Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Tiny Oasis of Green

I finally got my butt into gear so I could do some planting (and Paul be damned!) in the raised beds.  One of the things I knew I had to do was to get the plastic sheeting out of the corner of the berry garden.......where it's been sitting since I used it late last fall to cover up my late-planting of Zucchini.

When I pulled up the mess of plastic & leaves, look what I found underneath:

Don't know what some of it is, but I wanted to eat it up!
Oh, wonderful, beautiful GREEN!  This little sight of green and growing life really strengthened my resolve to plant something in the raised beds.

Ever since I cleaned out the beds over the weekend, the chickens have been scratching it up to their heart's content and adding a bit of nitrogen to the soil in the process.  And as much as I like seeing chickens scratching around in dirt, they were no longer going to be welcome to scratch around in this particular piece of real estate.

After much "shooing" and waving of arms (and later swearing and yelling), the chickens finally vacated the immediate area.  It also helped that I eventually had the bright idea to fling some chicken scratch in an area a distance away from the beds.

Rhiannon and I made twelve short rows in the wonderfully soft dirt and planted two kinds of spinach, two kinds of lettuce and even some radishes.  Still not quite sure why I planted radishes, I don't even like them.  Maybe Paul will eat them.


During the seed scattering, Evil Kitty came to say hello to us.  Actually, she came to say hello, then proceeded to dig a little hole in the dirt, and take a whiz.  Nice, eh?  Wonder if cat pee is good for vegetables.


I still had two hoop sections of dirt left to plant, but had other barn chores to attend to so we covered up the bed with the plastic sheeting and hoped for the best.


Maybe in the next week or so I'll have pictures of my sprouting spinach or lettuce to share with you.

9 comments:

  1. Nice bits of green at your place. All that is growing around here these days is wheat grass on the windowsill. :)

    I like to plant radishes too--they do grow so quickly. Maybe your chickens will like them.

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  2. You will love your own homegrown radishes and Rhiannon will love them because they grow so fast! :) Thinly sliced radishes on a sandwich with just butter is pretty good!
    Not sure kitty pee is very good for the garden and you know what she'll be doing in there next don't you?!?

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  3. Don't you just love seeing bits of green this time of year? It is just killing me to walk by my raised beds, knowing that I don't dare do anything until March. I would sure try to keep Evil Kitty away from your vegetable gardening. Of all the (many) manures that are beneficial, kitty poo is not. Besides, it's stinky. Ask me how I know.

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  4. belch cat urine will burn up everything in sight! "Evil Kitty" LOL! My whole yard stayed green this year, it looks awful though and I'm really worried about the insect population in the garden this year as a result, I need your chickens to come and eat 'em up!

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  5. stupid computer changes "blech" to belch hahaha

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  6. Radishes, I LOVE radishes. I'll take all the radishes you can grow this time of year. When I have them from our garden, I clean up a bowlful, take a salt shaker and sit out on the deck and eat 'em. (Obviously, there's something in them that my body NEEEEEEDS!)

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  7. Cat water is very high in ammonia! And around here, I have found a use for it!
    Here in N.C. we have a problem with "FIRE ANTS"! They are very small, but if even one gets on you, they bite and inject an acid that burns like Hell! And nothing that I have found can stop it.
    The nest is really big and if you run over it while mowing, They come pouring out by the ZILLIONS! And with only one thing on thier minds, BITE THE CRAP OUT OF YOU!
    But I have found a way to defeat them! CAT WATER! When I clean out the cat box, discarding the solids, I take the wet cat litter and dump it on the nest (and run like hell, before they can catch me!)
    Ammonia is heaver the air and it sinks into the nest and kills the Queen! And without her, the nest DIES!
    CAT WATER, What a wonderful thing!!
    TOM

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  8. It will be fun to see how things do. Great, I hope.

    I planted my late garlic yesterday and I think I have some spinach seeds. Maybe I will risk some of that too.

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  9. Mooberry, I think I may start some wheat grass, just to get some instant gratification!

    Candy C., never tried radishes with butter, may have to...although I can't say the radishes would stay on the sandwich. Evil Kitty was shooed away before leaving anything else more "significant" in the beds.

    Susan, Paul calls my cats "Vile, filthy creatures" because of the poop smell. And I'd have to agree with him during litter box cleanout time.

    Erin, Ick! I didn't even think of the bug thing! Just what we need...more bug eat'n our gardens!

    Mama Pea, if you visit you can have ALL the radishes you want!

    Tom, well, at least cat pee is good for SOMEthing, right? Fire Ants, hugh? Glad we don't have them here!

    gld, I need to get the garlic in the ground. Never got around to it in the fall....maybe it will still take?

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