Atlanta garden 2011

This year I'm cutting out the middle man, i.e., the greenhouse, and planting directly into the garden beds.  I've got one row each of butterhead lettuce, spinach, arugula, and Swiss chard.  My plan is to do successive plantings until I run out of seeds.

Also, I put several inches of compost directly on top of the bed without trying to mix it into the topsoil that's already there and planted directly into it.  That might be a mistake, but anyway that's what I did, from laziness, mostly, although I have a vague idea that the compost is very rich.  Well, I'm sure it is; my vague idea is actually that it might be too rich.

It was quite challenging, to say the least, to plant with Sunny.  She loves digging in the soft dirt, drinking from the watering can while I'm watering, and chasing the hoe and rake.  Challenging to the point where I finally had to put her inside to finish up, as it was getting quite dark.

I was pushing to do it today because it's supposed to rain tomorrow.  I hope not too hard - I'd hate for the seeds to get washed away.  Hmm, just thought of that...

The garlic and shallots look great!  And even my leeks seem to have survived the winter although they're awfully spindly.  Dominique's, whose leeks spent the winter in the greenhouse, are thriving much more.

Eggs at last

Mimique gifted us with her first egg the very day we returned from Brazil, on Jan. 25.  She's been pretty prolific since then, and even laid one with a double yolk.  I took a picture of it with my phone but since I haven't figured out how to transfer it, that'll have to wait for another time.

Recently Chipmunk has started laying as well, and to my surprise, she lays pale blue eggs!  Aren't they pretty?  Dominique has an egg for breakfast several times a week, and I made myself a small omelet once.  I still don't like eggs too much, but I'm trying to learn.

Free range chicken eggs were going for $6 a dozen this summer at the farmer's market, so we're finally starting to get some return on all that chicken feed.  Now if we can just keep them alive awhile...

Bees, Blue Orchard

Today I put out my blue orchard bee house and some of the natal tubes from last year. I'm going to experiment with cycling this year. Every two weeks I'll put out some more hibernating bees with the intention that their pollinating season will extend into perhaps June or even later. I bought another house, so this year we'll have two houses by the end of the season.

Uh oh, garlic is coming up!

We had some hot (for winter) weather a few days ago and now my garlic is coming up.  Is this a problem if it freezes again?  Or is it normal?

Only time will tell.  At least something is growing, for a change.