It starts....

Anyone who has spent time around here knows that I ♥ my garden! I think it is the single thing that gets the most photo shoots around here. I'm gearing up for the 2009 Growing Fest here at my home.

I went to the greenhouse last week and bought some transplants:


An Early Girl 4 pack, two plants of zucchini, some bell peppers, a 4 pack of roma tomatoes, a 4 pack of cherry tomatoes, and two 4 packs of Jack be Little Pumpkins. My soil adores pumpkins and pumpkins adore my soil. This is the first year in many that I have actually had to plant pumpkins.

See, a few years ago, when we owned our feed store, we had a surplus of pumpkins that didn't sell at Halloween. I kept them around, in case anyone wanted to take a couple home to feed to their animals or to the wild deer, and I did get rid of a few more that way, but not many. So Steve & the kids brought them to our house and put them in the garden to feed to the goats through the winter. Many still rotted, though, and added to the soil in the garden...and also many seeds planted themselves. We had pumpkins galore that next year, and still several the next, and a couple last year. This year we are through with the self seeding pumpkins, so I bought pie pumpkins to continue with our pumpkin tradition!

My sage and lavendar, which are perrenials, are doing well. So is another herb which I need to identify. This pic is of the sage, which is flowering.



And here are the onions that I planted on Easter weekend. They are beauties!


I have been so impressed with my soil this year! I have soooo many earthworms, which proves that my soil has greatly improved through the years! When we moved here, my garden had been some kind of a junkyard. Tin cans, broken up fencing boards, bed frames, chairs, and even an old junker motorcycle were all set in there. The soil was hard and earthworms were rare. We cleaned it up and fenced it in for chickens and goats to live in for a while. Because of the wonderful fertilizer the animals spread in there, the soil is now rich. I am convinced that there is nothing that improves the soil better than organic fertilizer!


Over the weekend we put in more fences to separate the goats into a pen w/ a stable. They have grown a lot, and their doghouses have gotten a bit small (their stable is on the right - the doghouse that you see is for my bantam chickens.)



Nina made me laugh when I saw her sitting in the food bowl, happily crunching on the greens in there!



We also put some netting on top of the chicken coop to keep all of the girls in...but many have found ways out anyway. Maybe I just need to get rid of the ones bent on escaping and just keep the ones satisfied to stay put!

Have a great Monday!