Garden Day

The afternoon had a 60% chance of rain and after lunch it was mostly overcast.  It seemed a good idea to at least attempt to finish getting the garden cleaned up and planted for the season.  Between yesterday’s burn and today’s 4 + hours in the garden, I should have my quota of Vitamin D, however, due to a prior bout of skin cancer, I stay totally covered with a wide brimmed hat, long sleeves and long pants.  Much crawling around on my aging knees and rooting around in the dirt with bare fingers, the weeds are cleared.

Cleared beds and a ground eye view of the raspberry bed as I inched along that path pulling weeds.  After my efforts, 4 rows of black wax bush beans, 1 row of lemon cucumbers, 1 row of spacemaker cucumbers, a small patch of carrots, and several hills of yellow squash have been planted.  I still need to transplant the pepper and tomato starts and get a thick layer of spoiled hay in the paths to try to keep the weeds down and to get a bit more around the raspberries and grapes.  I still have a space between the garden and the chicken run that is full of tiny stones and some weeds that needs attention, but I gave out and it was dinner prep time.  Wouldn’t you know that the rain chance has diminished to 40% without a shower and the sky has alternately cleared and clouded while I worked.

The chickens love my efforts as I take armloads of weeds and bugs to them to peck through.  Everytime I go to the fence they come running to see what the load contains.  They particularly like when it is full of chickweed or if I dig up a grub or two.  I was rewarded with 7 eggs collected in my hat as I quit for the day.

My hope is to try to stay ahead of the garden this year and not be faced with a later season weeding as I usually have to do.  As soon as the garlic is harvested, a second planting of bush beans and a fall planting of kale and cabbage will be planted in those two beds.  I still haven’t figured out where to plant the pie pumpkins and winter squash, but I am leaning toward putting them near the berries and let them run where they can’t do any harm.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.