chris glazier

Old post again but I just wanted to say that our muskovies laid plenty of eggs. Not during the winter but other seasons and did slow when they molted. Our babies might start in the fall but stop as do the adults. Every couple days was common per hen.

  The first year females seemed to be the only ones wanting to fly and it was in snow up on the garage roof. Otherwise they might glide across the yard. I've seen the whole group. A couple males and 5 females hold off a fox that I happened to see through the kitchen window. All of them spread their wings and sort of walked at the fox. It was a smaller female. It was daylight,  later in the morning. She learned and we did lose some chickens and eventually ducks.

 I'll be letting mine out, when we do get more, later in the am and hopefully get all their eggs in the pen. Also a favorite of the foxes. Then walk them in at night. Ours originally did live outdoors summer and winter and did well. They housed up together under some empty rabbit hutches. They never chose to roost in branches.

Our muskovies were a great addition to our yard. 1 acre total but they used about half and went along the edges of the trees. When we had a dozen babies and 3 or 4 adults they started to wander into the road and ditches. So I'd pay attention to how many and just watch where and how they feed. Also the male female ratio has to be watched or they fight often.

   Older post but I miss my ducks. We will be getting more but only like 1 male and 3 females. It just works better for us though I would like a second set to keep inbreeding down. They were terrific at revegetating our lawn. Quite sandy and had been mown down, burnt and in bad shape. With our wild animals they will be going into their pen at night. They lived and survived well for many years free ranging winter and summer but the overpopulation sent them off in small groups and we lost them over time.

  One of the best things they did was ro eat ALL the junebug grubs. They were there eating the dead roots etc from poor care. I couldn't turn a shovelfull over without finding one or more grubs. The ducks dabbled and dethached our dead grass and they walked along in a line listening to the ground and they just kept finding them. There were small Dibble holes , nothing that bothered us as they were helping. The poop helps of course. I used a bunch of heavy duty tool boxes ( 1.5ft x 2.5ft ) that stacked on a shelf. I found a bunch and they made great watering holes. In their pens and in their yards. Easy to dump, move a little bit and refill. Most of the crap was around the bins and they did find worms etc when we moved them but we had litterally tons of them compared to before the ducks. I used flying saucers and even a tobagin for baby ducks water and some water for the winter to get into. I hand carried water so it cut down on the trips I made to fill them. Maybe I am forgetting something but we loved them and miss having them around. Surprisingly the "ugly" muskovies really grow on you. Great egg layers and generally helped way more than hurt anything we had growing.

  We also have some pilgrim geese and use many of the same tactics to keep them happy. They only breed in spring so any hostilities were kept to a couple month period. Muskovies breed and lay all the time. Not the winter of you don't have light but that was more than okay for us. Roens didn't work out for us as they were as or more aggressive than the geese were. To each other and the geese.

I agree, it would be nice with more visual help on projects. Sometimes people just don't do it or forget and not everyone is some kind of YouTube "star". I'm not meaning this to sound b!/(hy but just making a point.

 My friend uses a very sort of lax way to start new beds and build more on the older ones. I helped build the first one. She just starts new ones by laying branches and logs down as they are available after a storm or whatever. Yard waste. We also had the benefit of as much straw/goat/rabbit/alpaca manure as we could use when they get to that point. Yes she has to patch holes and stuff that have caved in or left open spots every year. After the chickens found them she started using hay netting to cut down on their damage. She has sort of gotten away from as much gardening because she is so busy with animals so it is someone's and sometimes my job to help along. She gets some volunteers since she really is running an educational farm.

   They likely will need water and a nitrogen source to get started the first real growing year. Ours did well with cucumbers and summer squash the first year. It was so nice to have something to neel on or lean into to pick cucs. It was an easy daily project to do and get the right sized ones for canning.There are a ton of grasses growing in it because of the manure. I see that as a benefit as it is real easy to pull or chop and drop them before they turn back to seed.

  The beds are dispersed among the orchard making things work real nice for the trees too. Now there is comfrey all around which surely helps. Last year she actually had her Chicago figs grow large and fruit out, northern mi. The fall crop got wasted, the larger crop, because of timing. The micro climate helped I would guess, and the nutrients, but we need to work on a way to get the big harvest. Maybe a wrap of some kind.

