I want to start a new vegetable bed adjacent to our driveway, one of the few areas left in our yard with half day sun. The full sun areas were all taken up by my obsession with fruit trees long ago. The area I plan to use has been sitting pretty much empty ever since I let our Baba raspberry bed die out, back during Southern California’s last major drought. I know I have mentioned it before, but I really…
Most of my flowers and perennials these days are generally low water users, at least once they became established, however the same is not true of all my edible plants. When the state officials announced the need for even deeper cuts to our water use early this year, I decided what my most prized or hard to replace plants were, mainly the fruit trees and camellias, and then I diverted the limited grey water from our front load washer machine…
Yup. On Monday, I was in the back yard doing some pruning, when I heard an angry crow. Looking up to the power in the next door neighbors’ yard, I noticed a huge hawk trying to enjoy its lunch in peace with a crow incessantly harassing it. In addition to bugs, chickens, and plants, I am also a nerd about birds. I ran inside and grabbed my old camera. When I uploaded the photo on the computer to see it…
I had already planted the backyard gardens before we got our first dog back in 2000. Shortly after getting her, she began to drive me nuts with her incessant digging, trampling of tender plants, laying on others, and eating whatever she could reach off the tomatoes, berry bushes, and fruit trees. We loved that big sweet black Labrador, so of course she wasn’t going anywhere, but I also wanted my garden to thrive. I was at my wits end. Something…
I actually didn’t get as many new edible plants and trees this winter or spring as I have in past years, but I still probably got more than I really have room for. Basically, my small urban backyard is getting too full and the family isn’t ready to give up the front yard lawn yet. Since many of the neighbors on the block are changing over their lawns in the city’s Lawn to Garden program, our front yard has become…
Bantam Cochins are one of the best breeds of chickens for small urban backyards, mainly because they are generally quiet, curious, very friendly, easy to handle, kids like their small size and docile nature, they don’t fly like other bantams do, and they do well with confinement to a small coop or tractor. Some people are reticent to keep them as part of their flock because they are also known for going broody often, just like Silkies. Well, the part…
By Southern California gardening standards, we are already half way through Spring, and as usual, the Hanbury edible landscape and ornamental garden continues to evolve. Every winter and Spring I change out things that under performed or plant new varieties of things I never tried before. For last couple of months I have kept pretty busy with chores in the garden, the kid’s activities, local plant shopping, two landscape designs for others, and with home improvement projects around the house. …
Backyard chickens make great pets and wonderful fresh eggs in suburban gardens, as long as a hen doesn’t start to crow like a rooster. Hanbury House shares what works and what doesn’t to stop the crowing.
Remember Penguin? She remains my favorite hen, even though she briefly went through a hormonal phase where she thought was a rooster. Because she started crowing early in the morning, last December she was exiled over to my friend’s flock across the street. Click here to read my post about having to banish her to Elba, I mean the neighbor’s house. For the last eight months, she has been a model citizen in K’s backyard flock, never once crowing or…
..out of the 100,000+ member pages at BYC, one of my pages was featured on the homepage of BackyardChickens.com today. When I started out with chickens 4 years ago, there were few resources promoting gardening methods to happily co-exist with pet chickens, other than keeping the chickens locked up all the time. Lots of folks said a pretty garden with free range chickens couldn’t be done; chickens would eventually destroy everything. I learned that isn’t true. In 2009, I decided…