Garden Growth

I thought I would give y’all an update on our garden this year. We made a lot of changes to the garden this season and added a lot to it. One of the things we added was bark pathways and cover around the rows. This has really trimmed up the garden and has greatly improved the way that the garden looks. We also added some additional crops this summer, with one of those being corn. I’m really excited about biting into my first corn on the cob this year and the crops are doing phenomenally well so far! We also made some improvements to our grow boxes and filled them in with high quality soil. This has really made a huge impact on the vegetables growth in these boxes and is performing much better than our straw/potting soil mixture last year. We have already harvested some lettuce and radishes from the garden and are waiting until our other vegetables are ready. We have both greenhouse tomato plants and outdoor tomato plants, and although we don’t have any tomatoes right now, we should be getting some in the next month or so. I wanted to share some pictures of the garden and if you have any thoughts or suggestions feel free to comment in the comment section!

Happy growing!

James

Building Fence

We are constantly taking on new projects here on the farm and our most recent project has been building some peel-on rail fencing around the property. This rail fencing will be used to create a couple new pastures for our horses and perhaps other animals too 👀. I mention that we might be getting some new animals because I hope that we do. Some ideas are to get some cows, while I am wanting to get some alpacas. I think Alpacas are absolutely adorable and their fur can be used to make some really fantastic pieces of clothing. Cows on the other hand are probably more profitable and I love cows too. Whichever animals we decide to get I will be happy to make some new additions to the farm.

The fencing itself has been quite a task to complete. We first drive post with our bobcat and then begin attaching the rails to the fence. We use construction screws to screw in the fencing rails to the post. We also created a water gap to one of our springs for the animals to utilize. This water gap will prevent us from having to water the animals a majority of the year.

Check out the photos below of our fencing and let me know if you have any questions!

Update: The Life of a Chicken Keeper

Over a year ago, we purchased six chickens off craigslist. They have been blessings to our lives ever since. Unfortunately we are down to four chickens due to illness and death. This is a sad reality of owning chickens or any animals. The loss of both of these chickens was really tough for our family. Especially the death of our dear and beloved Little Blackie. Little Blackie got her name from being a smaller, black chicken who had a ton of attitude, sass, and personality. She was very vocal and brought a smile to my face every time I went to feed the chickens, or give them a treat. When she got sick, I never would have imagined her dying. She was so full of life and was a true gift to our world. Sadly, the illness took over her and crippled her body. After a visit to the veterinarian, she was dead by the time we drove her back home. It was very sad.

However, Little Blackie was just one of our chickens. We still have four more chickens and they are thriving. Although their egg production has slowed down substantially due to their age, their personalities are as big as ever. These four are the highlights to my day and I can’t wait to let them out of their coop in the morning and let them in at night. Perhaps my favorite of these three chickens is Roberta. Although Roberta can be a bully from time to time, she is the last remaining Barred Rock Chicken we have. She stands alone within the flock and I admire her perseverance and dedication to the flock.

In my free time I like to give the chickens treats. Sometimes we have leftover lettuce and tomatoes from our garden, and sometimes I just give them store bought Mealworms. I think the mealworms are their favorite…

If you are considering purchasing chickens I highly recommend it. They demand a lot of attention, and can be time consuming, but if you have the time to truly love and care for them, they are worth it 100%.

Stay tuned for more chicken updates.

-JG

Bluebird Mornings

One thing I love about living in Montana is the abundance of natural wildlife we have. From wild turkeys to elk and everything in between, Montana has a lot to offer. Living in Montana gives you a unique perspective on nature and allows me to become closer to the wildlife and ecosystems that support it. About a month ago, we went to our local Wild Birds Unlimited store and purchased 4 wooden blue bird boxes. We were told to hang these up in March and have them facing the East. We went around our property and hung up the boxes in various locations around our property. A few weeks went by and we saw minimal activity. But then all of sudden, the Mountain Bluebirds started to appear! The gorgeous blue birds were all around our nesting boxes and we couldn’t be more excited. All of the work was finally starting to pay off. In fact, just the other morning as I was on my way to take care of our chickens, I spotted this bluebird at our garden nesting box. Below are some pictures for you to enjoy!

blue bird (garden nesting box) - James Gibbon

Chickens | Helpful Tip for Dealing with Heavy Snow

If you live in a cold climate that gets lots of snow during the winter then join the club! Living in Montana we get lots of snow and have very long winters. All of this snow makes it difficult to keep our chickens happy and ensure they do not get too bored or cooped up. How exactly do we do this? Well we get creative and make sure to give our chickens lots of love during the winter. ❄️

One of the things we do to help our chickens during the winter is shovel out snow. Our chickens hate walking through the snow and they don’t like to get their feathers wet. To help them, we carve out a path around the coop to give them the ability to make laps around the outside of the coop. This allows them to stay occupied during the sunny winter days, and keep them from feeling cooped inside the coop. We also bring them fresh lettuce, arugula, and apples to munch on so they have something to do.

