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Backyard chickens: Get started now

April 3, 2013 by admin

DSC06211By Amber Veverka

Chicks are appearing in local feed supply stores and at Renfrow Hardware in downtown Matthews, and hatcheries such as Murray McMurray Hatchery  and Meyer Hatchery are shipping now.DSC06366

If you’re new to backyard chickens, here’s a cheat sheet to get you started.

1. Know the law.

A growing number of towns, including Charlotte and Raleigh, let you keep backyard chickens as long as you build your coop to certain specifications and keep it a certain distance from your property line (in Charlotte, that’s 25 feet). For details on Charlotte’s animal ordinance, click here. Note: If you live in a neighborhood with a homeowners’ association, chances are it prohibits chickens.

2. Get the chicken housing set before you bring home the birds.

We can’t stress this enough: Chickens have enemies everywhere. If you bring them home and hope to get by with a dog kennel or some other less-than-secure arrangement (such as a coop with an open top or unsecured floor), you will lose birds to raccoons, opossums, hawks, and owls. Plans for coops and runs are available in books and online. Here’s just one example.

3. Keep the babies warm.

Baby chicks need a secure, indoor place to live until they feather out. A back porch or garage is fine, and they must be in a container (such as a washtub or bin) with an attached heat lamp. They’ll need clean water and a kind of feed called “chick starter.” Clean the straw in their bin as needed. Remember to sanitize your hands after touching chicks.

5. Watch for feathers.

Once the chickens are fully feathered, they can move to their permanent lodging. If you buy your chicks this spring, you will be eating their first eggs at the start of fall. For more backyard chicken tips, see previous articles on getting started and things to know. 

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Springtime foraging with kids: Violets and redbuds

March 25, 2013 by admin

 

DSC06181Children love to wander the yards and woods this time of year, seeking signs of spring. And how much more fun is it when you can find safe spring treats growing wild?

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Blossoms of Eastern redbud.

Violets are blooming right now through the Charlotte region, and you can turn their shy purple petals into brilliant syrup and rosy jelly. In addition, the fuschia-colored flowers of the native understory Eastern redbud also are beginning to bloom. Scatter their blossoms across a salad for a subtle but beautiful burst of springtime.

You can make syrup and jelly from any type of violet – and here we mean real wild violets, not violas or pansies purchased for the garden – but only the blossoms of the sweet violet, Viola odorata, are going to have that elusive violet perfume. Be sure to pick from unsprayed areas. You can sugar the violets – an old-fashioned confection – by painting their blossoms with (pasteurized) egg white and then dipping in sugar. Laid to dry, they will become hard and can be used to decorate cakes. Violets frozen in ice cube trays of water are another fun idea.

DSC06231To make your own violet syrup, take the stems off two cups of blossoms. Pour three cups boiling water over the flowers, cover and let steep for two hours. Strain out the violets, add to pan and boil with 1 3/4 cup sugar. Add the juice of one lemon – here the syrup will turn a deep pink. Reduce the heat and simmer on low until it reaches the thickness you want. This makes a nice drink base, and can be used over pancakes or ice cream.

There are many variations of the violet-jelly idea, and here’s just one recipe. -Amber Veverka

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Build a quick and easy compost pile

January 28, 2013 by admin

By Amber Veverka

Spring gardening season is just weeks away and it’s time to think about boosting your soil’s fertility to get the best potatoes, pansies, snap peas and more.

If you’re still tossing lettuce leaves, carrot peelings and eggshells into the garbage and hauling leaves to the curb in bags, why not turn all that waste into vitamins for the dirt? You can do it with a cheap compost bin that takes less than an hour to set up.

Some city dwellers may be nervous about composting because they worry all that decaying stuff will attract rats, raccoons and other unwelcome backyard guests. Carol Buie-Jackson, who owns Birdhouse on the Greenway in Charlotte and has taught composting classes tells people they have little to fear.

“If you do it right, you’re not going to attract raccoons and vermin,” she says. “If you’re using leaves and garden debris, raccoons are not going to be attracted to that. If you’re putting in scraps from  your kitchen…the secret is burying it well so it doesn’t attract anything.”

You can buy a composting container, including high-end models that spin so you don’t have to stir the contents yourself. But you can also do it economy-style, with nothing more than heavy-duty wire from a hardware store

Wire is easily secured with zip ties to form a simple compost bin.

Hardware cloth or other wire is easily secured with zip ties to form a simple compost bin.

secured into a cylinder with zip ties. Or use a plastic trash can with plenty of ventilation holes drilled all around the sides.  Another homemade option: A three-sided bin made from discarded wooden pallets secured at the corners with heavy wire or screws.

Once you’ve got the container, locate it in a sunny spot and add your material. You want to alternate “brown” ingredients – leaves, straw, some shredded paper or cardboard – and “green material” – vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, eggshells and poultry manure if you have chickens. Leave out dairy, meat and greasy foods and avoid heavy loads of grass clippings as they smell very bad when they’re rotting. A good rule of thumb is to have anywhere from twice as much “green” material to “brown” or a 50-50 ratio, according to the Clemson Extension Master Gardener Program.

