My garden is a mess man, but at least the rainy season is over, so now I don't have to mow the 200 square meter lawn every single weekend.
This means that If I dedicate around 1 hour per week to mow the lawn and about 30 minutes every 3 days to water the lawn and the trees, my garden will be more than ok.
A week ago I posted about my new Quails and I got a lot of feedback, thank you for that @felixxx, @ligayagardener, @ryivhnn, @minismallholding, and @thebigsweed, your feedback has made me actively start building a small quail habitat for my flock. Sorry for the tag but I thought you might want to read this update considering your comments encouraged me to get off my ass and improve their quality of life.
I had already in my to-do list to build a small fence for my quails, but after the feedback from the homesteaders above and a little bit of research I decided to build a great habitat for my quails!
For the first part of the Quail series click here
Anyway, my backyard has a small garden. It is a small yard of around 3x10 meters, which is more than enough for my quail habitat idea.
As you can see in the pics, even though I take care of my grass, there's a part with a lot of weeds, a couple of Aloe plants, a berry bush with a lot of splinters and several rocks. It was utterly overdue for me to get rid of this next-to-wall mess but I hadn't found the time until a week ago.
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My idea is to get rid of all the grass and the Aloe plants, berry bush and all the mess over there and create a narrow soil-only corridor that serves as a rectangle-like habitat for my quails.
This narrow corridor will be side by side to the wall, this means that the quails will get a lot of sun for a few hours of the day, and will get enough sunlight for at least 14 hours per day. I will obviously provide a shelter-like house and will build a big space for them with wire and some wood.
I want to do it myself even if it takes me way longer than having it made for me, I guess that's the self-sustainable soul in me that wants to get things done by myself.
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I spent 3 hours in the garden today, clearing the space I want to have for my quail habitat. I replanted the Aloe plants in another part of the front yard, got rid of the berry bush, and got rid of all the grass by the root, effectively making the space a deserted area made of only soil and rocks.
This is just a part of all the grass, weeds and all the green I am getting rid off, I will update this post tomorrow when I wake up and include another picture with the full greens I got rid off.
It doesn't look like a lot, but I imagine I will need 4 sacks to store it all. Not bad, especially for a rookie gardener as myself.
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I don't know man, it looks amazing to me so far. I still need to get more fresh soil to flatten the surface completely and make sure that nothing grows in there in order for the quails to not have anything invasive growing below them. I am also making sure that critters and pests are not able to bloom there or make their little den inside the habitat.
The neighbor has a pair of cats and even though I hate people who let cats out, effectively contributing to the eradication of local bird species - I actually think of outdoor cats as a pest - there's a benefit to this: Even though there are a lot of farms around my house which brings a lot of mice, these mice never come close to my house and if they do, they die.
So I don't really have to worry about mice and rats, and the cats do not come close to my garden because I have four dogs. If you ask me, we have an ideal situation here for the quails.
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I got three sacks of soil thinking it would be enough to balance and flatten the surface but I was wrong as hell. I think I'll need around six more soil sacks in order to make the habitat's surface ideal.
I also have already in my possession the wood pieces I will use to build the habitat.
If you have any tips or advice for fence/habitat building please let me know! This is how I want the habitat to end up looking like, wish me luck!
My idea is to have half soil, half grass for the habitat's surface, effectively providing the quails of options for them to forage, roam around and have a shelter for the windy and cold nights. I'll post some updates next week!