When we do this, we see a dramatic increase in their happiness and it makes us very happy to see them enjoying their time outside. So if you live in a snowy winter climate, try this trick out and help your chickens survive those long winter months.

-JG

After lettuce…

Winter Microgreens w/ James Gibbon

James Gibbon grows micro greens!

Growing micro greens is a lot of fun. If you haven’t grown your own micro greens, I highly recommend giving it a shot. Here is a quick summary of how we started growing micro greens in our house.

James Gibbon

We first bought a rack. We got ours from Costco - https://www.costco.com , but I’m sure there are plenty of viable options out there. Once we had the rack built and complete, we started loading up some seedlings and micro greens. Methodically we have each row on the rack dedicated to different steps in the growing phase. Much like us all, it all starts at the bottom. This is the row dedicated to heating and germinating the seedlings. Once the seedling 🌱 germinates, we then move it up one row to the grow lights - https://www.homedepot.com/b/Grow-Lights/N-5yc1vZ1z0sawz . This is where the majority of the seedlings 🌱 growth takes place. Above these rows are additional grow lights, space for domes, and space for miscellaneous.

James Gibbon

As you can see, we got our seeds from https://www.johnnyseeds.com/ . Once you have your system in place, all there is left to do is add soil, seeds. and water!

James Gibbon

James Gibbon | Update on Bea Hein

James Gibbon here! It’s been a while since I last updated everyone on Bea Hein, our chicken. Since the last time I wrote about her, she has gotten much healthier and is doing much better. Mostly thanks to Scratch and Peck’s supplements. For those of you that don’t remember, Bea Hein is one of our chickens who was constantly being pecked on by the other chickens. She lost all of her tail feathers and was badly bleeding. We had to separate her from the rest of the flock, ail her wounds, and provide her proper nutrition to recover.

Here are some pictures of her now and how she is doing. I’m very proud of her recovery and excited to share these photos with all of you. Although she is not back to 100%, she is much farther along than she was and I’m very optimistic about her full recovery. On top of all this, she finally started laying eggs and it’s great to see her body in full swing!

James Gibbon - Bea Hein

Bea Hein - James Gibbon

James Gibbon photography

James Gibbon | Injured Hen | Managing the Flock

James Gibbon | When we bought chickens 🐓 this summer, we had no idea what we were getting into. We had no prior knowledge on chickens 🐔 and we have relied heavily on websites such as https://www.mypetchicken.com/, https://thefrugalchicken.com/, https://www.fresheggsdaily.com/, https://www.communitychickens.com/, and https://the-chicken-chick.com/ to get us through this process and keep the majority of our birds alive. We lost one of our birds due to disease, and the only other issue we were having was one of our hens was bullying one of our other hens.

This bullying started the first day we got the birds and it has continued ever since. The birds peck her tail feathers until she has none left. This had been going on for months and we started to notice Bea Hein (the bird without tail feathers) starting to lose weight. Immediately we realized that Bea Hein was lowest in the literal “pecking order” and we needed to do something about it. So we started giving her separate food and she was beginning to do better and gain some weight.

Then the unexpected happened. I opened the coop to find Bea Hein with blood on her foot. I was bummed to see her with blood on her foot, but didn’t think it was a big deal and figured her small cut would heal on its own. Man, was I wrong!!! It turns out chickens are attracted to blood and start attacking where the blood is - which I had no idea was even a thing! The next day I opened the coop to find Bea Hein covered in blood on her feet and tail.

James Gibbon

After a couple google searches on https://www.backyardchickens.com , it became obvious that we needed to separate Bea Hein from the rest of the flock. So this is exactly what we did. We found an old dog 🐶cage and cleared out the greenhouse. The greenhouse would now become our second chicken coop. We got some straw and lined the dog cage with it.

James Gibbon

We also cleared out the area around the greenhouse so she could roam throughout the day. Here she is nestled into some high grass outside the greenhouse.

