Posted on 01/31/2026 6:26:44 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
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I love hearing feed back on my gardening efforts - I know it is success mixed with failures, but I keep trying b/c plants, gardening and especially flowers cheer me - and my neighbors- up so much.
This beautiful purple wave petunia came up all by itself - have no idea where it came from:
I made lemoncello once...husband broke into it early while it was “brewing” - I think the recipe I used called for 10 weeks of steeping and he couldn’t wait that long...
My lemons are very very sour so I may have to add an orange or two if I make it again - I made lemon curd yesterday but used salted instead of unsalted butter and unfortunately the result has a salty taste (to me).
OH well, have tons of lemons and will get unsalted butter when I go to the store this morning...
Happy (chilly!) February all!
Revised instructions for the VoltKing shop light (or use as a grow light) modification should be done by later today!
Off to church shortly. We missed last Sunday - we were snowed / sleeted / iced in! Due to slight melting and “hard” refreezing this stuff is downright dangerous to go out onto the yard on. Shoveling it it VERY tough. I’ve been spreading a little sand on the path to the chickens’ houses, etc.
Pizza Tortilla Wraps / w/ Cheese Crisps
An awesome folded Italian tortilla pizza---fave toppings wrapped in flour tortillas.
Ing 3 burrito type flour tortillas 3 taco sized flour tortillas 1 c marinara 1½ c shredded mozzarella 20-30 pepperoni slices, Italian sausage, etc diced green peppers/onion – banana peppers, bl/olives, mushrooms, etc. Garlic Butter: ½ stick butter 3 minced gar/cl 1 tsp Italian seasoning ¼ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
Method Heat griddle on low to med-low, then set two saucepans on griddle. In one pan, heat marinara. In 2nd pan, melt ½ stick of butter w/ minced garlic, Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper flakes (begins to froth). Move pans to cooler side of griddle to keep warm.
When griddle is heated, saute peppers, onions, and mushrooms til done. Then heat pepperoni slices; hold toppings for later. Griddle tortillas 30-45 sec til warm and pliable.
To build wrap: Layer on cutting board: one burrito-sized flour tortilla, ⅓ cup marinara in center. Top w/ ½ cup shredded mozzarella, 7-10 pepperoni slices, then cheese crisps. Spoon on sautéed vegs and mushrooms, and add cold toppings (black olives, banana peppers, etc.). Lay one street taco-sized tortilla on top. Starting with one edge, fold tortilla up and over the smaller tortilla. Continue working around, folding as tightly as possible without tearing tortilla.
Toast folded wraps seam side down on heated griddle. Brush tops w/ Garlic Butter. When golden brown and toasted, flip, then toast 2nd side. Remove to server. Serve warm w/ side of Marinara for dipping.
Chef Notes---Wraps can be final-cooked in skillet on med-low heat. To make cheese crisps, add a thin circle of 1/2 c grated Parm to a heated griddle. Cook golden 3 min on med-low; flip; cook crisp 2-3 min.
I guess they have Catios (Outside cat enclosures) for cats that you do not want to roam. Can be pretty pricey.
Also, nice lemons! Good to be able to grow your own!
Who are our resident chicken experts? I’m getting a free Coupe that’s big enough for five laying hens with an attached small enclosed run and it also has a roof, and I’m going to put up a fence around a larger area so they can wander around a little bit outside.
I’m not going to let them in my garden area because they’ll tear up my vegetable plants but I think I’m also going to get some Muscovy ducks which supposedly eat bugs like crazy without digging.
Since we have raccoons Cara Cara regular Hawks not to mention a brown fox here and there and of course snakes I’m thinking about getting a couple of guineas to act as alarms.
I also have an old dog who has a kill drive for small animals but he’s barely getting around so I’m not too worried about him bothering the chickens but I have a young pup that Chase’s rabbits Birds on the ground and mice and she’s pretty good at hunting and that’s why I’m going to keep the chickens kind of fenced in
Does anybody have recommendations for large size chickens who lay eggs at a good clip I’m thinking the larger the chicken the better chance we have of my little dog leaving them alone but I want to maximize the amount of eggs I get also
Most exciting or most scary? His “adventures” are well above my pay grade!
*** Where are my Ray Bans? LOL!***
I have a terrible habit of losing or breaking sunglasses in weird ways, so I have reverted to getting the cheapest polarized glasses I can find. No expensive ones for me!
Spring is the typical time to buy them as day old chicks and you'll need a brooding box and then a bigger area to keep them warm and then out of the weather until they're fully feathered. Depends on your climate too. All the hatchery websites have full instructions on raising them.
Bkmk
My favorite chicken breeds have always been Buff Orpington and Barred Rock. Brown eggs, sometimes speckled, good layers year-round.
Here is a good site to read through if you’ve never had laying hens before:
https://www.fresheggsdaily.blog/2020/03/the-beginners-guide-to-raising-backyard.html
I’ve had volunteer petunia seedlings here in Wisconsin, too.
Sometimes I don’t notice them until they bloom.
Had some germinate near where I composted the petunia plants.
There they were, putting on a blooming show at the wood’s edge.
Also had them germinate below large pots of petunias.
They even sprouted in the cracks between bricks below the pots.
Pretty neat.
I find pansy volunteers too, always a welcome sight.
Cheers for spring coming!
🥳
"A tree that once fed multitudes now faces a decade of federal red tape before a single seed can touch wild soil, while a brand-new genetic vaccine, cooked up in 48 hours and injected into billions, sailed through approval in under a year.
One restores a vanished forest, the other rewrote human cells on a planetary scale. Both are genetic modifications, yet one is treated as a potential ecological threat while the other is hailed as a modern miracle. Welcome to the “expresso lane” of modern biotechnology, where speed, risk, and scrutiny depend entirely on whose veins are on the line.
