Life on the Farm
Learning how to pick a ripe watermelon is an important gardening skill. Picking a fresh melon in anticipation of its juicy sweetness, only to discover the melon isn’t nearly ripe, is a disappointing and frustrating experience. Doubly so, because unlike...
Compared to a human, a chicken’s eyes are about 25 times bigger relative to the size of its head. The chicken’s eyes don’t look so large because they’re partly hidden behind flesh and feathers. But those big eyeballs take up...
Unlike humans, chickens do not have a system of organized lymph nodes to protect them from bacteria, viruses, and other disease-causing microbes. Instead they have several lymphoid organs that work together to gradually develop active immunity that protects the chick...
One of the many reasons to keep dairy goats is to make your own yogurt. It’s not only good for you and delicious, it’s also super easy. All you need is fresh milk and a starter culture. The starter culture...
Starting azaleas from cuttings is tricky business, according to everything I read before I gave it a try. And another try. And a third try — ah-ha, this time with success. Why Bother? Decades ago I bought several pots of...
Chickens feel safer when they roost off the ground, particularly while they sleep at night. Providing perches inside a chicken coop reduces the temptation that they will sleep unsafely outdoors in a tree or along a fence top. Perches are...
Consult three different charts on how long garden seeds last in storage and you will find three different sets of answers. That’s because the longevity of stored seed has not been definitively determined. Too much depends on variables that include...
The method for preparing garden seeds for storage depends on whether they dry on the plant or are surrounded by moist pulp. The easiest way to start seed saving is to save garden seeds that naturally dry on the plant....
Judging from the number of published books on the subject, you might get the impression that saving and storing seeds from crops growing in your garden is a complicated affair. That’s certainly the impression I once had. But over the...
While chickens can get coronaviruses, the same viruses do not infect humans. Further, we have no evidence that chickens can get the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. What is a Coronavirus? Viruses are tiny pathogens, so small that millions can travel...
