With this strange spring weather, I gambled and planted my tomatoes a couple weeks ahead of the April 15th frost date for this area. Most of the tomatoes were beautiful plants that my brother had started from seeds he had saved from last year's tomatoes or seeds of heirloom varieties we wanted to try this year. And one week before the frost date, in spite of the 5 gallon buckets covering each plant, they got bit by frost and shriveled up to nothing. Who would have thought that near-ninety degrees temps would be followed by the low 30's? (Not me.)
This time, I just grabbed some plants from the local farmer's co-op. I have learned my lesson. No tomatoes in the ground before April 15th, no matter what.
I'm trying something new this year... I put down some newspaper under the tomato cages in hopes to reduce some weeds. We'll see how it works.
I planted the last of the tomatoes as a light rain started falling. We had a little rain yesterday, but the soil was so dry, it soaked it right up, and by the end of the day, you couldn't tell it had rained at all. It's been strange to see patches of grass already turning brown with lack of rain this early in the year. I'm hoping it rains like this all day. One benefit to the sparse rain, though, is that I haven' really seen any mosquitoes.
And now for an update on that broody hen... She didn't seem too serious about staying on her nest, and other hens kept jumping onto it when she was gone and laying more eggs. What started out as a clutch of seven eggs turned into ten in just a few days. I didn't want to keep losing eggs to her, I wasn't sure if any of those eggs would really be viable, and I sure didn't want to accidentally give someone an egg to eat with a little embryo growing inside, so I kicked her off the nest.
I took the ten eggs and broke them open to see if any had started to develop. Sure enough, there were a few that showed signs of some blood vessels. I gathered a few more fresh eggs for her to sit on, put them in the little coop and run we no longer use, then locked her up inside. She didn't take it well. Instead of sitting on the eggs, she just paced the fence looking for a way out. When it got dark, she still hadn't gone into the coop, so I coaxed her inside with a flashlight. The next morning, she was out again, the eggs were cold, and she had pooped on them: a clear sign she didn't intend to sit on them.
Before I let her out, I made sure to gather all the eggs I could find. She soon made her way back to the nesting boxes and sat in the empty box for most of the day. Then she gave it up, and I haven't seen her brooding since. I'm glad, because we really don't need any more chickens. I've been letting the chicks and duck out of their pen during the day, and yesterday, as I went to get some water from the spigot, they ALL came running and gathered around my feet. I think at least half of them need to destined for the oven, even if they aren't roosters.
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