Reign of the Chestnut King
"In the ancient forests of Appalachia, the American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) once towered as the unmatched monarch. Stretching from the southern ridges to southern Canada, over four billion of these giants once dominated the forested landscape, comprising a quarter of all trees and nearly every one on untouched slopes. Soaring up to 130 feet high with trunks 14 feet thick, they could live for up to 800 years. This was no mere tree as it was the backbone of a thriving wilderness, stabilizing soils with deep roots and nourishing a web of life from squirrels to songbirds.
(The full article at Link.)
“Under the spreading Chestnut tree, the village Smithy stands...”
The old friends we just visited (and spent the night with) last night make their own limoncello. I do not know their recipe, but it was a lovely sipper before we went out for dinner. No need to imbibe much more! (It was just the ladies who partook of the limoncello before dinner, so that we had a designated driver.)
It was fun visiting with these old friends. We have MANY common interests. Gardening and sewing are two that the women share, and the boys are both into music (via vinyl) and electronics. Fun to visit with them!
Checking on 🐻🐻🐻.
Sounds like a lot of fun.
😳
Italian Stuffed Flank Steak / Braciole alla napoletana (Neapolitan Beef Rolls)
Ing Braciole: lb butterflied flank steak generous bunch fresh parsley 1 gar/cl, olive oil Provolone, grated pecorino, S/p. Sauce: 1 onion fine-chp 1 gar/cl ol/oil, splash red wine 16 oz puréed canned tomatoes S/p
Instructions Mash garlic, chp parsley, generous pinch s/p to a thick paste. Layer paste onto beef, then provolone, grated pecorino. Roll up tightly, tie ends w/ kitchen string. Brown lightly in heated olive oil. Add onion and garlic, s/p. Simmer gently, covered, til onion is very soft, turning braciole from time to time. Add bit of water to prevent onion from browning. Uncover pan, turn up heat, add red wine. Let wine cook off, turning braciole to color evenly in wine. Now add tomato, mixing in well. Turn down heat again, cover and let simmer very gently a good hour or more til the meat is tender and the sauce is reduced. Add water if sauce thickens before meat is done. To serve, remove string and lay braciole in server atop sauce for an elegant presentation. Use rest of sauce to dress side of pasta.
I hope Phil was ‘tasty’ after his official ‘6 more weeks of winter’ forecast this morning.
I’m no expert, but we’ve had hens for over 20 years now.
Thoughts: (YMMMV)
All of the “layer” breeds we’ve had have been able to fly over a 6 ft. tall fence, except for some “dual purpose” (closer to meatbird) types like Buckeyes. (Good birds, but so-so survivability / longevity.) Granted that we free range them so they don’t get as fat...
Meatbird breeds in general seem to have poor longevity.
An active dog not trained to protect chickens instead of kill them will dig under an ordinary fence to get at chickens. We learned that the hard way. :-(
Amberlink hens are friendly and great layers, but, the hens seem to be predator prone, as almost all light color breeds seem to be.
Black Australorps have been pretty good hens for us, as have Black Maran breeds, tho’ some will occasionally go broody, which you may or may not consider a positive. I’ve specifically bred white roosters with black or dark breeds of hens to get roosters with light or white capes on a dark bird. Hawks tend to leave hens protected by these “almost look like a bald eagle” roos alone. The roos will be noisy though, and some are aggressive, some not so much. Bantam and bantam mix roos ALL seem to be fierce, but LESS likely to take on a human than, say, even Amberlink roos.
I don’t know about dogs raised from pups around chickens, but our cats have always been scared of our chickens. The chickens know it, too. ;-)
ISA Browns are great layers and are fairly docile with people, but as they get older they’ll get pecky and sometimes beat up other hens. I’ve had Browns kill another hen by pecking out an eye, then the injured bird can’t see further attacks coming from the injured side. They usually don’t last long then. :-(
One thing I have noticed is that high egg production rate hens typically have shorter lives and sometimes shorter productive lives than hens of lesser egg production rates.
We like to have at least a couple easter eggers or other layers of blue / green / olive eggs. Production is a bit lower than ISA Browns and such, but, these are usually good survivors and the eggs really liven up the egg basket. :-)
You can artificially boost egg production with artificial light, but, again, you will likely burn the hens out sooner. If your hens just quit laying in winter, giving them 2-3 hours of extra light a day may help.
Chickens can be sometimes quick learners, sometimes really dumb, and sometimes just plain obstinate. But in all the years we’ve had free range chickens, none have been hit on the 2 roads (one sometimes moderately busy) that intersect at our place. That’s better than I can say for one of our cats and a couple of nearby neighbor’s dogs!
Chickens LOVE slightly salty popcorn - even if long stale. This can be quite useful to lure them where you want. I keep a widemouth jug of popcorn in a metal trash can with some of their feed. (Metal to keep mice out.)
Along that same line, some chickens that learn to be friendly to you will get very quick in trying to sneak past you if you open the door to the coop. Invariably, it seems, one will succeed, right when you DON’T want ‘em out. I’ve gone to rigging the doors to our two bigger coops with an empty 50 lb. feed bag at the top of the door for each: When I start to open the door, the feed bag falls just inside the door, scaring the chickens back. Chickens REALLY don’t like objects of any size falling toward them: Maybe they think such are big hawks?
Native snakes found in the US* are no threat to even 1/2 grown chickens. If large enough they of course will go after eggs and young chicks. OTOH, chickens may kill small and medium size snakes. (Hmmm..! Tastes like chicken!)
*Pythons in FL are a different matter!
I suppose a venomous snake might bite a chicken, but if you have venomous snakes around, you have a more urgent problem...
And last - Keeping chickens is more work than you think it will be.
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