Life on the farm: Happy, happy chickens, and a tomato trick

I have 60-70 pullets (future laying hens) in a pen I built to house 20 full-grown broilers. In their covered outside pen they destroy the grass in a day-and-a-half because it was not designed for that many birds.

So I have to move them every two days even though they should be moved every day. On Tuesday, I did not have time to move them, so I said, “What the hey, and just opened the door to let them roam free.”

They went crazy, running, hopping, flying ... It was amazing, happy, happy chickens.

I shut them up every night because I do not yet have any electric fence around them and I know a red fox routinely moves through the area they are in.

Tomato tales

I got in 60 tomato plants on Wednesday and another 60 on Thursday. I am running a trial and trying something different.

I laid down weed guard, spaced the tomatoes 20 inches apart so one tomato cage will service two plants.

The first 60 plants were 4 each of the 15 nondeterminate varieties I am growing so I can gauge how they perform.

Nondeterminate tomato varieties will, in theory, produce until frost. Early blight, late blight, and a host of other diseases knock out that nonsense. Determinate varieties such as roma’s and some canning varieties give a lot of tomatoes over a 2-3 week period, which is great if you are canning, then they are done.

So I am using this Dutch bulb transplanter to cut holes in the paper mulch, which operates like a mini post hole digger. It is a lot of work just to cut a hole in the paper.

I go and find a large tin can, rip off the top seam to make it sharp, and start using that to punch holes in the paper mulch. It worked better than I expected it to but not as well as I had hoped for.

This story was originally published May 5, 2015 at 9:21 AM with the headline "Life on the farm: Happy, happy chickens, and a tomato trick."