, which is where the chicken tractor sits most of the summer. But the lawn around the garden is still grassy, meaning grass finds its way into the garden. I pull all the grass I can find inside the beds. Grasses in general, though they have their place in nature, have no place in a vegetable garden.

So let's review:

1. Let beneficial plants grow as long as they don't crowd crops.
2. Deadhead them so they don't produce seeds.
3. Pull them all in the fall and put them in the compost bin - or let them die on their own and work them into the soil in the spring.

And you thought these were just weeds.

Can we take this further?

Certainly! Imagine for a moment, a garden where most of the nutrients that leech too deep to be used by vegetable plants are captured by dynamic accumulators. They're brought back to the top, captured in foliage for you to compost or work back into the soil, releasing those nutrients to be used again. Such dynamic accumulator plants are intentionally placed around and in the garden space just for this purpose. To the passerby they look like weeds, but you know they're doing a job that you can't do any other way, rescuing nutrients, preventing soil compaction, and saving you fertilizers.

Chop and Drop

Many gardeners have learned to add perennial dynamic accumulators (such as comfrey) to their garden areas. One possible method to incorporate this into your garden would be to grow an accumulating plant in your garden, and periodically chop it down, leaving the leaves and stalks on the ground. Done early in the year and the comfrey becomes mulch to spread around your tomatoes. Done in the fall, the material will compost over the fall, winter and spring and become nutrients for next year's growth. Comfrey in particular can be chopped several times per year. You can apply this to other plants as well. Large, broad dandelion leaves make great mulch. Pull the leaves off the top of a dandelion, leaving the root in the ground, and throw them down as mulch around the base of a plant. A few dandelions won't make much difference, but if you have a few hundred around the garden like I do, it becomes almost enough to mulch a whole bed of onions.

To Summarize

Take some time to think about whether those plants growing between your cabbage are helping or hurting your efforts. You just might be shooting yourself in the foot by pulling them all.

List of Dynamic Accumulators - Courtesy of the Oregon Biodynamic Group.

DIY incubator

How I built a $6 incubator that achieved a 71% hatch rate.

Important Note! Please use your own common sense. You'll be working with electricity, water, sharp tools and heat. If something doesn't make sense, or seems unsafe, stop and consult an expert before proceeding. Please don't hurt yourself.

A few months ago, I was standing in my local farm supply store, looking at the tanks of chicks, pondering what I wanted to do to expand my flock of laying hens. This is a pretty common place for me to find myself in April, to be honest. I stand there, thinking about how ridiculous it is to spend $2.69 on a chick that someone else hatched. Am I going to keep buying a few chicks every year like this? I go to great lengths to avoid buying a $15 sack of feed, but I spend the same on a few chicks every spring? Not to mention the risk associated with introducing outside birds to the flock year after year. Compound the risk over several years, and the odds that a disease outbreak could wipe out my back yard flock go up dramatically.

After some thought, this seemed like a simple enough decision. Yep, I was going to get an incubator and hatch my own eggs. Amazon, here we come! Aaaand hold on a minute. Cheap incubators have terrible reviews. They just don't work that well. Good incubators are EXPENSIVE. Well, $150 might not seem expensive, but to me that's a fortune to spend on something that is supposed to save or make me money. I could buy a whole lot of eggs from someone else for $150.

At this point my mind shuts down. This is a dilemma. I sit at the table and explain the situation to my wife and she looks me square in the eye and says "Why don't you just make one?"

Uh. Hm. I dunno. I mean, I hadn't thought of that. Here I spend every weekend tinkering with stuff, building things out of salvaged and scrounged materials and it never occurred to me to just build one. My wife's brilliant, really.

So, I did a lot of research on incubators. I read a TON of inexpensive DIY incubator plans, most of which had never been tested, and those that had been were used to hatch only a couple eggs just to prove that they could hatch an egg. I researched good commercial incubators. I read up on hatch success rates and the science of hatching chicken eggs as told by universities and commercial hatcheries. I talked endlessly to the two people I know well who have lots of experience hatching chicken eggs. And this design, though simple, is what I came up with after all that. A low cost homemade incubator that has been tested with documented results.

These are the chicks hatched in this incubator, at 3 weeks old.

Things you need:
Please note: Links are to show you what we're talking about. In true homesteader tradition, I recommend and even expect that you will scrounge this stuff from junk piles, clearance racks, and beg/borrow the whatever else you need. If you buy all this stuff you aren't saving money.

Styrofoam cooler  - something like an Omaha Steaks cooler is perfect for 15 eggs or so. It should have thick walls. It should look like this
Bottle lamp kit - Something like this or you can salvage an old lamp.
25w light bulb - Like this
Computer fan - One of these will work
Thermostat - This is what I used
12v DC adapter - Here's one that works with the fan I linked
Digital thermometer with probe - One like this works and this has a hygrometer too.
Piece of glass out of old 8x10 picture frame, or similar sized plexiglass, plastic, etc. As long as you can see through it and it's reasonably rigid.
small plastic bowl
1/4 inch galvanized steel mesh. You only need about 3 square feet of it, so if you have or can locate some scrap, that might work.

