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I heard about my guest today, when I was listening to Katie Krimitsos’ Business Women Rock Podcast and said omg I need to talk to this woman and get her to share her knowledge with my listeners! We are all going to learn a ton! Not only does she have 2 awesome books on chickens and ducks she is one of the most respected and knowledgeable people in the garden blogging world! She’s even taking a Master Gardener class as we speak! I know you are gonna be inspired when you hear her journey today!

So from Fresh Eggs Daily® – the best in natural chicken keeping since 2009 living with, loving and gardening with chickens here’s Lisa Steele!

Tell us a little about yourself.

I grew up in New England across the street from my grandparents chicken farm, they were chicken farmers by trade and they had a restaurant during world war 2 that’s how they supported the family. We had a casual backyard flock

went away to college, ended up working on wall street

fro a number of years.

long story short he was in the navy, his last tour was in VA at the Navy base, and we had horses, knowing he was gonna retire out of there…

We got some chickens, I started a little flock, which led to the Facebook page, and that led to the blog…I guess I knew a bit about them from between 

I was doing things naturally, not too many things were, talking about antibiotics and chemicals and medications and that wasn’t what I wanted to do…I always made homemade body things and lotions and cleaning products and that and I’m not big on chemicals.

I started talking about something that was pretty unique and people started listening and you mentioned my two books

Fresh Eggs Daily: Raising Happy, Healthy Chickens…Naturally and 

Duck Eggs Daily: Raising Happy, Healthy Ducks…Naturally

 and I have a third book coming out in Dec which is actually about Gardening with Chickens! 

I incorporated my love of chickens with a lifelong love of gardening and turned it into a career of thoughts!

I’m super curious about the gardening and chickens

… because my husband and I kind of had a little dilemma last summer, after 10 years I talked him into building me some kind of gate so I could let the woods, and the weren’t supposed to get out into the garden part which is all fenced in, we only he 3 left, they can hop all of the fence, they are everywhere, the rooster sleeps in the tree….

Chickens are hugely destructive

The best way is to fence your chickens or your gardens and they have to be high enough obviously that the chickens can’t flop over them, there other ways to protect the roots of your bushes and shrubs, your landscaping and maybe cage some of your plants till they’re more established. But chickens are terribly destructive and it takes a lot of managing to garden with chickens, but during the growing season I just keep them penned up or make sure I’m out there when they’re out so I can keep them out of things…

My husband built this mini farm a few years ago, and they have not hoped into that but its odd because tis the same size fence….

let

use deer fencing or poultry netting, just to keep the chickens out whatever you really

they’ll find one garden they wont necessarily find another… if you plant where they tend to  hangout

They totally remind em of that cartoon rooster red horn fog horn because eh totally marches them around the … we have a fence built off the edges of the proches on our house and they don’t go that way, no animal does, we have had a deer get in there once. They’re kind of funny the way the rooster just marches all around the perimeter of the garden… 

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

My grandparents chicken farm, it wasn’t like a Tyson or Perdue or anything giant, they just had  a100 chickens or so in the barn. They sold commercially to restaurants and other people. It was in the country in Massachusetts, we always had a vegetable garden where they did plant. I do remember I had a pet rabbit growing up. One year, I 

plant carrots for my pet bunny

probably 2 feet square

harvested all the carrots for my rabbit. That was probably my first gardening experience. 

My granddaughter is getting ducks she’s kind of like that she’s such an interesting high school students she’s into gardening and stuff!

How did you learn how to garden organically?

I think my grand-parents generations

pretty much did everything

there wasn’t Home Depot or Lowes or anything… my mom was a product of the 60s and 70s

no chemicals

grew up in a house where chemicals weren’t the first thing you reach for, it made so much since for me… obviously you have but problems and the chickens were great

they eat all your bug eaten produce

they don’t care if your your tomato has some bugs in it

broccoli…

Tell us about something that grew well this year.

Well, we just moved to Maine last August, so this is my first year growing zone 5, so I haven’t planted anything… as a rule of thumb here you  don’t plant before Memorial Day, I did plant garlic when I first got here I planted in October, so I have 150 garlic cloves that will be ready next month! I love planting garlic. And coming to Maine in August that’s pretty much I could do before it started snowing, 

In Virginia, I could plant pretty much all year round so in the fall I would plant

• kale
• brussel sprouts
• broccoli

and all that kind of stuff and be able to harvest it all winter. Here in Maine I will not be having a winter garden, nothing really under 4 feet of snow, but I’m gonna have short growing season I’m told!

Do you like the snow?

