This week, the week of the Summer Solstice, I wanted to show you our progress on the vegetable garden.
As you may recall, we started building this garden last year on Winter Solstice, constructing the raised beds and filling with compost. Then we built the fence while the compost broke down and turned into fabulous medium for the vegetables. So here’s where we are this week!
All four beds are filled with layers of compost, soil, leaves and other organic matter, and then topped with a layer of straw to keep down the weeds and keep the soil moist in the hot sun.
The straw all sprouted wheat for a couple of weeks, that was a HUGE LOL. The straw is supposed to keep the weeds down, but it started growing it’s own crop! Now we give batches of the straw to the chickens in their run and let them eat all the seeds before spreading on the beds.
I really love the fence because it keeps the chickens out. Later, we are going to cover the whole enclosure with avian netting to keep the wild birds out so we can grow sunflowers. The netting will also keep out the fluttery moths that lay their eggs on the leafy greens.
Here's a close up of the first bed we planted: cherry tomatoes on the right, Chinese cabbage, carrots and beets on the left. I'm experimenting with support material for the tomatoes, but I don't think I'll be using this bamboo. I need something sturdier. These photos are dark and not too colorful because it's been cloudy and rainy this week.
Carrot babies!
Chinese cabbage. I need about 30 of these; I put cabbage in everything.
And here's a tray of starts ready for planting in the next bed!
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