Tools:

flat and phillips screwdrivers
wire stripper (or whatever tool you're comfortable doing this with. I use a small sidecutter)
Duct tape
Electrical tape
A couple feet of tie wire or string
Something to cut styrofoam with. I use an old steak knife.
Heavy duty scissors, tin snips, or something to cut wire mesh.

First, I'm going to talk about each of the components, as some background on what their purpose is, and how to help yourself select the right parts.

Styrofoam Cooler

This is the incubator, really. The size is only important as far as it allows you to fit all the components into it, and that it will hold enough eggs for your purposes. I used an Omaha Steaks cooler that I had laying around, but you could easily use a foam shipping container or even a larger plastic cooler if you want. I'm not saying you should go buy this, but something like this is what I'm talking about. Just make sure that it's not smaller than 10x10x10 inches inside. Any smaller than that and you won't be able to fit the components. That size would probably be appropriate for 8-10 eggs or so. Ideally, you'd have 12x12x12 inches inside, or larger. You don't want the entire space filled with eggs, the chicks need a place to stand and dry off after hatching where they won't be standing on eggs or in broken eggshells. The sides of the cooler should be thick enough to insulate well and be strong enough to handle being worked with. Anything thinner than an inch is probably going to be too weak to be durable.

Bottle Lamp Kit

This is your heat source. Honestly, you shouldn't buy a bottle lamp kit. You should find an old junk lamp that's ugly as all heck and take it apart. Hit up a yard sale or auction and you can probably get one for $1 or maybe even free, if you don't already have one laying around.

25w Light Bulb

Find the chandelier style 25 watt bulb with the normal large end. I found a pack of 4 of these at walmart for $2.50 just recently. It's a good idea to have a spare bulb. If you use a particularly large cooler or box, you may need to go to a 40w bulb, but in my tests 25w worked fine as long as the temp outside the incubator was above 60F.

Computer Fan

This is any old 12v fan you can find. Take apart an old computer, stop by a computer shop and they might sell you an old used one for $2. Just make sure it's 12v and 1 amp (1000 milliamps or ma) or less. The simplest fan is the best, you don't want thermostatic controls, speed switches, or anything else to complicate the wiring. Just a plain old 12v fan.

Thermostat

This is probably the most important piece of the project. The basic idea is that the thermostat turns the light on and off to create heat, withing a pre-set temp range. The thermostat we use is normally used in a water heater, and isn't designed for fine tuning the way we need to for this project. Ideally, I would use a wafer-type thermostat, but this is what I could get easily so I used it and it really did work quite well. Commercial forced air incubators in the $150-$200 range typically hold about a 2-3 degree temp range, and mine with the water heater thermostat did that or better.

12v DC Adapter

This is to power the fan for circulating air. I'm betting you can scrounge up an old one for an ancient blackberry (sorry bb fans) or some other obsolete phone or electronic device. I say 12v, but most computer fans will run on lower voltage as long as there is sufficient amperage to start the fan. You can play around and see what works for you with your fan, but it's best if you just find a 12v 1 amp adapter and use that.

Glass

This is to make a window in the top of the cooler. You can use whatever you want for this. I used an old piece of plate glass, which is probably not the safest. Clear plastic would be best. You could probably even grind the edges off an old CD jewel case to make it flat, and use that. You just need to be able to see inside so you can monitor progress without removing the lid.

Small plastic bowl

About a 2 inch high tupperware or similar bowl that will hold about a cup of water. This goes under the screen shelf to ensure proper humidity during incubation.

1/4 inch mesh

We are going to make the egg shelf with this. We can't just lay the eggs in the bottom of the cooler, so we'll be making a shelf elevated about 3-5 inches off the bottom of the cooler that the eggs will sit on and the chicks will stand on after hatching. Nothing larger than 1/4 inch mesh, or the chicks will have a hard time walking on it. I use this mesh because I can cut it and shape it to whatever I need.

So how does this all go together?

1. Prep the cooler and test fit the light socket

Well, first of all we need to prep the cooler. You're going to make 3 holes in it, two of them near the bottom. and a third next to the fan. The first is for the lamp and the second is for the thermostat wires to come out. Please see the picture below to get an idea of the component layout. I strongly recommend following that layout. We'll be putting the lamp near a corner, but not so close to the corner that the heat from the bulb might melt the styrofoam and to allow better heat circulation. It should be positioned so that the light bulb is at least 1 inch away from the adjacent side. Position the hole for the lamp so that the bulb is about 1 inch above the bottom of the cooler. Not the center of the bulb, the edge of the bulb. If the cooler bottom is 1 inch thick, you'll need to go up about 2.5 inches to get this clearance. Once you know where the lamp and bulb go and you've double and triple checked your clearances, make your hole. I did this with a steak knife, slowly carving away the foam until I had a snug fit. Once you have a hole, insert the lamp socket and make sure it goes far enough in that the bulb won't be touching the foam. If so, you may need to insert the light socket further, or possibly countersink the whole arrangement so it goes in far enough.

