Our laying chickens

The newest layers

Thelma and Louise hoping for a handout

Rita in the nesting box

We have five chickens at the Ashby garden. There are two Barred Rocks and a Rhode Island Red who reached maturity (6 months) and started laying New Year's day. The Barred Rocks are a breed developed in Plymouth Massachussetts. They are cold hardy, defend themselves well, and have engaging personalities. Katy named them Thelma and Louise. Jill named the Rhodie after Rita Hayworth to bring up her self esteem since she seemed a bit shy at first. That's over now--Rita is the first one to fly up and perch on the can when we come to feed her. Her feathers are lovely shades of reddish brown and black.

The babies of the flock are two Black Australorps, a breed developed in Australia from Black Orpington stock. They're a few months younger than the other three. We got these chickens because I had read that they are excellent layers--almost as heavy as Leghorns. They tend to be shy--I don't know if it's the breed, or just these two. The other three boss them around and peck at them, so they stick together. Just today I noticed a small cold egg (it was a cold night) in the back of the coop where they tend to hide out. I made them their own nesting box out of a blue milk crate, so they wouldn't have to fight their big sisters, or lay eggs on the cold ground. We'll see if they use it.

Chickens are fun to keep, and pretty easy if you have a coop that keeps out the predators. They do cost money to feed, but we try to supplement their feed with sprouted grains, old bread, kitchen scraps and collard or cabbage greens. If you hold a collard leaf in your hand, they'll come and break off pieces of it. And, their poop is excellent to add to the compost pile.

Work day photos

Thanks to Bonnie for organizing the Build On day. Several garden members attended, or helped with prep in advance. Here's Nora weeding, "Thelma" the chicken checking us out from atop the greenhouse, and Jill's healthy fava beans.

Build On Work Day

This past Saturday February 5th we had an awesome work day with high school volunteers from Build On organization. We accomplished many things with their help--the blackberry was chopped into submission, the paths got mulched to reduce the weeds, a large bin was cleared and prepared for a new compost pile, the compost pile was started, with layers of material we chopped and added, two new sawhorses were built, the paths got weeded, and the fruit trees received some tlc in the form of finished compost. Here's Laura clearing blackberry roots from the new compost bin.

Here Serena, Asha, and Deveny survey their work on the blackberry.




Here Robby and Alyssa mulch the paths.




Way to go, Build On!

2010 update

So much has happened in the garden since June. We've had several great work days, a bee keeping class taught by Charles and a soil class taught by Ellen, lost chickens and gained chickens. Dennis and Katy built a roof for the chicken coop and the toolshed, and a new fence and gate for the chicken yard, and made pizza in our cob oven. The Berkeley Project Day revamped the rainwater catchment system, and cleared a lot of river cane and blackberry. A UC Berkeley intern, Daniel Gumbiner, worked with Ellen and Jill 3 hours a week in the garden all Fall. Angie and Kaya decided to move on, and we welcomed Jeff and Beth to the garden.

Bonnie made a website for the garden, and we partnered with Slow Food of Berkeley to do a garden work day, and Victory Garden Foundation to get some new tools.

It's been a great year, and we look forward to 2011. We're going to offer more classes, and continue to improve our soil onsite, so as to increase the yield and variety we can grow, and demonstrate to others interested how this can be done in your yard at home. We welcome visitors when members are present--hours vary.

refreshing the chicken flock

This past week the chicken flock received two new chickens. Two of the older chickens moved on to a new home with a friend in Ocean Beach, and two new poulets joined the flock. It's common for farmers to refresh their flock of chickens every few years--usually the older chickens end up in the soup pot!

Our girls retired in style. Here are some images of them, in the crate, feeling a little nervous, and then getting over their fears at the sight of their lush new home. The salad bar was apparently tasty.






Later, Lucia and Lucy came to check out the coop which will be their new home. They've got some growing to do, to catch up to the size of their big sisters. We'll be keeping them in the coop probably the first few weeks until they know where they are. Welcome, little ones!

Sarah and I talked about planting an imaginary garden when i saw her last week in a dreamed up place..I have the vegetables and she grows the flowers.

So, I begin with Milpa,the Three Sisters…In this garden,the soil is deep and rich and brown and loamy from years of attentive gardeners who have enriched it adding layers of nutrients…I sit and dig my hands in it, its warmth, its life, its smell. it’s good enough to eat. It’s like holding life in your hands. It’s what we all become. I think about Sarah years ago at an ecology camp in the southern California desert singing a song about about how dirt made her lunch, her dinner and her brunch. I think about her planting a garden in the front yard of her West Oakland apt with friends helping doing the double digging method.

So, we begin. I want the corn to grow in a half moon shape, pointing down, no straight rows, with 12 stalks in the back arc, then 10, then 8. It will be Zapatista corn from Chiapas. I will build up mounds and flatten the tops like mesas with a kind of scooped up place on the top. Then 2 or 3 corn kernels go there pushed in with a finger. I use my hands so i can feel the dirt and see the seeds disappear into the earth. On the sides of the mounds, I plant beans, some scarlett runners for their beauty and some snappy greens and french greens, 4 seed around each corn and these will grow and twirl around the stalks and the stalks will hold them up perfectly. On the ground around the stalks I plant squash, different kinds; zucchini, summer, blossom to cover the ground around the corn and beans, keep in the moisture and keep out the weeds. In a matter of weeks, the Three Sisters grow together, all caretaking one another, like Sarah, Shane and Josh are, a food jungle yielding and yielding. And we will look forward to zucchini bread and fritters and bean salad and corn, corn, corn. The sun warms my back and I scoop water from a barrel of rainwater and give each seed its first drink. They start to grow—free.

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i have embarked on the next step of planning and planting in our imaginary garden. the lettuces! so, i see the lettuces sprouting up practically overnight,new and soft green and red hues. they love the water we give them and push their roots down to soak it up and begin their complex communication with the soil and its inhabitants,the mycelium,the microorganisms,the minerals,the higher forms of bugs. i love to touch their leaves,their edible,colorful and nutrient packed beauty. i have chosen different levels to plant them according to the ability and desire of those who would garden. some grown direct from the ground for those who love to get down and dirty,feeling the ground supportive and energetic beneath. some i plant in sit-down beds for those whose desire to mix it up with the soil may be inhibited by their limitations to crouch or kneel or squat. some i plant even higher up,like a stand-up counter bed for those who want to stand and stare and dance and move around their greenness..to each their own.i plant the old stand-by's and pore over the newly shipped packages of exotica:baby oakleaf;australian yellowleaf;bronze arrowhead;flame;gold rush;grandpa admire's; lolla rossa; mascara;red coral;red leprechaun;red velvet;rouge d'hiver; tango;webb'wonderful and tenderly drop the seeds side by side in shallow grooves etched out with my hands. i think of ruth stout and her lazy woman methods and feel my efforts need not be too strict or regimented but labors of love and hope and joy in the process. i am aware as the sun sinks lower of the robins lining up on the wires; the hummingbirds last dip at dusk; the chickens murmuring content and sleepy on their roosts;the light changing to a perfect hue and the breathe of the world slowing as the seeds settle down in the soil and begin the incredible process of growing,opening,yearning as we all do