James Gibbon

Only after a few days of her being separated from the flock she is already looking 10x better. Unfortunately there are no guarantees her tail feathers will ever grow back, but she is looking much healthier. Her blood is gone since we cleaned her off with antiseptic (https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=d2f0533e-d65a-4532-ba27-0591a67c25d8&sfb=1&itemguid=30e08b64-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5&utm_content=12265&ccd=IFM003&CAWELAID=120295250000089876&CATARGETID=120295250000473147&cadevice=c&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7sHLqr6p5gIVKRitBh32wQ_aEAkYBiABEgIQ9PD_BwE). She is gaining weight and we are really excited about her return to the rest of the flock in the coming weeks!

James Gibbon

James Gibbon - Winter in Montana with Hens

James Gibbon as a first time chicken owner in Montana, it has been interesting to learn how best to care for the chickens during the cold winter months. In Montana, we have already had significant sub zero temperatures and it’s only October. This is really early for us and it has caught us by complete surprise. We were not prepared for the low temperatures and have had to rush to provide comfort, warmth, and water to our chickens. Although there is plenty of information online about how best to do this, we have taken a more trailblazing like approach. This is our experience.

James Gibbon

Our first step towards securing the hens for the winter was purchasing a water heater for the coop. We purchased a standard water heater built to work with galvanized waterers. A link to the water 💦 heater we bought - https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovators-HP-125-Poultry-125-Watt/dp/B000HHQDPM/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=hen+water+heater&qid=1572373243&sr=8-7

We bought this water heater back in September and unfortunately have had to use it many days and nights since; especially in October. The water heater itself works great; however, if it is not cold, the water tends to heat up too much and can begin to evaporate. Furthermore, when the water is this hot, the chickens 🐓 prefer not to drink it. A solution to this problem was putting a metal dog 🐕 bowl 🍲 between the galvanized waterer and the heater which helps keep the water warm, but not hot to where it begins to be too hot for the chickens. It probably isn’t the best solution out there, but it works for us and our hens are happy 😃 .

James Gibbon

Once our water situation was under control, we began to worry about the warmth of our hens. Everything we read online said not to worry about heating up the coop, but as the temperatures got lower we began to get more and more concerned 😟 😳. Heat lamps are a big fire concern, but when there is snow everywhere, it is kind of hard to take this fire concern seriously 😐 - so we bought a heat lamp. We bought our heat lamp at our local farm and ranch supply store, but here is a link to the exact model we bought - https://www.amazon.com/Woods-Clamp-Lamp-Reflector-Guard/dp/B003XV8QOU/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=chicken+heat+lamp&qid=1572374147&sr=8-4.

Once we had the heat lamp we needed to install it in the coop. The only problem was we only had one electrical cord going from the house to the coop and ultimately had to make a decision as to which warming device was more valuable. We installed the heat lamp and decided the water heater was more valuable since it prevents the water from freezing. The nice thing about us installing the heat lamp though, is that we can easily switch the electricity from the waterer to the heat lamp.

James Gibbon

Finally, we lined the coop with a mixture of both soft shavings and straw. This gives the hens plenty to move around and nestle into when it gets cold. This coop has been a huge work in progress and I’m sure we will make some more adjustments as the winter progresses. Please feel free to leave a comment below and suggest what we should do next!

Until next time…

-JG

James Gibbon - A Radish Experience

A little under 2 months ago, with winter right around the corner, we decided to start a small garden and grow 🌱 as many vegetables as we could in the limited amount of time we had. James Gibbon went to the store and purchased onions, lettuce, carrots 🥕 , cabbage, bok choy, and some various different types of radishes. During our garden experiment, there was one vegetable that ruled them all - the radish. Why do you ask? The radish is one of the fastest growing edible vegetables 🌱. In as little as 30 days, an edible radish can be grown from seed. I think this is pretty incredible and certainly makes growing this vegetable a lot of fun. Our radishes took longer than 30 days to grow due to our late season planting, but they still grew incredible quickly.

James Gibbon

Our radish journey began by planting the seeds. A vital step where we made a few major errors that drastically impacted our production. I can’t stress enough how important it is to plant the seeds ATLEAST 1 inch apart from each other. We were in a hurry to get the seeds planted and crowded the seeds which hindered the growth of the radishes and caused some radishes to only grow leaves. Once we had the seeds planted it was time to water the garden a couple times a day. As the weather became increasingly cooler, we covered the radishes with plastic to help provide warmth.

