Thursday, April 15, 2010

The taint has been lifted


When I promise something fuzzy, I don't mess around!

Oh, but I promised a flower as well, didn't I?


There. I now declare this blog to be free from the taint of homegrown meat. Mom, it's safe to come back now.

So, lets talk about my garden, shall we? It's a mess. A total, complete mess. It was allowed to go to seed last year, so on top of all the normal weeds, I keep finding random things that I KNOW are some vegetable or another popping up. I feel like I shouldn't pull em up, but I do it anyway. A weed is anything that grows where you don't want it growing, right? So, that kale that's hanging out on the butt-end of two of my rows? Weed. The spearmint that's running riot across everything? Weed. Actually, the kale is going to the bunnies and chickens and the spearmint I'm hoping to dry or distill or something...I haven't decided yet. Ergo, a LOT of time spent weeding this week. With luck, I'll get stuff in the ground tomorrow. I'm tired of having to carry out trays upon trays of plant starts from under lights to outside. I think they're hardened off enough...and if not, it'll be trial by fire!

So, this year, I'm trying to "plant by the signs" using the phase and placement of the moon to schedule certain garden tasks. Old timers down here swear by it. So, according to the moon, tomorrow and into the weekend is the time for planting leafy and fruit bearing plants...and it just so happens that's what my bathroom is full of. Last night was a new moon, and according to traditional wisdom, new moons and full moons are barren days and are better spent weeding, hoeing, plowing, etc. Not planting. Tomorrow, I reclaim my bathroom AND get to start fretting over my baby plants out in the great, wide world all alone.

Also within the next few days, something really, really cool should start happening. A couple weeks ago, we bought an incubator for the abundance of eggs we were getting. Seriously, it looked like we were saving up eggs for the war. We had WAY too many. So, we stuck a dozen in the incubator, set it for a toasty 99.5 (which apparently is the temperature which most closely mimics a momma chicken's butt), and waited. Within the next week or so, they should start hatching. Hopefully. I can't wait. We'll definitely have photos of fuzzy stuff then.

I guess I'm off to pull more weeds. Maybe I'll stick one or two plants in the ground today to test out this barren new moon day theory. Experimental plants. I'll keep you posted.

1 comment:

  1. when you figure out what to do with the mint, let me know, it is the only thing growing in our back yard planters that survived the drought of 2 years of home neglect by previous owners. It is like cockroaches, you cannot kill it. I have bushels of it.

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