This Week In The Garden

I feel so bad that I haven't been updating my blog as much as I'd like to - with our chickens & garden rapidly growing, it's been hard to keep up! Things are finally starting to slow down a little, so you'll find me posting on here a lot more often :) This is what our raised bed filled with lettuce, cabbage, onions, turnips and carrots looks like as of today. It's so funny because I went outside this morning determined to get some nice shots with my camera, but the lens instantly fogged up because of how humid it is! So y'all will just have to enjoy some good quality iPhone pics! ;) Can you believe it was just a couple months ago that we started the seeds indoors? And today is the day we will need to harvest all of this green goodness! When we first had transplanted the lettuce and cabbage outdoors, I was so worried that they wouldn't survive. They looked so wilted and sad. But I'm happy to say that most, if not all, have completely thrived outside.

Here is a picture of our in-ground garden. So far, everything that we have planted is thriving and growing strong. We had a little incident a couple weeks ago with the cows getting into the garden. They stomped on a couple plants, but most have come back to life and are continuing to grow just fine. (Note to self: Always make sure ALL gates and fences are securely fastened and closed!) ;) This past weekend we also decided to expand the garden to make room for three rows of sweet corn. I absolutely cannot wait to harvest all of our homegrown veggies! Oh, and we also planted seven different types of peach and apple trees! I guess you could say we are really getting into this whole farming thing ;)

This morning as I was walking through the zucchini and watermelon patch, I noticed that the baby zucchinis are starting to develop. How cool is that! I know of an awesome zucchini recipe that was passed down from my grandma, to my mom, and down to me that I will have to share with you all later!

We have also managed to finish the chicken coop! We will need to build them laying boxes in the next couple months, but so far they are loving their new home. We made the chicken coop as safe from predators as we could, so I'm crossing my fingers that we don't loose any! *Knock on wood* Oh, and did I mention that we have a rooster?! Yep, that multi-colored one with the big red comb you see to the left. We thought "she" was a hen.... until "she" started crowing early in the mornings. Which is fine by me, because now we'll have fertilized eggs and possibly lots of baby chicks! :) Not pictured here: We also have 8 one month old chicks right now in the garage brooder. So far, that's a total of 17 chickens and counting!

I don't know about you, but I'd say the chickens have the best view on the farm! Does it get any more pasture raised than that? Their chicken run is attached to the coop, with full access in and out of the coop while we're not home. Since we have lots of hawks and other chicken predators where we live, we used reclaimed barn tin & chicken wire for the roofing - that way the chickens can enjoy the outside without having to worry about being attacked. And when we're working in the garden, we open the chicken run to the garden so that they can explore and eat all the nasty bugs :)