James Gibbon

The radishes continued to grow and I took pictures of their progress as seen above and below.

James Gibbon

After 30 days, things started to get really interesting. Our French Breakfast radishes started to become visible above ground and this is when I knew we were close to being ready to harvest. However, some of the bulbs were still really small and I wanted to wait as long as we could to get the best radishes possible. Mother nature had plans of her own on when we would pull the radishes and when the weather reported 20 degree weather in October, I knew we needed to pull our radishes before the freeze. This is what we got!

James Gibbon

James Gibbon

We had a really successful harvest and we were overwhelmed with gratitude. To be able to build a garden, grow vegetables, and harvest them in under 50 days was a really RAD experience. I hope you enjoyed hearing our radish story and please comment below!

James Gibbon | Mountain Biking and Gardening

Nothing screams Montana Farm Life more than gardening in the morning and mountain ⛰ biking 🚵‍♀️ in the afternoon - and this is exactly what I’ve been doing lately. I used to “mountain” bike a lot when I lived in Austin, but since moving to Montana I had yet to take a bike to the trails. So I got a mountain bike and headed to a nearby trail called Corbly Gulch. Right away once I got to the trail I knew I was in trouble. Not only was there a brutal 1 mile road that was hardly passable, but once I got to the trail head I instantly realized I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Unlike the south, the trails here are literally going up mountains. The shear amount of strength and endurance needed to make it deep into the trail is impressive and I was not prepared for what I was getting into. Nonetheless, I persevered and pushed up the trail as far as I possibly could until I was about a half mile in.

James Gibbon

As you can see I ride a Trek Roscoe 6 hardtail with mid-fat tires on it. The bike road great and did especially well on the way down, helping me navigate tight twist and turns to my car below 🚙. The ride was an absolute blast and I have gone many times since including trips to another local trail, Truman Gulch pictured below.

James Gibbon

Truman Gulch is another fantastic trail with diverse terrain and is quickly becoming my favorite trail in the area. Read more about my mountain biking adventures at www.jamesgibbonoutdoors.com

So what about the gardening?

Great question. So a lot has been going on in the garden since I last blogged. If you follow me on instagram, than you already have seen the progress of our radishes and lettuces. Although we sit at around day 35 with these, we are waiting to pull them as they still have room to mature. Unfortunately, we are battling the elements here in Montana and snow is forecasted the next 3 days. So let’s all pull together and help the lettuce and the radishes survive this cold ❄️blitz.

James Gibbon

James Gibbon

So there you have it! If you’re reading this please comment below and leave 🍃 some positive thoughts for our vegetables 🍅 and thank you for reading!

-JG

Planning for next year | James Gibbon's Garden

As the growing season sadly comes to a close, it brings forth the opportunity to plan for next year. This year was our first year trying to grow in our garden, and we had a very late start to the season. We never really had the opportunity to sow in the spring and grow all summer ☀️long which really impacted our production. Instead, we rushed together our garden in the limited time we had, and planted as many frost resistant plants 🌱 as possible such as Kale, Carrots🥕, Lettuce, and Radishes. Although this thrown together garden has been a lot of fun, I’m excited to see what we can do with our garden next year.

What has me excited is the size of our garden for next year. We made some massive expansions 💥 to our garden and now have a 42ft x 36ft plot of soil ready to be planted next year. Below is a picture of what I’m talking about…

James Gibbon

James Gibbon

James Gibbon

James Gibbon

This added space is going to open up a lot of possibilities for us come next spring. From cherry tomatoes🍅, to corn 🌽, we will have the capacity to supplement a large amount of our food source from the garden. This is really exciting!

One of the main things we have left to do is to plan out this space next year. If anyone has any ideas on what to plant please send me an email at montanafarmlife@gmail.com .

Furthermore, as promised, below is an update on our radishes. This picture is from Day 19.

James Gibbon

James Gibbon's Outdoor Garden

Most gardens are well thought out and are typically tilled in the spring. This provides the longest growing season for the crops 🌱. This is especially important when you have a short growing season like we do in Montana. We have long winters ❄️ and short summers ☀️ and vegetables don’t grow too well in the snow…

…so we decided to till our outdoor garden and start planting in late August.

Does this make sense? Not really - but according to our research online, we have a decent shot at growing some vegetables 🌽 before our first winter snow ❄️.

