April Vacation Week: Garden

This year, during April vacation week, I finally pounded fence posts in around the garden and put up an almost respectable looking fence -- a necessity since getting chickens and newish neighbours (it never hurts to make your garden and property look a little nicer, even if it is being productive and efficient).  The fence has done a wonderful job of keeping the chickens out and has allowed me to to *finally* get my spring planting started.

The garlic has been coming up nicely; it gets planted in October after the Garlic Fest, and we always have great luck with it.  It's very exciting to see those green shoots coming up in the spring before anything else is growing.  Though this year, I will admit, the lettuce also made a big showing -- I let it go to seed last summer and some of those seeds starting growing and leafing out pretty early this year.

Also recently planted is the spinach, which is starting to come up.  This week saw the additions of more lettuce, kale, beets, peas, and potatoes (purple and golden).  Hopefully, I have amended the garden soil sufficiently and the plants will have enough nutrients to grow.  I am so excited to get those seeds into the ground and to see them start sprouting.  I have never planted potatoes before, and can't wait to see how they turn out.  They have been planted in the newest part of the garden, though -- the part that has been improved the least -- so we'll see how it goes.  Carrots will go in soon.

I started the tomatoes and eggplant inside.  This is something I usually do much earlier in the year, but I had an ailing cat that occupied my time and energy, so I didn't get to them.

A new addition to my garden is an in-garden compost.  I dug a shallow hole, took extra chicken-wire and formed a wide tube around the hole, and dumped compostables into it.  I plan to move this one to a new location in the garden each year to further improve the quality of the soil. 
(Some of our compost goes to the chickens, some to our black bin composter, and some into the garden.  More on that in a later post.)

Tune in next time for the final post on what happened during April vacation week!