June Garden

The garden and the greenhouse look so small now that the trees are cleared .
This is the herb row: Rosemary- cilantro-Oregano- basil- thyme- mint and  lavender.

The grasshoppers have been horrible this year along with the cabbage worms, the chard and collards look like lace.

Asparagus, middle row is the artichoke,onion and broccoli, the far row are the blackberries.
 

We had them push back the trees about 20 feet from the edge of the garden.

The beets are getting eaten by the bugs as well and something else? The tomatoes are holding their own and climbing up the trellis, I do like this arrangement for the tomatoes.

At the end of the row are the cucumbers, which are doing very well this time of year even in the 100 degree days because I have them heavily mulched with hay.
 

The blueberries have all been picked and the grapes are heavy with fruit.

Below is one of the first harvests on June 1st.

 

 Both of these were the harvest on June 22nd.

Broody Hen makes for easy raising of chicks.....how to get a hen to adopt other baby chicks

Here are two hens "sharing the nest " The bottom hen is very broody and will not get off the nest, so I guess the top one wanted to add to her clutch. She was so determined and she was the one that hatched out 3 chicks last year. So I let her sit and counted  21 days out from when I saw her first sit. One night I moved her eggs one at a time, while candling each one with my iphone. She had 4 that looked promising. I then moved her to the new location where she hatched them out last year.
The next day ,which was the 20th day , I bought 12 chicks that hatched the day before.That night after dark,  I carefully placed each one under her from behind  so they would get her scent before she could smell them and then wake up with hatched baby chicks.
It worked beautifully ! I kept the 4 eggs under her to see if they would hatch. One did the following day and she accepted that one as well. Another one hatched but was dead in the shell with a bloody neck, I do not know what happened.
One of the chicks I bought died , so There were 12. The next week I decided to get 6 more to see if I could do this with 1 week old chicks. I again waited until after dark, the chicks were a bit larger, but it worked. The hen accepted the new chicks but 4 of them took a few days to accept her. Now they are one big happy family! and I do not have the high maintenance job of cleaning and being the sudo mom to 18 chicks! I Love IT!!!! 
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Here are the original 11 before the last one hatched.

Believe it or not all 12 are under her body and wings except for the 2 that are visible.

This is after I added the additional 6 to the flock, sadly a chicken snake got into the coop a few days later and ate one of the chicks, now there are 17. What an amazing Mama!