 I'm already hooked on hugel and plan on doing as much as i can this year. I've had health issues the last couple of years to make up for. Some will be built on top of ground probably if it's a wetter area and the larger log base will get buried in the drier sandier areas of the yard. The whole front yard, about 1/3 of an acre will eventually be a food forest or more accurately an orchard along with bushes and shrubs and strawberries ect. My yard if different than my friends place. We have ducks that can help with any slugs and potato bugs or Japanese beetles ect. I'll have more gardens and some animals  (free range ducks, sometimes geese and chicken tractors for me) and she has tons of animals so her garden has been neglected.  I'm planning on working at her place too and refresh the gardens in trade for wood or manure or whatever other materials I can find there. Lots of perennial plants with seed crops scattered here and there.

 I would definitely fill in holes in the hugels with extra materials as needed. Water the first year. Add lots of nitrogen the first year. It will eventually be less and less work. Even very small hugels or beds based on this would help the smallest yard gardener or flower patches very well. Just scale up or down. I'm not a pro with these but have been landscaper and tree trimmer type work most of my life.  My whole reason is good food for us and family and as much of my animal food as I can possibly manage.

 

Hugel beds in general need  water at least the first year as the wood starts to rot and absorb it. Don't forget that it also uses nitrogen during the rotting process so some added N would be useful. I know this is about the biochar or charcoal but still think it would be good to add a lot of water to begin or dousing the fire.

 The original Amazon terra pits that I read about were started in very large pits to create several feet of rich soil. I'm sure some was more like charcoal and some was more like biochar depending on the amount of burn and air in the pit. Or bed in this case.

 Some very good ideas here and many ways to do it. After the mycelium colonized the wood then might help produce and distribute the moisture from your materials to the soil. And in my mind would obviously help distribute and produce nutrients. I ran across this thread looking for the very subject. I'm sure there is lots of reading on it here.

 I probably wouldn't do a burn in every hole unless you were adding alot to the spot. I'd dig normally and add a shovel or two if I were looking at single planting spots.

true morels have the bottom edge of the caps attached directly to the stem so you can not look in under the cap . falses are attached at the top of the stem inside of the cap.

Im also just getting stated on a larger project. 6 types of mushrooms from fungi perfecti. winecaps, 2 types of oyster and maitake and shitake and chicken of the woods. There was some pine logging behind our house so one of the oysters and the chicken of the woods will get innoculated into the stumps since they should grow there. I also have a couple of maples coming down and a few poplars for the others. straw bed and/or bales for the winecaps and the other oyster. Thats actually what im about to do today is cut some poplar logs. I guess they should sit 2 weeks and I already have the spawn, keeping it in the fridge till ready. If nothing else, this first and second years could all be used for personal use untill I either go bigger or decide I dont want to. lol. we'll see.

The healthfood store where I want to sell mushrooms at when they do grow has told me no on wild collected mushrooms, just because they arent pros there and dont want to get something dangerous. If I want to sell there then I need my property looked at by the ag dept. I think just so they know they arent wild. This is michigan but morels are often sold and they are wild but it is hard to screw them up I guess lol.

Im just starting my mushroom patches/logs this year as well. 1- you can dry any excess so that you will have some during the winter time. (I didnt check where you lived at) 2 you dont need a whole lot of land though I guess I dont know exactly how much you do need. You can stack your logs into a cabin type stack so many would fit in a few feet actually. Some cultures it does say to bury the logs part way horizontally though. 3- you are correct, you can shade the logs in most anyway you need to, under bushes and backsides of buildings ect. Hope this helps you to say go for it. fungi perfecti is were I got my cultures this year. there is a wisconsin based company that was suggested to me also with some colder area mushrooms called field and forest I believe it was. They have a good review from a friend who does grow already.

certain mushrooms will grow on logs and others will grow on straw or woodchips ect so you need to study a little bit. FP has that info next to their strains and the other place does too.

No I would not. Im told that one will eventually out compete the others and you would only get one type in the end anyways. Im growing the same ones this year. hope yours do well.

I want/ed to do this but a more rural situation. I was thinking of ordering an extra budle of "some usefull native tree" and plant them around in small groups to assure I always know where to go picking something. Great idea