“Get re-bar or a broomstick in there, poke a hole about a foot down and put the scraps in there and cover it well,” said Buie-Jackson. “It’ll decompose really rapidly.”

Wet the pile so that it feels like a wrung-out sponge, and keep it that moist when there’s no rain. Churn the pile around with a rake, shovel or pitchfork every few weeks and when it’s a brown, crumbly mixture and you can’t recognize individual bits, it’s time to add it to your garden. If you live in an apartment or don’t generate that much kitchen waste, you may want to try vermicomposting – composting with worms. Read here about how to make a low-cost worm bin.

Learn more:

Check out Buie-Jackson’s how-to video on composting.

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Nature activities for kids during holiday break: 7 ideas

December 21, 2012 by admin

DSC05325By Amber Veverka

School’s out and at last kids and families have daylight hours together to enjoy the outdoors. Here are seven ideas for ways to enjoy the natural world during the winter break. The weather may be brisk at times, but in the South, that’s not bad: It means no bugs, no poison ivy, and few allergies.

Go geocaching.

This treasure hunt combines easy walks in the woods and parks with the lure of technology. Using GPS, geocachers seek out hidden objects – stashes of inexpensive little toys, keepsakes and other items – and typically can remove a “treasure” if they replace it with one of equal value. There are hundreds of hidden geocaches in and around Charlotte, including many in the county parks and nature preserves. Learn more at geocache.com, the official site for global GPS geocaching.

Plant a tree.

It’s not too late to plant a tree, a memory-making activity that, especially if you go with a native hardwood, will pay dividends to generations to come. The key is regular watering the tree’s first year in the ground. The N.C. State University Cooperative Extension provides great tree-planting tips.

Visit one of the area’s lesser-known nature preserves.

Many Backyard & Beyond readers spend time at Mecklenburg County’s major preserves – Latta, McDowell and Reedy Creek – but have you visited the ancient, nationally recognized rock formations at Big Rock Nature Preserve in south Charlotte? Or you can see a beaver pond in action and walk amid the silvery splendor of 100-year-old

Beeches at Ribbonwalk Nature Preserve

Beeches at Ribbonwalk Nature Preserve

beech trees at Ribbonwalk Nature Preserve. Or check out out what Charlotte birdwatchers love about Evergreen Nature Preserve, located in the heart of the city.

 

 

 

 

 

Create a holiday decoration out of natural materials.

Younger children especially love gathering natural “treasures” from walks around the neighborhood or in the backyard. Dried leaves, English ivy strands, lichens, seed pods and fallen nuts, with the help of clay or an adult-wielded glue gun, can be turned into figures, animals, or abstract art. Use clear contact paper to sandwich pressed ferns or leaves and tape to a window for an easy, pretty sun catcher.

And old peach basket, fallen bark, clothespin figures form this Nativity scene.

And old peach basket, fallen bark, clothespin figures form this Nativity scene.

Close-up of the Nativity figures, made with leaves, acorn caps, a milkweed seed pod.

Close-up of the Nativity figures, made with leaves, acorn caps, a milkweed seed pod.

Make casts of animal tracks.

The hoof prints of deer, the muddy imprints of neighborhood cats and dogs – all can be turned into permanent records of the animals that passed. Make a stiff collar of cardboard, held in place with staples or paperclips, to press into the soil around the track. In a Ziploc plastic bag, mix plaster of Paris and water to a pudding-like consistency (or follow the directions on the package) and squeeze the mixture into the cardboard-enclosed area. Assuming no rain, the track should be ready to pry out in a day or two.

Star watch.

Bundle everyone up, throw some heavy blankets or sleeping bags into the bag of the car, and take a Thermos of hot cocoa. Lawn chairs and snacks are a good idea, too. Then head out away from city lights to an open spot. Stars in the winter sky are especially clear. Look for the constellation Orion the hunter, or, near dawn, spot the planet Venus. Get current starwatching tips at StarDate.

If you want to watch stars with a group, the Matthews Habitat and Wildlife Keepers (HAWK) is meeting at 7 p.m. Jan. 17 at Squirrel Lake Park in Matthews to check out the night sky and snack on hot chocolate and s’mores. They’ll be there along with folks from the Charlotte Amateur Astronomers Club.

Enjoy owls.

The Carolina Raptor Center is home to a wide range of owls, many of them recovering from human-inflicted injury. You can build a whole owl-centric day out of a visit to the center, reading a book about owls, and, for the so-gross-it’s-cool activity almost every kid loves: Dissecting owl pellets. Owls eat their prey whole, then cough up gray

Compare the contents of an owl pellet with a bone chart to discover what the owl ate.

Compare the contents of an owl pellet with a bone chart to discover what the owl ate.

pellets of undigested bones, fur and teeth. You can buy sanitized owl pellets at the Raptor Center or online at Carolina Biological and take them apart with toothpicks, then compare your findings to the handy bone chart. Older family members might enjoy building an owl box. Peek in at the daily lives of barred owls (a common Charlotte species) at this owl cam site.

For a few more child-friendly winter nature activities, check out a previous article on this site here.

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