The Radwans

Lexie and I have been talking about getting chickens for several years – I even staked out where I would build the coop back when we lived at 80 Hillsbury Lane. During the beginnings of the COVID pandemic, working from home, worried about food supply potentials, Lexie agreed that we could get chickens – provided that if they became too much work, we give them away (since Parker was on his way!).

I got 5 baby ISA Browns at Tractor Supply – you’re not meant to be able to buy fewer than 6 chicks (I think they’re trying to discourage ‘easter pets’) but the manager approved me for 5. They spent a lot of time in brooders in our garage – with occasional field trips outside.

Then, when Parker was arriving, our friend Kris was kind enough to pick them up from our garage and has been caring for them since. Once our coop arrives (this coming week), I hope we can move them back home.

2020 marks the first year that we had a “full year” to garden – that includes a few things lasting from the previous summer. When we moved in in 2019, one of the first things I did was put in 4 raised beds (4′ x 8′) and fill them with soil from Maple Row Farm (thank to some help from my dad and a coworker, Bill F). But it was already late in the growing season so nothing ever really got fully started and we had somewhat spotty and anemic tomato crops. But anyhow, fast forward to 2020! The garden this year:

Holdovers from 2019

I planted 4 raspberry plants (bare root) in 2019 – I think they were dry or it was late. Only one survived to 2020, but it is starting to come in. Given the nature of raspberries, these won’t actually fruit for us until next year. I hope to have this bush grow and spread for us – I wasn’t going to plant more.

I have an entire 4×8 bed of asparagus – that’s mostly (80%) coming back from last year – next year will mark when we can first harvest from that bed. The ferns are much earlier and more robust this year, and I actually think we’re getting two full cycles of shoot coming up – one around now (mid June) and one much earlier in the year – April(ish).

I built a separate 4×4 strawberry bed (enclosed with hardware cloth and frame to prevent birds / chipmunks from getting at the berries) – I planted 4 strawberry plants in it last summer (late – so none actually fruited). The soil in the bed was a bunch of bags vs the dump truck delivery – it was a little dense, I’m not the biggest fan. These bushes didn’t do so well – they sent out tons of runners, but 75% of them died off. One came back this sprint and is doing great guns. The other day I had enough of a strawberry harvest to chop them up and put them on top of Lexie’s morning waffles! I’m hoping that plant grows and propagates to more of the bed (it is already sending out runners).

I also planted a 4×1 bed with elephant garlic last fall, and it’s coming up this summer as well – some of the cloves I planted too close together so I think we’re getting crowding, but we’ll harvest those in a few weeks.

This Spring’s Crops

• Radishes
• Kentucky Pole Beans
• Arugula
• Black Seeded Lettuce
• Bibb Lettuce
• Shallots
• Cucumbers (burpless and white)
• Tomatoes
  • Seed-started: Principe Borghese, Atomic, Blue Cream
  • Plants: Super sweet, Clementine, Roma varietal
• Peppers: Shishito, Sugar Rush Peach

Thus far the major struggles of the year to learn from are:

• Pests: a groundhog family caused me a ton of damage to my black seeded and bibb lettuce (we got some baby greens but otherwise they’ve basically eaten the plants to the ground)
• Patience: I think I pulled the radishes too early, and planted them too close together: got scrawny spindly roots, no bulbs. This was with large foliage that flowered.
• Pesticide: annoyingly, I think my lawn company sprayed for crabgrass / other things and there was some mist that hit my plants. The peppers and many tomatoes have stunted, twisted foliage at the top. I think that’s going to really damage the yield and overall plant growth.
• Also, it doesn’t start with a ‘p’ but I was way too aggressive with the size of cucumber trellis that I put in.