Kiss me I'm Polish

So my garden has been taken over by a giant gourd, I want to see what's going to happen, so everything is on hold! I did manage to plant one patch of radishes, lettuce, and broccoli.

kick ass batch of finished compost ready for the new bed.

New bed of radishes, lettuce, broccoli, and kick ass compost.

Found this mantis the other day AWESOME!!

The cover crop is coming in.

cover crop close up, can you name all plants? 

Finally, I went to the feed store the other day and found this lady. I had to buy her, coolest lookin chicken ever. She's a blue polish, and is pretty tough for being half blind. The head feathers make it hard for her to see. No I don't have a chicken problem, I only have 7chickens and can quit anytime I want to. Anyways, I don't know what to name her, so I'm up for suggestions???

BOOYAH Q-Tip head lookin chicken

Cover Cropping The Backyard

I planted another cover crop in my backyard this year. Last year I planted a cover crop of oats, wheat, barley, and rye(pasture mix). This year I planted a green manure mix of common vetch, lentils, soybeans (non GMO), arrowleaf clover, crimson clover, sorghum sudan, pearl millet, sudan grass, oats, Nitro oilseed radish, dwarf essex rapeseed, purple top turnips, Ethiopian cabbage, flax, buckwheat, sunflowers, and phacelia from http://www.greencoverseed.com/. Most of the mix are nitrogen fixers but some are soil busters and extra biomass, check out all the cover crop info here. I also mixed in herbs such as dill, oregano, cilantro, and sage so the regular ole bermuda yard should be pretty interesting this year. Cover crops are pretty easy to install I scalp the yard, throw down the seed, rake it into the thatch, and water for 10 minutes everyday for a week. After that the cover crop grows on it's own.

 My dog hangin out in last years cover crop.

 The chicks foraging through last years cover crop.

The chicks doin some more foraging.  The pasture mix will eventually produce seeds that the chicks love to eat. This year I focused more on a soil building mix so the chicks might miss out, but my backyard orchard will really appreciate it, and the chicks never miss out. If your thinking of planting a garden, orchard, or grass yard in the future, cover crop it now to build soil for the future. If you have an existing plot that you want to re-invigorate without using chemicals or working to hard cover crop it. Even big time monoculture overall wearing farmers use cover crops. 

BOOYAH Dave Brandt