After a long blogging hiatus, I have returned!
I know that my gardening friends have probably grown tired of my vintage-only winter blog posts, so I have some excellent news: last weekend was the first official gardening event of the 2012 season (hurray!). Thanks to an enormous effort on my husband's part, we got the finished compost moved and tilled into the new back garden - all done in between the rain/snow showers - and the peas and fava beans planted. I also planted some blue vervain and black cumin seeds in the herb garden, as well as dug up/divided/replanted the comfrey and valerian, and dug up the numerous clary sage starts (note to self: never allow this to go to seed AGAIN) and replanted them around the periphery of the garden. We bought some garlic starts at our local grange co-op and planted these in the strawberry bed as well.
Unfortunately, the new garden area is directly adjacent to the chicken pasture. Within hours of planting starts into the garden, the chickens were already digging and eating them! Now, I love free range chicken eggs, but I cannot allow the chickens to destroy my food source! So, for now, I have surrounded my plant starts with circles of fencing. When my peas and favas emerge, I plan to vigorously wing-clip all of the "roamers" in the chicken flock so that they can't fly out. It may sound mean, but wing-clipping does not hurt the birds, and they have a large run with plenty to eat (they get all of the poultry grain they can eat, as well as a large daily bowl of kitchen and garden scraps, along with whatever bugs they can find). If it's a choice between limiting the freedom of 4 chickens (out of a flock of 20) and my garden, sorry, but I choose my garden!
In other news, the kale, leeks, and onions have germinated in the seed trays in the greenhouse. Next, I will be germinating the year's tomatoes! Yippee! This year, I am going to be growing only Joya de Oaxaca and the deliciously dark heirloom, Carbon.
I know that my gardening friends have probably grown tired of my vintage-only winter blog posts, so I have some excellent news: last weekend was the first official gardening event of the 2012 season (hurray!). Thanks to an enormous effort on my husband's part, we got the finished compost moved and tilled into the new back garden - all done in between the rain/snow showers - and the peas and fava beans planted. I also planted some blue vervain and black cumin seeds in the herb garden, as well as dug up/divided/replanted the comfrey and valerian, and dug up the numerous clary sage starts (note to self: never allow this to go to seed AGAIN) and replanted them around the periphery of the garden. We bought some garlic starts at our local grange co-op and planted these in the strawberry bed as well.
Unfortunately, the new garden area is directly adjacent to the chicken pasture. Within hours of planting starts into the garden, the chickens were already digging and eating them! Now, I love free range chicken eggs, but I cannot allow the chickens to destroy my food source! So, for now, I have surrounded my plant starts with circles of fencing. When my peas and favas emerge, I plan to vigorously wing-clip all of the "roamers" in the chicken flock so that they can't fly out. It may sound mean, but wing-clipping does not hurt the birds, and they have a large run with plenty to eat (they get all of the poultry grain they can eat, as well as a large daily bowl of kitchen and garden scraps, along with whatever bugs they can find). If it's a choice between limiting the freedom of 4 chickens (out of a flock of 20) and my garden, sorry, but I choose my garden!
In other news, the kale, leeks, and onions have germinated in the seed trays in the greenhouse. Next, I will be germinating the year's tomatoes! Yippee! This year, I am going to be growing only Joya de Oaxaca and the deliciously dark heirloom, Carbon.
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