Spring has Sprung

Spring has Sprung,

The grass is riz, I wonder where the birdie is?

Some folks say he's on the wing, but I know that's absurd.

The wing is on the bird.

My birds are doing fine. The chickens have adapted to being penned up (we enclosed the alpaca catch pen to make a temporary chicken coop while the garden is getting started). I'm getting about ten eggs a day, which isn't great, considering there are 22 hens, but it could be worse. Black mama hen is happily raising her brood of counterfeit chicks in the mama barn. She - and the chicks - were well and truly duped, and are totally convinced that they are all a happy chicken family. Hooray for small triumphs. 

The garden is not doing so well, but it's early yet. The first bed, which I planted in radishes, spinach, and beets, looks as though nothing is going to happen except a whole lot of weeds. I think the seeds must have drowned in the weeks of heavy rain that followed planting. Oh well, bad luck. If nothing comes up in two more weeks, I'll rake it all smooth and plant something else. 

The second bed has carrots - which I don't expect up yet, they are slow germinators - and mesclun, which should be up, and maybe is, but I can't tell it from all the baby weeds. That's what happens when you broadcast a mix of ten different types of seed. I do it every year; you'd think I'd learn. 

The third bed has the transplanted peas, which seem to be doing fine, and I can't remember what I planted in the rest of the box, but I do know that Homero thought I hadn't planted anything and over-planted beans. A whole packet: green, wax, and purple. We'll see what happens.

I planted the fourth bed yesterday. I made four hills and planted two with cucumbers and two with zucchini. I would have planted pumpkins, but just like last year and the year before, I lost some of the seed packets I bought and pumpkins was one of them. 

Rowan has planted the beds near her room with herb starts: oregano, two kinds of thyme, lavender, spearmint, and.... basil? I told her it was too early for basil. No, rosemary, I think.

That's all the beds there are, until we make more. But I still have a whole lot of roto-tilled earth to plant. If it's not raining tomorrow I'll plant the potatoes. I've never planted potatoes before, and I didn't know that they are a very early crop, you can plant them well before the last frost. I hope it doesn't bother them to be planted later. Then that will be all until it's time to settle in the tomato and pepper starts, in early june. 

I do so hope that my garden thrives this year. I am such a horrible gardener, but for some reason a large part of my identity is wrapped up in growing vegetables. It's so disheartening, even demoralizing when my garden is sickly and non-productive. And it's so gratifying and thrilling when it does well and I can actually feed my family with the literal fruits of my labor. 

Fingers crossed.