The 2nd hole is for the wires that go from the light socket to the thermostat and back. You can make this hole just by pushing a screwdriver through the foam. The thermostat will turn the light on and off as the temperature fluctuates. The thermostat and its wires will be positioned along the same side of the cooler as the bulb is, in the other corner. We want the thermostat far enough from the bulb that it's sensing air temperature and not radiant heat from the bulb, and raised off the bottom of the cooler. So, the hole for these wires should be about 2 inches off the bottom of the cooler and should be about 1/8 to 1/4 inch in size. Just enough to push the wires through.

The hole for the fan wires should can go pretty much anywhere close to the fan, you can see where the fan is positioned in the picture below, as well as the location of the thermostat and the light bulb. The thermostat is lifted off the bottom of the incubator using a chunk of the leftover foam cut out when the window was installed in the lid. These are small wires, so you can probably make them by pushing a screwdriver through the foam.

Note, since this is a salvaged cooler, it's got some staining and looks pretty dirty. It would also look pretty similar after hatching a batch of chicks, so make sure before starting a batch of eggs that you wash everything thoroughly. I use a cup of water with just a splash of bleach to decontaminate. This rig isn't pretty since it's all scrounged and salvaged materials, but I'm too cheap to pay for pretty. Your exact installation may vary, depending on what materials you are using, but this is the basic idea.

It should be mentioned that the placement of the fan, light, and thermostat are what they are for a specific reason. The thermostat under the fan because it ensures a steady stream of airflow so that it can react quickly to changes in temperature inside the incubator. The light across from the fan so that it has continual airflow over it to keep temperatures near it cool and to circulate warm air quickly. The thermostat is as close to the level of the eggs as possible while still being under the mesh shelf, but raised to keep it away from water in the bottom of the incubator, with the adjustment screw facing up so that if you do need to adjust the temperature after starting incubation, you can reach through the mesh shelf with a small flatblade screwdriver to do so. With the lid on, this makes a nice clean circulation with pretty much no areas of low or no air flow.

Once you have a hole for the light socket cut, test fit the light. It should fit snugly enough that it won't fall out. Remove the light socket and set it aside.

2. Wire the thermostat to the light and install the light and thermostat

Please do all wiring with the light unplugged. Don't kill or injure yourself by electrocution over an incubator. Seek advice from someone who knows electricity if you don't understand how to do this part.

The light socket's power cord will have 2 wires. A plain colored one and a striped one. Split the two wires apart, and trim about 12 inches of wire off the striped wire and set aside. Strip the end off the non-striped wire and connect it to the #1 terminal on the thermostat. Strip the ends off the 12 inch cut off wire and connect one end to the #2 terminal on the thermostat. Connect the other end to the brass colored screw terminal on the light socket. Connect the remaining end of the striped wire (still attached to the plug) to the silver screw on the light socket. Wrap all exposed connections in electrical tape for safety. The terminals aren't covered in tape in my picture so that you can see it, but before testing or operation, I cover all connections in electrical tape.

At this point, we need to test the light. Make sure you aren't touching any of the wiring, and that it's not touching any conductive surfaces. If you plug it in and you did everything correctly, the light should come on. If you did something wrong, the breaker will either trip, or the light will simply fail to come on. If it trips the breaker, your wires are probably backwards somewhere. If the light doesn't come on, check the switch on the light socket. If after this it still isn't working correctly, seek the advice of someone qualified to work with electricity. Please don't hurt yourself over this!

Assuming that everything works correctly, it's time to unplug the light, disassemble whatever wiring is necessary and install the light and thermostat into the incubator. You should only have to remove the wires from the thermostat to do this. Remove both and install the light socket into the hole you cut, and install the bulb. Next, insert the thermostat wires through their hole, place the thermostat inside the incubator in its corner, and reattach the thermostat wires. Re-tape any exposed connections and then test the light again.

3. Install the fan

The fan should be placed as close to the top of the incubator as possible without hitting the lid. This makes the air circulate top to bottom. Figure out where the fan goes, and if necessary use a strip of folded cardboard to space it 1/4 inch from the side of the cooler, so that it can draw air from the back side. Make sure that the fan is blowing away from the wall of the cooler, into the middle. Once you identify the location, make 2 holes on each side of the fan and attach it to the cooler by running a loop of wire through the holes, and around the face of the fan. Twist the wire (or tie the string) on the outside of the cooler, securing the fan in place. Quick and dirty. You can spend more

Strip off the ends of the fan wires, and strip off the ends of your 12v adapter. connect the wires of the adapter to the wires of the fan. Temporarily wrap in electrical tape and test the fan by plugging the adapter in to an outlet. Make sure the fan works and is turning the proper direction. There's only two options here, so if the fan doesn't work, unplug the adapter, and switch the wires, re-tape and try again. If it still doesn't work, it's possible that your adapter is the wrong voltage or amperage for the fan, or either the fan or adapter doesn't work at all. Ask for experienced help at this point if it's still not working. Assuming everything works, unplug and disconnect the wires, insert the wires through the hole you made for them. Re-connect the wires and wrap in electrical tape. Test the fan once more just to be sure.

