welcome to the real garden home of the two layers exciting news this week still here the book sex link has been laying every day since july third which is screamin good production and this last monday i had a two a day most chickens don't really lay too eggs in one you see that whole she's doing and she's become obsessed with finding your own protein source just in the last week or so she says i was kind of wondering you know one of these chicken started big and most chickens love to dig in these girls haven't really been into it well she has been pulling up grubs and bugs and beetles and worms and as you can see she doesn't want that the end i treat i've got she just wants to dig she's also sporting that comb which is spectacular if it's anything to get big fleshy back lobe they're nice full up bright comb beautiful red wattles red in the face so i think it's her stuff you can see that chicken is ome by your aunts in the pants and quite investors i must say persistent yeah so you know i've seen you know the websites where people's chickens are happily running amongst the garden in the winter squash and not doing any damage and i don't know what kind of chicken are but all the chickens i've had as you know they're they're kind of penned in here during the growing season they don't get to wander around the garden because that's what they do even if they don't eat the week she's kind of past her digging stage she used to be my big and buddy she doesn't dig much anymore so her nails don't get worn down to the way they should so i have this kind of hold her and give her a little the three real winners are all considered sort of a red they have red in the name of god and chilean red which it was found on the in chile an indian reservation over and what eastern washington grown it out for all these years and if i forget the actual name but i remember it was some sort of red like mix learned here mixed linear some like that and then the other one you know some about those red varieties if you're looking for it's just about time start shopping for garlic you're going to get them in at the normal time you know late september early october so i recommend those red the oregon blue has a small close but haven't grown it out for a few years just because it's stores so well that i threw out all the old garlic from last year before i started hanging on in the basement you know maybe it's a survival thing you know with your chickens you know the chopping block can't be far behind under normal circumstances of course these are on the full retirement program yeah  all right let's go do a little gardening shall we season lots to do that going to be putting much new stuff in although this is the time if you're going to start planning for fall and  y and and they'll develop nicely in the fall and of course look those first few frosts sweeten up your beets and your carrots it's a good deal let's just take a real quick look at the same things we looked at last week set fruit at this point you know the point where there they can you know support a pepper or two in development and continue their vegetative growth continue blooming with pretty white blossoms and  develops i always leave that first one on em it's kind of the last one i take off at the end of the season for seed you know let it get fully ripe obviously in this climate you're not going to dry them on the plant  recommendations say maybe that works in new mexico but it's not going to work here but what i do is at the end of seasonal harvest those label them compare them to the chart slow them open with the razor and harvest see and out as well through the mash so they you know have a good strong hold on these vines are very tough as they grow as they mature and then when the plant sort of putting on fruit you know it's got a nice big stem and if there are woven into the cage and i was actually remembering something that happened last year if there woven into the cage and the cage has nice guy wires to support it in higher whims then you'll be fine with the larger for  in the top echelons of the mesh so this one you know for instance is just about ready and i just missed him so he's not going to be able to bend them back through so for see a few male balloons here just starting to develop the male blooms usually develop first on the squash and that's what this little guy is you know they develop lower on the plant you know they'll open in the morning you know these plants of not really put on the female flowers all the cute kermit's and i take that back most curb it's that you grow in the garden are considered our money shifts plant which means they have separate male and female flowers but they're they grow in the same plant and so i'm kind of anxiously awaiting the arrival of the females these guys are running a little behind but not as far behind as some years that i've done so keep your fingers crossed we you know hopefully in august we'll see some dynamic growth set a few fruit and try to get them in the fall these are large i always get a late season late start the season so generally i you know a big one for me is maybe a ten pounder you know something like that i'd i'd rather have more smaller squash than one you know hubbard squash like this because i don't can i don't freeze i'd rather you know the store very well the hard winter squashes will store for all winter long easily if you take good care of them in the basement no refrigeration in fact they get sweeter as the months go on up to a point so you know i'd rather have a bunch of medium sized washing one so let's take a look at the cucumbers which are as i said this is a quick crop i have no doubt that we're going to be having pickles here by mid august again they're just you know i love growing cucumbers and they're starting to come out of my favorite  they grow great and they grow fast and it's just kind of fun to watch and again you know you know every every day i kind of make sure they're following the trial lists and kind of poke them back behind if they start getting like i'll show the ten girls where the string is a little we don't really need that and then these guys are starting to show a couple female bloom simply let me just pluck a couple because these are so small  have enough balloons here to spare so let's look at the difference between a male and female flower quite a difference here the male flower you know you've got the little stem the sequels and then the petals of the flower so this is the pollen producing flower and then of course the female flower you know you can see you know this little proto cucumber o it's good to get you know a good start on these so that the bees are still active in august these cucumbers will grow pretty well into november but i've noticed that  bean so i'm not quite sure what to expect as far as the actual bean goes but that's a pretty little lavender flower which is kind of cold and for the ones that seem to be growing faster than the corn although they seem to line planted our seed potatoes and then cover them with soil mulch man and now the vines are getting pretty tall and it's time to put the next layer on put the soil more soil around the potato bine and what happens is those start rooting out from the stem just like you know tomatoes fruit when you bury them a little deeper potatoes do the same thing same family slammin family do it again this is the low effort method leaders on the brandywine a few more on the roma tomato they just want to be a little more bushy and that's fine for that but they're obviously still in the cage when i started to take shape and soap plant out of the way now this is an interesting little plant i forget the latin for it you know it's a california native the indians used to pull these buzzy bulbs  box this one's actually already got three sides done and so all we need to do is add one more but what you're doing is you're you're letting these get about a foot tall and then you get barry about half of them so we've got snow six inch up thank you and i can't really get to that second screw here and it doesn't look like a needs really it's not like there's a lot of weight behind the year that's why i went with the you know the the plans i was following called they do start sprouting roots from the stem this one sort of underground so what we're trying to do yours is increase our production by going up rather than out in the othe for this plant is that you know assuming i got an earlier start you know we're up here by now when you're ready for potatoes come mid season you don't have to wait for the whole thing to be done you can unscrew the bottom dig in there for the first potatoes that were growing and then you know get your potatoes out cast of the soil and screw the board back in and then you know you kind of work your way up during the season so you could theoretically have a continuous supply of potatoes and it looks like i probably should mix two buckets of soil but you get the goes on there obviously doing well no disease pressure to speak of very few pasts and i think it's going to work pretty darn good so let's and two of them let's take a quick look at the other skinned new potato tight these are actually starting to bloom one of them obviously when you plant a potato tuber you know usually you know obscene potato is a little potato that you plant obviously that's a clone from the you know ongoing mother plant but there is such a thing as potatoes from true seed the thing is they don't come up true  listen for the phone after the tuesday evening show and you can visit that website w w w the real garden dot com where you can find out about the new time slots tuesday seven saturday eleven and tuesday at eight