Vegetable Gardens

Yes, yesterday was absolutely gorgeous with eighty-five degree weather, perfect for planting vegetables. And yes, I forgot my camera yet again, so no pictures.

Having already made plans to meet my gardening partner to plant veggies in a plot at our church’s community garden on Saturday, luck would have it there was sunshine… lots and lots of sunshine. Well, by the time she showed up I was done and we were packing up. Oh well, at least we got stuff in the ground and plotted out the rest of the area with her starts she brought, which fortunately filled up the remainder nicely. Whew, I was worried I’d planted too much.

So here’s the thing, planting vegetables and fruits I find fun. Planting with a three and four year old who want to help but will, uh, to put it nicely, destroy the poor little plants before they really have a chance to live, not so much. This isn’t to say I wouldn’t like to continue to teach them gardening, just that perhaps they should have their own box to do it in and not with my stuff. Yes, I’m greedy like that.

Now, because I didn’t have enough fun planting at the church, I also decided tonight, after cooling off, to go ahead and plant the tomatoes we bought last week. The boys naturally wanted to help so I figured, why not let them. After we picked all the weeds out of the box I mixed in the rabbit poop my husband threw in there right after we moved in and we began digging holes for the tomatoes. This time I decided to go ahead and let them actually handle the plants, which could have been a multitude of factors, but more likely a bit of heat stroke. Fortunately there weren’t any casualties. We then planted some marigolds in the corners, stuck the cages in and watered.

Okay, so with all this done, what kind of response did the kids have? Well, the younger boy was busy chasing the dog, and the older one asked why the tomatoes weren’t ready to eat yet because we planted them already so they should have grown and made tomatoes. Apparently I’ve still got my work cut out for me in explaining just how long it takes food to grow.

Community Garden

We have a community garden at our church. Due to our living situation I’ll be utilizing it for the first time.

Community gardens are a great way for people to share a plot of land and the produce it will yield. Of course, there are the setbacks of it not being simply in the backyard, but at the same time we may end up having to move some place where there is no backyard. So yesterday when a friend of ours asked me if I’d be willing to share her plot I immediately agreed. After all, we like to grow most of the same things, tomatoes and lettuces, and pretty much anything easy and relatively maintenance free. Plus sharing a plot will mean half as much work, right?

Chickens

This morning is absolutely gorgeous outside. I apologize to the majority of you here in the lower 48 who are not so lucky.

With the sun shining brightly in a cloudless sky, I decided to let the chickens outside to roam around and free-range the backyard. This isn’t an uncommon thing, it’s just a matter of me getting my lazy ass up to the furthest point in our backyard where the coop is, unlocking it and letting them out. Normally a few of the older hens will want me to pet them but today they all seemed to be itching to get out and enjoy the sun. Can’t say I blame them, but I don’t know how much longer we’ll have them so it saddened me a bit that Dawn or Tara or even Kendra, who always seems to want me to pet her didn’t stop and squat.

Alas, I suppose we should let them enjoy this yard for as long as they can before they eventually end up at our friend’s house. Well, technically our friend’s wife’s house, and technically this friend doubles as my boss. I know that one of our other friends from church was wanting to start keeping chickens, but I think she is a little hesitant since reading my blog and Facebook statuses that focus on my overexaggerated descriptions of chicken chores. Seriously, five minutes a week cleaning with daily egg collection. Okay, so usually during the winter our egg collecting is every other day or so. If she can be convinced to take a few hens, we’ve got a couple pullets and their mama who’d do well in her backyard.

Of course, the thing I hate is that we spent all that time and money into the chicken coop to make it something we’d actually want in our backyard. Unfortunately it is just way to heavy for the average pick-up-and-move-somewhere-else deal, but we’ll see where we can go. Honestly, it is fairly predator proof, and I’d be tempted to see about relocating it to our church’s community garden where a portion of the food produced goes to the shelters. I think the girls would do well there, and they’d be making some of the best compost in the world. Well, six would do well there, as I would think they couldn’t free-range any longer, and nine hens is too much for them to be cooped up all day. But six is perfect. Eggs for the homeless shelter and compost for the garden which will produce even more food. Hmmm… I wonder if this proposition will work?