4. Install the window in the lid

Lay the window piece, either glass or clear plastic on top of the lid. Make a mark around the outside of the window piece. Set the window aside and make a new line 1/4 to 1/2 inch inside the existing line. This is the line we will cut along to remove the foam. Cut out the foam with a knife, set the window over the hole. Secure the window with electrical tape or duct tape. I used electrical tape on mine, but would use duct tape if I did it again.

This is what mine looks like. Again, not pretty, but functional.

5. Test run #1

We're ready for the first test run. Set up your thermometer and hang the probe into the incubator. Using a small flatblade screwdriver, turn the temp setting on the thermostat all the way down. Put the lid on and plug the light and fan in. The light should come on and the fan should be moving air. Note the temperature in the incubator and make sure it starts heating up. Monitor it until the light goes off. It will probably turn off at about 96 degrees, depending on your thermostat. Keep watching until it comes back on. Let it cycle a couple times to make sure it works. There's no need to adjust the temperature at this time, we're just trying to make sure that all the components work. We'll do tuning in the 2nd test run. What you are looking for  is a narrow temp range. If the temp swing from low to high is less than 4 degrees, you should be ok.

Temperature discussion

At this point, we should probably talk a little about temperature control in the incubator. Once we're running, we want to hold a temperature as close to 100.0 F as possible. This doesn't mean that there can't be some temp swing as the thermostat goes on and off, the important thing is that the average temp inside the egg stays there. An egg is mostly liquid, at first, and therefore it holds heat to some extent and doesn't fluctuate temperature as fast as the air does. What this means for you is that if your thermostat turns the light on at 98 F and off at 102 F, that gives us an average temp of exactly 100 F, which is perfect. The temp inside the egg may swing between 99 and 101, but that's still ok. What we really want to avoid are large temperature swings, or extended temp swings. Just saying that the low is 98 and the high is 102 isn't necessarily good enough, if the incubator spends most of the time at 102 and only drops to 98 briefly before the light comes on. The best way to test the temperature would be to put the temp probe inside something that has the same mass and heat retention properties as an egg. One way you can do this is to put some water in 2 ziplock bags and sandwich the temp probe between them. Another would be to wrap the temp probe in plastic and submerge it in a small cup of water, about the same amount as an egg, inside the incubator. This will give you a good idea of what the actual temp inside the egg will be as the incubator goes through its cycle.

We know that chickens, and birds in general don't hold perfect temp with their eggs when setting on them. We don't expect to have a perfectly stable temp throughout the incubation. What we want to avoid are long periods of low temperature or any periods where the internal egg temp rises above 103 F.  According to my research, the IDEAL temperature for incubation is 99.5 for the first 17 days, and then approximately 100.2 for the last 4 days. Without an expensive digital thermostat this would be pretty tough to accomplish, so we aren't even going to try. We'll shoot for an average temp of between 99.5 and 100.0 F, and the only adjustments we make will be to stay within that range. This is where the memory settings on your thermometer come in handy.

5. Final Assembly

Now we need to get things buttoned up and ready for a longer test run. First, cut a chunk out of that foam you removed when making the window, and make a stand for the thermostat. You can glue it in if you want, but you want the thermostat raised off the bottom of the incubator for two reasons. First, so it doesn't get wet, and 2nd so that it is closer to the level that the eggs are in the incubator, so that it reacts to the same air the eggs are exposed to. Once you've got the thermostat situated, it's time to make a shelf out of the 1/4 inch mesh. This is simple, so I'm just going to show you a picture of one.

Excuse the dirty table, I took the pictures at our soap making station since it has the best light.

To make this, you measure the inside of your incubator. Say it's 12x12 inches. You cut a piece of screen that is 13 inches by 18 inches. You fold a half inch of mesh down on 2 sides, so there are no sharp edges, and you fold the other 2 sides down 3 inches each, to make a shelf that's 2 inches high and fits snugly inside the cooler. Now, this isn't necessarily easy. I recommend wearing leather gloves while working with this stuff, as the wire is sharp and will cut you. Also, the mesh won't make a nice perfect shape for you. If it fits snugly, though, you can make it hold its shape once it's inside the incubator. There are some considerations with this. Before you put it in place, set your bowl in the bottom of the incubator. No sense in having to take the shelf out later to put the bowl in. The shelf should fit under the fan and over the lightbulb with some clearance between it and the lightbulb. Preferably about an inch between the bulb and the screen. It sucks getting it in there, trim and re-bend until you get a snug fit all the way around. You don't want a chick getting its foot stuck in a gap. Once you've got it fitting properly, it's staying there until after you hatch your first eggs and need to disassemble for cleaning. Note: I bend the mesh over the edge of a table or workbench, with a chunk of 2x4 to act as a break of sorts.

