Hello all! The weather is turning warmer and I'm out in it as often as possible! My garden is my happy place. There've been some changes on the home front, and I'm just chomping at the bit to have everything in place. Pictures of it all finished and put together will be following, I hope soon. In the mean time:
PROJECTS IN MOTION
1. Finish painting my new greenhouse! Yes I was able to get a 10x12 greenhouse built this past November. A wonderful neighbor gave me the windows from and old house they restored. A wonderful handyman built it, and I finished the inside. Now I'm needing to paint the outside to protect it from the elements. I'm about 75% finished. It will be white to match the house. I'm hampered by either rain or cold temps. Right now it's more rain, but I'm not complaining. This is what it looked like once the build was almost finished. This greenhouse was something I've only dreamed about over the years, and I have to say it's my happy place! It's worked rather well. Neither I nor the handyman that built it realized that the bottom needed to be sealed up so that the greenhouse could utilize the ground heat. So I added boards across the bottom down to the ground. Now it works like a charm. In fact it kept my tomato plants happy in 17 degrees!
2. Raising seedlings for both my garden, and my yearly plant sale. It's been tough trying to find potting soil, but I've managed. Some soils are better than others I'm finding. I don't get a sponsorship from Promix, but that stuff is good. Apparently that's common knowledge because it's hard to find it in stock!
3. Adding raised beds to my existing garden. This will have to have a picture taken later as I don't have the beds finished at the moment.
PROJECTS I'VE FINISHED
1. Fencing in my backyard garden so my chickens can free range year round. Up until I did this one thing, my chickens would and did devastate my garden beds. Kale is their favorite. I'm loving the fence, and I must say am pretty proud of my work setting the 4x4 posts. Most of the time my posts lean to one side or the other; much like the villain lair in the old 60's Batman series. Like I always say, my garden will never be featured in Better Homes and Gardens, but would get an honorable mention in the redneck quarterly! Use what you have available before you spend.
2. Finishing the inside of the greenhouse and moving all garden stuff and tools into my new greenhouse freeing up our front shed as well as closets in the house.
3. Getting my cool weather crops in the ground. Happy to say I have everything in except my beets. They'll get planted in the next bed. They are seedlings at the moment though.
FUTURE ENDEAVORS
1. We're saving to turn our back deck into a screened in porch. This will hopefully help with high cooling bills in the summer as well as give us a nice place to be to enjoy the garden. We are also planning to replace the very rotted 4x4 side porch with an 8 ft wide porch that will go the length of the side of our house and meet up with the back screened in porch. You can see our current back deck in the picture above of my garden fence.
2. Adding a new heritage breed of chicken called Jersey Giant to our farm. Upping our chicken game with the idea of taking chicken and eggs off our grocery shopping list. We've ordered them, but they won't be available until the end of May. That's fine because it will give us a chance to get things ready.
Everything in my garden came over 25 years. You start where you're at and add to it each year as you learn. That includes learning about different plants. When I started this garden I didn't have a tiller to start. I paid a guy $40 dollars (that was 25 years ago) to till up my back garden. I didn't know then what I know now and that is you don't need a tiller! I'd say for the past12-15 years I've maintained and expanded my garden with a shovel, cultivator, and garden fork. I have raised beds made from cinder blocks no one wanted. I've repurposed old fencing, old 4x4 posts, etc to use for garden structure. I've even gone into the woods behind our house and cut down invasive privet trees to use for tomato stakes or even as fence posts. Some things have been gifted to me. My point is to make the most of what you have available and don't compare your garden to anyone else. Make your garden yours and you will enjoy every moment you're out there. Well maybe not the bugs...don't like the bugs.
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