Protection and Growth

Front flower garden, just getting started.

My daughter ate fourths with dinner last night, it seems she has made a full recovery.  She went to track practice on Thursday when she returned to school and managed to make the team!  I get the feeling she'll be eating fourths more often.

Girls inside the fence, for the moment.

The chickens are fenced, we can't count on the neighbors to keep their dogs in their yards and as a consequence (since we'd rather not have our girls die) we get to foot the bill for a fence.  That took a nice little chunk out of this month's budget.  We spent part of this weekend erecting it.  Within three hours of completion Athena went AWOL, three times, once when the pit bulls were out, sigh.  She was determined to lay her egg somewhere else.  We've been referring to her as our "special" chickie, because she doesn't seem to have normal chicken sense.  The other chickens barely tolerate or bully her.  The others dive for the worms in the roots of the weeds I pull up, she will peck my hands, not seeming to figure out that they are not food, even after the tenth attempt.  We're going to have to clip a couple of feathers on one of that special girl's wings, so she won't be able to steer herself over the fence and do herself some harm.  The others seem pretty content.  

 

I'll be placing some of the shrubs we are removing from the front within the fenced area to give them a little cover, and a neat little spot to lay eggs.  They seem to understand the value of thorns, they ran for the quince bush when the pit bulls came into the yard, luckily we were able to turn them around before they got to investigating the chickens and their prickly surroundings. Maybe we'll get the girls something prickly and pretty later in the season.

 

The garden in going in bit by bit.  Leeks, red and yellow onion sets went in as well as all of the little greens seedlings that I have posted pictures of.   The greens are under a floating row cover, after the bugs ate six times as many greens as the family ate last year.  Right after I put the cover over them I saw a cabbage white moth flutter by and was very glad I spent the time setting it up.

  

I planted some peas, lettuce, beets, daikon and white radishes in the back garden.  My tomato seeds are planted inside and coming up.  My mom sent me a few of her seeds for some huge tomatoes and suggested that we have a growing contest, three of the six seeds for that variety are up, so far.  The germination for the eggplant and peppers has been horrible. I planted over 100 seeds, knowing that they are a bit persnickety, but only six have come up and I accidentally broke one of them.   I may be buying plants this year.