Next, we're going to cut one more small piece of mesh to make a screen that goes over the fan. Cut a piece of screen 1 inch larger than the fan in both directions. Fold the edges over all the way around to make a box, slide this over the fan, and wrap with duct tape to cover any sharp wire edges. This guard is not installed in any of my pictures, so I apologize. The point of this is to make sure that chicks don't stick their body parts into the fan. The fan is blowing out, so it wouldn't suck them in and severely mutilate them, however they could still get injured without a screen over the fan.

6. 2nd Test Run

For our 2nd test run, we're going to focus on monitoring temperature, humidity, airflow and function over a longer period. Assemble your incubator, plug everything in, add water to the bowl under the screen (you can pour the water through the screen or use a small tube and funnel to fill. Either way works), set the temp probe on the screen at the egg level and close it up. Let it run for a half hour and check the temp. Adjust up or down using the screw on the thermostat. You need to make VERY TINY adjustments. It may not even seem like the screw moved. Remember, we're making fine adjustments with a device that wasn't designed for such fine adjustments. Tinker with this until it will run at a specific temp for a half hour without fluctuating below 98 F or above 102 F.

If your temp probe also does humidity, you can measure it there. If not, no big deal. Our target is 50% relative humidity for now, and the bowl of water and the moving air should make sure we achieve this without issues. If you want to test it, that much the better. I don't measure humidity in mine. I just try to make sure that it's humid for the first 18 days, and then REALLY humid until hatching is complete. If you're measuring humidity, you'll need to run it for a couple hours or even overnight to really know what the humidity is. If you've got the temp right, leave the lid closed for a few hours and then check the humidity.

Let the whole thing run for at least one day. Don't remove the lid during this time. If after this time the temp is still stable, you're ready to hatch eggs.

Operation Instructions and Concepts

Our incubator does not have an egg turner, so when you load your eggs, mark the top with a pencil so you have a point of reference for turning. You'll be opening the lid at least once per day, preferably twice, to turn the eggs. You don't need to turn them much, I just roll them slightly over, maybe 15 degrees each time. Back and forth until you get to day 18 and lockdown until hatch is complete. Try to keep the time the lid is off to a minimum, and after closing you should monitor for a few minutes to make sure the temp comes back up to where it should be. When you go to turn eggs, always check the max and min temperatures in the memory of your thermometer. If necessary, this is the time to adjust the thermostat. You should not have to, but just in case, this is when you do it. Make sure that if you do, you monitor the incubator for at least 30 minutes to make sure the temp is stable and correct. Remember, it's better to be 0.4 degrees off target than to keep opening and closing the incubator over and over again, constantly messing with the thermostat.

If you know anything about incubators, at this point, you're probably wondering how we increase humidity at the end of the incubation cycle. Understanding that humidity is critical while chicks are hatching, we know we need to get above 70% humidity. If we don't, the membrane inside the shell will dry out, shrink, and effectively shrink wrap the chicks inside the egg, killing them. So how do we do that? I thought about that a lot, and decided that the best way to increase humidity is to increase the surface area of the water so more evaporates. For the first 18 days, the water in the bowl has enough surface area. On day 18, I open the lid and pour about 1/4 inch of water in the bottom of the incubator. This increases the surface area of the water dramatically, and makes sure there's enough humidity. Also top off the water in the bowl at this point if we need to. After day 18, you're in lockdown mode and the lid of the incubator should not be opened. You should have enough water in the bowl and in the bottom of the incubator at this point to last until hatch is complete. Expect to see condensation on the window after day 18 with the increase in humidity.

Results

I built this incubator hoping that it would hatch something, anything. I didn't expect it to be perfect, I only expected it to be functional. Honestly, I'm very happy with the results.

I started with 21 eggs from my brother's mixed flock. He hatches eggs for his own flock in a $200+ incubator that isn't much different from this one, except it has an egg turner. His results with his eggs after 3 hatchings this spring were about 65-70% hatch rate, after subtracting infertile eggs. He has 1 rooster and over 30 hens, so some eggs will be infertile, and many of the hens are older, meaning the eggs aren't as likely to hatch. In my batch of 21, there were 4 that showed no development when candled at 5-6 days. I left those eggs in the incubator, just to see if I was right, however none of those 4 ever developed. Of the remaining 17, 13 of them hatched. 12 of those chicks survived past 3 days, and all are still running around the coop, now 4 weeks old. The one chick that hatched but did not survive did not absorb the yolk sac correctly, and when it hatched it was covered in yolk and blood. It was unable to stand and could barely move even after 8 hours. It passed shortly after that. Among the 12 that survived, there were no deformities in feet or beaks, all the chicks are healthy and growing. My success rate is 12 out of 17, for a rounded 71%.

The gross part

I decided to analyze the 4 eggs that showed development at candling but did not hatch. Of those 4, 1 looked to have quit at around day 10. There was nothing significant about day 10, I couldn't find a cause for it other than that it was a weak egg. The 2nd quitter looked like it made it to around day 15-17. Again, there was no directly attributable cause for this. The remaining 2 held fully developed but dead chicks. I shut off the incubator on the morning of day 23. It's possible that these chicks might have still hatched. I don't know. I do know that a chick hatching on day 23 has a low chance of survival. I made a note to let the incubator run to day 24 next time, just to see.

