Garden Report: April 17

It's been really great gardening weather (apart from a wind storm that blew stuff all over the place, but you can garden in the wind), but I haven't been gardening; too much other stuff going on.

The other day I weeded a bit among the fava beans, to the accompaniment of the bees bouncing around in the blossoms.

We seem to have a local hive or two again, which is nice. Last year we didn't get much for honeybees. Lots and lots of native bees, but I do like both kinds.

Speaking of wildlife, I went to mulch the potatoes and noticed that we had a tenant in our straw bales.

From the looks of it, a rat started to build a nest there and then thought better of it. Or maybe I'll find the nest (and rat) when I use up more of the straw.

The potatoes had finally grown up enough that I added the first pile of mulch around each plant. This was more complicated than I expected, in part because I did not plant them in a pattern.

Other than difficulty with mulching them up, the potatoes are coming along nicely and seem to be doing well in their spot. I'm just about ready to plant out the tomatoes to join them, but we're in a spate of cooler weather, and the seedlings are still kind of small. Also, I will need to have time to get round to making anti-dog fences.

And here's our other destructive species: the chickens have been dust bathing. Aggressively. All over their yard. It looks like a minefield. Yet another reason why they have no growing plants in there. And yet the strawberries are covered in little green fruits, so I'm not letting the chickens out as much as I might, so I stand a chance of getting some strawberries this year.

Technorati Tags: bees, chickens, food, fruit, gardening, mulch, plants, potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes, urban farming

posted by ayse on 04/17/09