I planted my asparagus crowns into buckets because they were starting to grow in the bag from the store, and I'm still not 100% certain where I want to plant them permanently. They need loamy or sandy soil, and most of our soil is clay, so I have to choose carefully.
The strawberries I transplanted are already rotting. They had some mold on them when I opened the package, but now they're continuing to mold in the soil cups. I did my best to remove the moldy soil around the edges of the crowns and moved all 25 cups down to the indoor garden under the lights until it's warm enough to put them outside.
It looks like tomorrow night may be the last below freezing (dare I hope?). It won't be soon enough for me to get these baby chicks out into the brooder. The house is starting to smell like brooder even though I'm cleaning them out often. I could tell that I struck a nerve when I mentioned needing to set up a third brooder for the box coming next week...
The box next week should have three bourbon red turkey poults, two random broad breasted turkey poults, three buff orpington pullets, three salmon Faverolle pullets, one salmon Faverolle cockerel, one ancona duckling, and three Easter egger pullets. This will be from a company we have not used before, so we're trying them out.
I found plans online for a mobile rabbit tractor that I think I could modify a little to make it a mobile chicken coop too. I wonder if Tony would get the lumber and fencing materials and help me build about half a dozen of them. I'd love to have more of the rabbits out in tractors this year. They seem to enjoy being able to forage, and it keeps the grass down. The only down sides are moving them every day (good exercise though), and feeding and watering when it's raining out. They certainly save on rabbit feed throughout the warm months though.
If I could build some for chickens too, I could separate a few more breeds out for purebred egg and chick production. I've got a set of Salmon Faverolles coming, and I could always pair off some of my other hens and find suitable roosters. It would also give me more options for size than buying a commercial chicken coop. Probably cost me less too!
I set a total of 14 eggs into the incubator today for hatch in three and four weeks (I set both chicken and duck eggs). Included in this batch, one egg from Betty White (our Polish cross hen), two eggs collected from the French Black Copper Marans pen, one egg from the Black Cochin, three blue duck eggs, and the biggest duck egg I've seen yet (or maybe it's a very small goose egg?).
Last week #2 made a cement stepping stone with bits of glass for decoration. It was really pretty, and when he came home with it he handed it to #5... who then dropped it. Today I attempted to reassemble it in the garden where #5 asked for it to be placed. I managed to break it worse when I put a little pressure on it to try to level it out. Regardless, our little side garden now has its first stepping stone.