Summary

Overall, this was a successful experiment for me. I feel that this incubator can achieve the same hatching success that most of the small incubators that those of us with backyard flocks would purchase, and certainly better than the cheap incubators would do. My next plan is to build a scaled up version of this using the same principles in an insulated cabinet.

Growing Onions From Sets

Everyone loves onions! Except my oldest daughter. I LOVE onions. Almost everything we cook has onions in it, it seems. If I could find a way to put onions in strawberry rhubarb crisp they would be in there too. Onions are a healthy, low calorie addition to any spicy meal, and most meat dishes.

They're also one of the more difficult garden vegetables to achieve good yields of. Onions are easy to grow, and difficult to grow well.

The simplest way to grow onions is from sets. In another post someday we'll go over onions from seed, but for now we're staying simple.

Typically, onion sets found in greenhouses or at chain stores are labeled either "Yellow", "White", or "Red". Not the most descriptive packaging and not really very useful information, but generally these are day neutral onions that will grow pretty much anywhere. Though they aren't the best for storage or the largest/sweetest/etc onions you could grow, onion sets are typically a safe choice that will produce a decent crop.

Onion sets are year old onions. They are started from seed, grown for a period of time and then harvested, dried, and stored. They are easy to plant and grow because they already have all the things needed to grow a respectable onion. They have a root system, and a store of energy to restart growing as soon as they're planted.

Red onions are easily grown from sets.

When and How

Plant onion sets as early as you can stick them in the ground, spaced about 3-4 inches apart. Rows waste space, plant them in a grid. You want just enough room to let them grow and so you can get your hands in there to pull weeds. Plant sets so the top is just barely poking out of the ground. The roots will be 1/2 to 3/4 inch deep that way. When I plant sets, I don't wait for the ground to dry out so it can be tilled. There might even be snow in the corners of the yard. I rake off whatever litter is on top of the soil and stick the sets right in the ground. If I have to pull weeds or last year's stalks first, I will, but I don't do any other prep to the soil. Keep in mind that I have good soil quality and I NEVER EVER EVER walk in my garden beds. I don't need to till to make the soil loose enough to grow onions, but if you have heavy or compacted soil, you may need to wait until it can be at least hand tilled before planting onion sets. The important thing is getting them in the ground as early as possible. The more cool wet days with sunshine that the onions get before it gets hot and the days start to shorten, the better your onion crop will be.

After planting, I immediately side dress with well aged compost. You can probably use a fertilizer, but I prefer compost. My compost is mostly made up of kitchen scraps, grass clippings, leaf litter, and straw from the chicken coop.  Onions are very heavy feeders, and a good layer of nutrient rich compost will help make sure you have nice big onions. I usually put down about 1/2 inch of compost on the whole area, maybe more. Make sure the onions aren't buried under a thick layer. Brush some off the set tops if necessary. After adding compost, I cover the whole area with a light layer of grass clippings if I have them. If I don't, I wait until I do. Mulching onions is very important. Because they are heavy feeders, competition from weeds using the nutrients in the soil will hurt their growth significantly. Usually, the soil is plenty wet at this time of year so I don't need to water sets after planting. If it's dry though, water them well once, and then don't water again until the very top of the soil is dry. Fewer, deeper waterings will help your onions, and all your other plants, grow deeper roots and better withstand the upcoming heat of summer.

When the onions get to be about 6 inches tall, or after they've been in the ground for 30-45 days, I give them another sprinkling of compost fertilizer, and then another layer of grass clipping mulch over the top of that. The nutrients in these layers of compost will seep into the soil for the onions to take in.

Pinching Flowers

Onions are biennial plants. This means they grow a plant the first year, go dormant for the winter, then re-grow again the second year and then flower. Onion sets, being 2nd year plants, are going to flower sometime during the middle of the growing season. For me, this happens in June. These flowers should be pinched off before they open and pollinate. This keeps the onion putting its energy into the bulb instead of seeds.

From here on out, keep the onions weeded, and well watered, and wait for the tops to yellow and tip over.

Harvest and Storage

Harvest onions when most, or more than half of the tops are yellowing and falling over. At this point, they are no longer growing larger, and are starting to go dormant. Pull onions, and lay them out in a warm but not hot, shady, well ventilated area to dry. I've got an old screen door sitting on sawhorses on the north side of my house where it's shady and the breeze blows through. If it looks like rain, bring the onions indoors until rain has passed. Leave the onions to dry outdoors for at least a week, 2-3 is better. Usually I leave them out for a few days and then move them indoors to finish drying. If they can't be left outdoors, spread them out in a dry area with good airflow to finish drying indoors. This process is called curing. When the onions are fully cured, the neck of the onion will be dry and brown and you can cut off the dry top, about 2 inches above the onion. Any onions that still have green necks are not yet dry, and those onions should be used up first as they are most likely to spoil fastest. Proper curing is critical to the storage life of the onion. I have kept properly cured onions in the root cellar for a full year before they started to spoil. You may not get onion grown from sets to store that long, but 6 months is certainly possible with proper curing.