Yes I do.

we’ll, well have a short growing season

one reason I held off taking the master garden class

I’m really glad I waited till we moved, because I knew we were gonna move and there’s lots of local gardeners so I get a lot of local knowledge. They say its’ such a short growing season but the days are so much longer here because of the longer attitude that things grow really really fast, so it’s entirely possible to grow things that grew in VA, and somewhat South, I mean you can’t grow citrus or avocados

gotta wait…

Yeah! It’s already stays light here till 9 o’clock! Im always whining because I’m such a morning person I feel like they are stealing an hour of my morning light for the whole year till it’s November again and switches back… it’s true the days are way longer in a norther latitude more daylight….

Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.

It’s funny that we were in VA for so long, I got used to what worked and what didn’t/t 

couldn’t grow rhubarb

strawberry rhubarb

got pretty good at va, I got pretty good and planted peas and things really early in Feb

by June it was gonna be so hot! I figured the garden was gonna be done

love growing herbs

pretty much sandy hot, growing

What is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?

biggest problem is I lose interest in the maintenance

part way through the growing season, I just get so tired of it, I stop weeding, and I stop trimming everything. 

Maintenance, is not my strong suit…

I tell listeners if it was up to me, everything would dry out and die, because I will go days without going to the garden I planted that lettuce already this year and I haven’t gone down there and Mike keeps reminding me you have to water your lettuce and I just laugh?? Huh I have to do that everyday?

I like when it rains

once I get those out

it is really enjoyable

I stand there and water the garden, the thought of having to do it, is not enjoyable IDK why because it really is enjoyable to stand there and water it and take it in… But yeah

watering and weeding…

What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?

I think the planning and going through the catalogs, and the websites, and picking out what I am going to grow!

Every years I grow a wide variety of herbs, like lavender and the mints, and thyme and oregano. Every year I like to add in the  annuals like:

• basil – 4 different kinds 
• dill
• pineapple
• sage…

I’m like that I go to the nursery and find all these things and then I’m pretty soiled my husband gets the bed ready and will be like come down and bring your seeds and plant them and then pretty much takes care of it…

What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?

I think it was kind of indirect

it was a lesson

my father-in-law has a huge garden, and 

winters in Florida and summers in Maine

he would plant this large garden  year after year, and all summer he would just complain

• the deer
• harvesting too much stuff
• too much to take care of

I was thinking why don’t he plant a smaller garden

• only plant what you need
• be reasonable how much your space goes
• you don’t need a ton of stuff for 2 people

One year I planted cherry tomatoes, they all turn ripe the same day, and then there’s so much pressure to eat them all at once, then you have to eat them

a regular tomato plant

cherry tomatoes stress me out way too much!

I’m totally the opposite I like cherry tomatoes because the others don’t get ripe… That’s funny one of my questions I cut out, was what do you do about harvesting, I would always have this huge abundance of one thing, no matter what I would take it to work and try to give it away… I like that advice to grow what you want to eat… Megan Cain says that all the time, start with our grocery list, that’s why I planted a lettuce garden this year because that’s what I eat the most…

that’s a good point

grow what you eat

if your family doesn’t eat eggs! I don’t plant eggplant. 

so many people don’t do that!

Another good piece of advice is plant staggered!

plant 2 more

plant 2 more

I never remember…

The other thing I think you’re gonna find, is that staggering doesn’t work enough because we can get our first frost by the end of August, and 

You’re talking more a 7 or 8 even 9 zones.  Such a longer season.

iWere 4B where you are I think 4B/5… I don’t really know what that means, I found out we’re 4B , and someone had a magazine called 4B for gadening in the rocky mountains down by Bozeman….

and then last year, I still tried to stagger my sunflowers and they still seemd to bloom all at the same time, Lisa told me last year in episode 80, I thought planting 750 was gonna be a lot and she made me realize I need to plant like 750 every week for like 6 weeks!

Lisa Ziegler lived about a half hour from in Virginia! I met her at the Mother Earth News Fair a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to get down to her cut flower farm but I never did …  she’s got a much longer growing season …

You never know we applied for the NRCS high tunnel program where they give you 75% after you get approved and put them up and then I was talking to someone who said she put perennials in a quarter of one and have some stuff that was gonna come back automatically, lemon Sorel?

A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.

Actually not, I’m not a big glove wearer, I tend to use my hands more then I should, I’ve given up on manicures, I haven’t had one in like 10 years! I like digging with my hands, as much as I can just using my hands

the one thing that I did leave behind, is I have one of those little plastic 

that I couldn’t live without… 

it’s like a dump cart, it’s like a wagon and you can unclip, it’s like a 

I left mine in VA

just for hauling, anything