Having little to no experience gardening, we went into this project completely blind. The only thing we did as preparation prior was tarp off some land to kill off the grass 🌱so it was ready to till and we did this in the spring. So we had our land picked out and ready to till and all we need at this point was a tiller. We looked up a local equipment rental company to rent our tiller.

There are 2 types of tillers. Front tine tillers and rear tine tillers. Both serve a purpose and are better at some things than the other.

1. Front Tine Tiller: Allow for closer tilling around obstacles and in small spaces. Their tines are positioned in front of the wheels, and the engine is mounted directly above the tines. ... They generally cost less than a rear tine tiller of similar size and power.

2. Rear Tine Tillers:: are good for larger, open garden areas.

Given our garden area 🌾was fairly small with tight areas to till, we went with the Front End Tiller. We rented the tiller, loaded it in the truck 🚙 and headed back to our farm. We got it unloaded and fired up the engine and instantly started tilling. The tiller seemed extremely hard to control and was an intense workout as seen below.

James Gibbon

As you can see, I was holding onto the tiller for dear life 😂! It wasn’t until we were almost done tilling the plot of land that we finally realized we had failed to utilized the “depth bar” that digs into the ground and assist in the tilling process! Once we finally dropped the bar, the tiller ran extremely smoothly and the entire process was really simple and easy to operate.

So once we had our ground tilled it was time to plant 🌱. We went down to our local garden center, and purchased the best seeds to plant late in the season 🍁 which included mostly radishes, lettuce varieties, and kale. According to our research radishes are the fastest growing vegetable, so we planted ALOT of radishes. Below is a picture of our garden once we sowed all our seeds.

James Gibbon

For irrigation we ran a hose from our barn down to the garden plot and turn on the water for about 1-2 hours per day. This keeps water 💦 on the soil and helped our seeds germinate within the first 3-4 days. Each seed is different and so far our radishes are doing the best out of the bunch. A week or so later, we decided to try and build hoop houses 🏠 for the vegetables to help give them extra warmth 🌞 as we enter September. Below is a picture of what we built without the plastic on the hoops.

James Gibbon

Finally, 13 days later here is a picture of our radishes! Stay tuned for updates on our garden!

James Gibbon

James Gibbon's First Time Chicken Hens

🐓 Order chickens online they said. It will be fun they said… 🐓

So we did.

We went to craigslist and ordered six starter pullet hens 🐓 of two different varieties. Three Light Brahmas and three Barred Rock hens. We got our coop cleared of wasp, and set up an electric fence around the perimeter of the coop with plenty of space for the hens to graze. Below is a picture of the setup before the hens arrived. In my opinion our setup was pretty good, and we were confident in ordering some chickens and harvesting some eggs 🥚- unfortunately things don’t always go according to plan and we made a few costly mistakes.

James Gibbon

We picked up the chickens from a local farmer and met them about an hour away from our property. The chickens came in boxes, two to a box 📦 and we loaded them into our truck and headed home to release them into their new home 🏠. I was incredibly excited about this and our excitement lead us to make our first critical mistake.

After researching later, it is critical to release the chickens in a certain way. If handling new chickens, it is critical to keep them in their boxes and put the boxes inside the coop. From here, open the boxes inside the coop and close the door to the coop. It is recommended to keep the chickens in the coop for the first 24 hours so they can get comfortable and feel safe.

This is not what we did… 🐔

Instead, we placed the boxes outside the coop and ripped open the tops and grabbed the chickens and released them into the small fenced in field. Not only did this put a tremendous amount of stress on the hens, but it caused one of them to continually break through the electric fence. Our electric fence that we worked so hard on was completely useless against the chickens. The chicken would just stick it’s head through the netting and wiggle its way out. 🐔

We spent the entire afternoon trying to capture the chicken who continued to escape and we worked even harder trying to get all of the chickens into the coop for bedtime. The entire ordeal could have been easily avoided if we would have done more research online and I hope this story helps anyone looking to purchase hens for the first time.

James Gibbon

Once we finally got all of the hens into their coop, we had to build a new fence around the coop to keep the chickens in. We did this by using T Post and Hog Fencing 🤺 and built a simple gate to go in and out from. This fence served as our temporary fencing until we were able to put in a more permanent solution to give the chickens more room to graze.

James Gibbon

After all the work was done ✅it was time to enjoy our chickens and to our surprise, we received our first egg!!!

James Gibbon