So there you have it. Bigger onions through fertilization and reducing weed competition.

"Automatic" maggot feeder for chickens

How about a quick, easy, nearly free and slightly smelly way to supplement the fat and protein in your chickens' diet while giving them a treat?

I started doing this last year after getting the idea somewhere (I can't remember where, I'm sorry, I wish I could give credit where it is due. Really), and though I wouldn't do this if I had really close, or picky neighbors, it's worked great for us.

This is really simple. Take a 5 gallon bucket, drill a bunch of 1/4 inch holes in the sides. Don't drill any holes in the bottom or up about 1 inch from the bottom. Throw a couple handfuls of straw in the bottom. Fill with a few pounds of meat. Cover with some more straw. I suppose you *could* collect roadkill for this part, but I usually have some old something-or-other in the freezer that isn't salvageable, or I have frozen animal carcasses left over from the previous trapping season. Fish carcasses work great too, for you fisherpeople. I mean, you know what stuff attracts flies, right?

Maggots make great chicken treats.

Hang the bucket about a foot or two above the ground in your chicken run. Wait.

Ok, so it's going to smell some, there's nothing you can do about that. But, if you don't use TOO much animal material in there and you keep some straw on top of it and below it to absorb any juices, it won't get too bad.

As all the neighborhood flies find the meat, they'll lay eggs. Fly eggs become maggots. Maggots eat meat. Eventually, some maggots fall out the holes in the sides. Chickens love maggots and it's great protein and fat in their diet. Lots of times, in the evenings, I see my hens standing under the bucket waiting for a maggot or two to fall out.

A few points of caution here.

1. If you make any holes in the bottom of the bucket or very close to it in the sides, some unpleasant smelling liquids will find their way onto the ground and the smell will increase dramatically.
2. Don't overload the bucket. I put probably 2-3 pounds of guts/meat/whatever in there at a time. This will last a few weeks at least.
3. The more holes you drill the faster maggots will fall out. Don't make the holes big enough that chunks of meat fall out. 1/4 - 3/8 inch is about perfect.
4. If it rains a lot where you are, put a cover on the bucket. The flies can still find their way in through the holes in the sides.
5. If you live in the middle of nowhere and have a strong stomach, you can put holes in the bottom of the bucket. It will work better. It will also smell a lot worse. Your call on this one really.
6. One reason for hanging the bucket is that it makes it less likely that a maggot-crazed hen will get IN the bucket, which can become a very messy situation very quickly. A cover will also help, if this is an issue for you.
7. The other reason for hanging it is that when the maggots fall, it gets the chickens' attention, and they find them easier. Mitch Hedberg was right about this, snacks are better when they fall and that holds true in the chicken world as well.

When the bucket is finished and there's nothing left to attract flies, there probably won't be much smell left either. At this point you can either dig a hole and bury what's left, or you can just dump it on the ground in the run and let the birds dig through it for any remaining snacks. I usually bury it somewhere. Rinse the bucket out and repeat, if you aren't completely grossed out at this point.  :)

Grow your own chicken feed, part 2

Last summer, I undertook an experiment to grow my own chicken feed to store for winter. You can read about that here http://backyardbiointensive.blogspot.com/2013/06/grow-your-own-chicken-feed.html

All in all, the project was a success, however I learned quite a few things that are worth writing down and sharing.

First off, I learned to categorize anything stored as either a staple food or a supplemental food. Certain things just cannot be collected/grown and stored in sufficient quantities to make up a staple food. They might work for someone with different resources or more land, but for me they didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. However, they were still a part of the chickens' diet through the winter, providing some diversity and additional nutrition.

Staple foods made up about 80% of the total diet. Staple foods were:

Pumpkins and squash
sunflower seeds
corn
kitchen scraps

Supplemental foods made up the rest of the diet:

alfalfa/clover
wheat
brassica leaves
raspberry leaves
dandelion

I had hoped to store 200 pounds of dried hay and greens. In practice, this turned out to be nearly impossible without buying alfalfa bales. I could do this, but it didn't prove necessary. Pumpkins/squash and grains were actually very easy to store enough of.

Here's what I actually ended up storing and using:

150 pounds of corn, some shelled, some on the cob, mix of sweet and field corn
About a 55 gallon drum full of black oil sunflower heads with seeds
400 pounds of squash and pumpkins
About 20 pounds of dried alfalfa and clover
5 pounds of shelled wheat
20 pounds of dried broccoli, cabbage, and brussels sprouts leaves
2 gallons of raspberry leaves
15 pounds of dried dandelion

Some of what I stored simply wasn't viable feed. Unless it was ground and pelletized they wouldn't touch some of the greens. I suppose I could do this, but I really don't have the means to do this easily. Whatever of it they did eat, though, was beneficial anyway. A good amount of the squash and pumpkins didn't get used, and ended up in the compost bin. I'd say upwards of 50 pounds. Also, most of the dandelion went uneaten as they wouldn't eat the roots which were the bulk of the weight.

Sunflowers: great chicken feed and beautiful too.

