Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Gardens...

I couldn't resist taking some pictures of all of the beautiful plots at the Maples Discovery Gardens tonight!  It's such a great place to unwind after a day of office work.


In the Circle Garden

Apple trees







Nasturtiums

Sweet peas


Our friends, the chickens.

Leaf of Kale from my garden.

Peas

Lemon balm growing wild along the driveway.

Lettuce in the greenhouse.


Basil in a greenhouse bed.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Second Plot!

After some discussion, we decided that we could use a little more room in the garden.  Luck had it that the plot right next to ours was going to be available July 1st so we jumped on the opportunity!  Because our summer is a bit late, we should be able to get some seeds in the ground still.


On the weekend we installed the rabbit-deterrent fencing.  We only had to do the two ends as the fence shared with our first plot is rabbit-'proof' as is the fence we share with our other neighbour.


I won't bring in any soil this year as the group that had the plot before us put enough down that we will be able to make use of it.  There weren't too many weeds in the plot either (thank goodness because I was not prepared to weed like I did for the first plot!).


The chickens were out free ranging and we managed to scoop up a couple to help us till the plot.  The rooster was not impressed at all - good thing he could not get over our fence or we would have been in big trouble.  It is amazing how quickly he comes running when he hears one of his hens squawking!  He got over it quite quickly and went back to checking in on the other hens as they roamed around the property.  


As for the hens in our plot, they were quite happy to be there (although a door would have made it easier to shoo them in and out of our plot versus catching them and putting them over the fence; they are not the type of hens to just let you pick them up and cuddle).  They had quite a feast on worms, grubs, and other bugs.  They actually got quite comfortable with us and I'm pretty sure they would have eaten out of our hand, if we had something to feed them.

As soon as they would see one of us doing something that looked like we might be turning up the soil, they'd run to us.

We definitely need to work on our chicken-catching skills.  I should have taken some video of us trying to catch them.  We had a good laugh at ourselves.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

In the Garden...

Things are growing like crazy in the garden right now!


The peas came out this weekend:
And so did the nasturtiums:
We picked a whole bucket full of spinach, lettuce, and kale:
Which turned into part of our dinner (kale chips, garden salad, radish top soup):