A day of planting

Remains of the winter veggies 

After spending an afternoon in a friends garden helping do some planting, I was keen to get out and put more into my little patch of dirt. Unfortunately I am aware that I may well get burnt again by a late frost (planted some things 4 times last year before the frosts decided to leave my garden alone).

Mmmm, before I can go any further with this I just need to make a small comment on the lunch I am currently eating. Besides being REALLY tasty, it is pretty fresh. In it is my Kale, Kohlrabi, and some baby onions (had to be removed to make space for some summer plantings). It is a great reminder as to one of the reasons I love to spend so much time in my garden.

Today's harvest that turned into lunch!

Back to today's activities so far. As I mentioned, I decided it is time to put in some of the summer veggies. I have planted 2 small sections of corn (a red variety that I grew a few years ago and collected the seed, and a sweet corn), 2 zuccini varieties (a black one and a round one), squash, 2 types of cucumber (German pickling and an apple variety), rockmelon (dreaming of big things!), and some Jap pumpkin. 

Then I cheated a little (more cheating still to come if my tomato seeds remain as such!). I have planted some capscicum seedlings, yellow zuccini seedlings, celery, and some rainbow swiss chard. Some of these I haven't had much luck with in the past, but I am determined to have a go and get it right. I have never grown celery, so I thought I would have a go.

With the addition of chickens this year my "compost" has been enriched, both in volume and quality. My wonderful neighbours provide me with all their kitchen scraps and occasionally their lawn clippings (as I have removed all my grassed areas to enable more production and to save time and money on mowing). The chickens have scratched all this around and made a few additions of their own. After the chooks have done their job I then wheelbarrow this beautiful mix into the compost construction that I built (again, not quite complete). Here is where the worms that live there finish off the product. There are a couple of areas in the garden where i put some of this amazing (and well cooled) compost about a month ago. Today I planted into it and wanted to eat the soil. It was amazing. Lets just hope it lives up to its looks!