The Garden

On April 14 I sowed a bunch of Spring crops in the garden boxes. One box is filled with radishes, beans and borage. Almost all of the seeds germinated which is very encouraging to me since last year was a big fat losing year! 

Radishes have been good to go since the weekend and I have a nice bunch in the fridge ready to add to something like a salad or ??? 

Seriously, I have two rows nearly 4 feet long of these tasty crunchy treats. 

One variety is called English Breakfast which came in veggie collection of seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. The other is the everyday, buy from the store Ed Hume. There is nothing wrong with Ed Hume, I have purchased my fair share of Ed Hume seeds in the past. These days, especially since, learning about Seed Savers on the Great American Farm Tour, I like catalog or online ordering. There's a lot of neat varieties that we just can't find at the local garden center or Freddy's, Walmart, Target...etc.

The other boxes have leafy greens, green peas, green beans - beets (seeds free from Freddy's) and a few carrots. There are only a few because I didn't have pelleted seeds like I had last year. Crazily enough, most of the carrots actually came up last year - we had lots of carrots. 

Anyway, I'm very excited about all of the success that we have so far. That is because I did not want to lose anything to critters which seemed to be the biggest problem last year. Last year we had a couple of bunnies, this year I have seen at least 4 adult bunnies and maybe a juvenile. Nooooo!!!! I had row cover cloth over the boxes for weeks and that offered the protection we needed, but the plants didn't get direct sunlight and watering was more of a chore than necessary. 

A couple of weeks ago I started to research the different options of fencing to use to keep critters out. I finally decided to go with a fence that is specifically designeed to keep the bunnies out. I placed an order on Amazon and it was delivered by the end of the week. By the end of the weekend it was installed around the four boxes.

This system is working so far, the bunnies are being deterred as well as a certain goose. Lenny is able to reach through the upper parts of the fence, but he can't get to a lot of stuff, but if I catch him he gets a quick scolding and he is good and stops and moves on. You wouldn't think that a goose understands, but he does. Good boy!

Once the chickens are moved out into the field I hope to get the "free range" garden planted. I'm curious to see what volunteer veggies might come up as the chickens have been given all sorts of whole veggies and pooped out seeds in different places. 

I've said it before - this year's garden will be epic! Hoping for food that we can freeze and/or can and store for later. 

Farm Life Is the Best Life!