Latest / Good Morning From The Chicken Coop! / Season 4 - Episode 197 - What I have learned from Figs!

Transcript

Season 4 - Episode 197 - What I have learned from Figs! · Good Morning From The Chicken Coop!

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome to the good morning from the Chicken
• 0:04
  Coop podcast. My name is Kim Johnson and I am
• 0:07
  a mastermindset, coach, creative strategist, and also happened to
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  be a farmer. This is my chicken coop and I
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  come out here every day to record a podcast to teach
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  distinctions, possibilities, new ways of thinking, and just bring
• 0:20
  some joy. Into the.
• 0:21
  World. So welcome to the coop and let's
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  start your day off in a fantastic way.
• 0:27
  Hey everybody, good morning. We're actually out walking
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  around checking the fig trees while I'm talking to you pulling
• 0:32
  off some figs that are left that the chickens haven't gotten down
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  the bottom while the top still is ripening up.
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  And it's pretty amazing how different the fig trees are this
• 0:44
  year than they have been in the last three years.
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  So when we planted these trees, they were fairly small.
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  We didn't know if they were going to produce.
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  One of them produced a little tiny bit, but it was gone
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  instantaneously with the birds and whatnot.
• 1:01
  And, you know, they just disappear.
• 1:03
  It's, it's just like our blueberries.
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  Our blueberries are not, you know, producing anything again
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  this year. Super frustrating.
• 1:11
  I think we're on year 4 with them, but there was a someone
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  told my husband that if you burn the bushes to the ground, they
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  will come back up even stronger. It was a technique that Native
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  Americans used. It didn't work, and they're
• 1:29
  still struggling, but the figs really, really took off this
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  year. And a big part of that, I
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  believe, is that I changed my strategy of how much I was
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  fertilizing them. And I was, you know, focused on
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  making sure they had enough water, Not just water from like,
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  rain, but water like going over and watering them.
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  And it made a massive, massive difference.
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  And even though they're established and whatnot, if you
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  really want to have the right kind of production, you have to
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  make sure you have the right kind of conditions.
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  Doesn't that sound familiar for us as human beings, too?
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  So I have made it a point to focus on the figs, and the figs
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  have exploded. And that focus has been taking
• 2:13
  place since last fall and really like putting on the compost from
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  the chicken coop. So one of the things that we do
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  all the time is take the straw that we use in the chicken coop
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  every day. Like, you know, it's in there
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  and of course they free range, so they're only in there
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  overnight, but there's still a ton of straw that's on that
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  floor. So when there's poop, it goes
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  into the straw. So I have the system where I,
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  you know, every two weeks I pull all the straw out of the coop
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  and I put it around the coop in the run and that then it has
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  time to break down. They dig through it.
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  For some reason, they get very excited about this process.
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  I put new straw inside and the whole cycle starts all over
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  again. And then I can use that, that
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  composted yummy rich dirt over there and I can put that around
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  things in the spring. So when you walk out to the
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  chicken coop, it's a very thick padded space of straw and broken
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  down earth and everything else. And then it's not considered
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  hot, meaning it's going to burn something.
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  It's just ready to go. So I pack the trees around it.
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  Now this gets very tricky because the chickens think this
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  also is very exciting because they want to throw it around
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  everywhere and keep digging through it.
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  So you can pack it around the trees and they're going to throw
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  it everywhere. But I've learned that eventually
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  they get bored and they move on and they look for something
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  else. But they gardening with
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  chickens, it's a thing. It's like a it's, it's a hard
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  thing to do, but the benefits far outweigh all the problems.
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  So anyway, back to the figs. So I really focused on it and I
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  also, my son has a fish tank and every time that fish tank water
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  gets changed, it's a really large fish tank.
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  I think it's 120 gallons. He fills up the wagon with it
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  for me and I can take that and use that fish water to water
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  them again, another source of nutrients.
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  And then I've also got regular the stuff that I use for
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  fertilizer, which is organic fish.
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  It's called fish fertilizer. You can get it at Home Depot or
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  Lowe's. Not a plug for them, just
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  telling you what I'm using. And I put that on there.
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  Now the, the abundance of figs that we have had this year is I,
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  I see it as the ramping up of what will be next year.
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  Astonishing. And maybe it had a little bit to
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  do with the cold winter also, cuz it got very cold.
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  And maybe they like having it be a little colder and then all of
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  a sudden they take off even more.
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  I don't know, but it's hard to tell because there's like little
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  fractional changes that happened and not that I intended, but
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  they happened. But in any event, the abundance
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  is huge. So what's exciting about this is
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  recognizing that small changes with consistency work for the
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  plants and how similar we are. Small changes with consistency
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  make massive differences. So you have to ask yourself,
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  what small changes can I or have I made that are making a big
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  difference and that staying consistent with them does?
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  So I always come back to it can be done starting right now,
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  today. You can make a small change.
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  You can say, OK, I'm not going to have any chocolate today or
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  I'm going to cut back on the number of pieces of chocolate I
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  eat today. Or I'm going to do instead of
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  doing 3000 steps in a day, I'm going to do 4000 steps in a day
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  because guess what? Those add up over time.
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  Just like shooting this podcast has always added up.
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  I do it one day, it turns into 30, it turns into 90 and before
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  you know it, we're well into our fourth year and Oh my gosh, we
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  have thousands of over thousands episode.
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  I mean, that's crazy when you think about it, but just think
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  about how how powerful those little changes are and what
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  difference they can make in your life, and then you can bloom
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  like figs. All right, my friends, I hope.
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  You. Have a blessed day and I'll see
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  you tomorrow. Bye.