With this in mind, I'm revising this strategy somewhat for this year, having learned a few things from last year.

So this will be this year's chicken feed storage plan to feed 6 hens:

55 gallon drum full of sweet and dent corn
55 gallon drum full of black oil sunflower heads
20 large pumpkins and/or equivalent mix of winter squashes
20 pounds dried alfalfa and clover
40 gallon tub filled with mix of other dried greens - especially brassica leaves
ALL kitchen scrap
grit and calcium supplement

I should be able to grow all of this in the pumpkin patch and since I can grow pumpkins and corn and sunflowers together by co-planting, it will save some space. I expect to plant half the patch in corn and half in sunflowers, with pumpkins and squash interplanted.

Another thing we'll be doing, in order to get the most of our kitchen and garden scraps, is that ALL food scraps will go to the chickens to be picked over. Whatever's left after a few weeks will then be moved to the compost bin to finish composting. To do this, I've got a couple clean blue plastic barrels that I cut down to be large dishes, about 14 inches deep, that food scraps will go into. They can't scatter them too much in the coop that way, but still can hop in and dig for edibles. These dishes have drain holes in the bottom so that any liquids can drain out and be absorbed by the straw bedding in the coop.

Now, volume of feed isn't an issue. What about nutritional quality? Admittedly, this isn't the diverse mixture of foods that chickens would get during the summer, however this did carry our chickens through the winter in good condition, although egg production suffered slightly. Nothing that would justify increasing the cost of feed by purchasing it.

It should be said that the amount of time that goes into growing and storing this feed is not insignificant. If I was running a business and had to calculate the cost of my time, it wouldn't make economic sense to grow feed. However, because I view my mini-farming operation as a closed system and my main goal is self-sufficiency and not financial profit, this all works out for me. If you're looking for a way to save money on chicken feed for a small flock, however, this probably isn't the best way to do it. If you're looking to provide for your flock and your family without relying on someone else, then you're headed in the right direction.

Old Tires as Garden Containers?

I like to talk about gardening, plans for gardens, methods, etc. I talk to pretty much anyone who will listen. I learn this way. I talk about my thoughts and it helps me make them more coherent. I talk about others' thoughts and I pick up new ideas for how to do things.

One question that seems to come up at least a few times every spring is the question of using old tires as garden containers. Many of us have heard stories about growing potatoes in old tires, and no doubt many have tried this method. Invariably, the discussion ends up revolving around the question of whether this is safe - whether or not the tires leach toxic/carcinogenic chemicals into the food grown in them. I have read countless discussions, blog posts, articles, etc about this, and so far, nobody has convinced me either way.

The simple fact of the matter is, though, that you shouldn't ever use tires as containers, and it has nothing to do with whether or not they're toxic. It's because as far as garden containers, or raised bed containers go, they suck. Bbbbbut they're free! No, they aren't. And they suck.

There, I said it. Put this whole issue to bed. Tires make very poor containers for growing anything. Why are we still talking about this?

Tell me how this is better than just putting them in the ground? Photo Credit: Tony Buser

Here's why they suck:

A tire wastes a lot of space. An average tire is probably 25 inches across and round, having a 14 or 15 inch opening, it's MAYBE 1 square foot of growing space. If we learned anything from square foot gardening, or any intensive planting technique, we know that round is a waste of space for anything except single plants. In the case of single plants, like tomatoes, I'll call it a tossup with a traditional 4xSomething raised bed. For anything else, like carrots or lettuce, you're wasting space.

They're too small. Would you ever intentionally build a raised, round bed only 2 feet across? I wouldn't unless it was full of sand for my cat to crap in.

They're ugly. Yep. I don't want my gardens looking like a junk yard.

Would you buy anything from a farmer's market if you knew it had been grown in an old tire? One that maybe wasn't even washed out first? I wouldn't.

They overheat the soil. That black rubber heating up the soil in april and may is probably pretty nice to have. And the rest of the growing season it's going to scorch the soil inside it even where I live in zone 4. You'll have to water twice as much. If I was going to design a device specifically for the purpose of overheating soil and stressing or killing whatever I planted in it, it would be a round black container that had a lot of surface area and absorbed as much heat from the sun as possible - a tire.

A tire in the sunlight all day every day for years on end is going to decompose down to the steel belts in less than 10 years, assuming it was a used, discarded tire in the first place. It could be much sooner than that, too. When those tire planters are down to sharp pieces of metal sticking into your knees you're going to have to do something with them, and since the EPA says they are a toxic material, that means you have to pay someone to dispose of them for you. This brings us to the final point.

Used tires are not free. You might not pay for them up front, but you'll pay for them in the long run. Either because you'll have unsightly tires piled around your property after you quit using them for planters, or because you have to pay for someone to dispose of them. My local tire shop charged me $4 per tire to dispose of the old ones that came off my wife's mini-van last fall. At $4 per square foot of garden space, you could probably hire someone to build your raised beds out of concrete block and still be money ahead.

Does it even matter if they're toxic? If we're really thinking with our gardening brains we know that tires are a poor choice even if they aren't toxic.