So its that season again…. The garden is growing, flowers are blooming and seeds are sprouting. Flowers are blooming and volunteer veggies and what not are coming up every where! I am so happy and thrilled watching everything grow! …of course I sometimes wish that everything could grow faster for my less patient self…but ah what’s a girl to do….
So my kids have also discovered the joys that come from collecting snails to feed to our chickens. At first when I showed them how easily they could snare them in a trusty “snail trap” they started naming them things like Sarah and Chuck and playing with them like PETS!! It was ridiculous but wayyyyyyy beyond my control. Trust me I tried. The Mere implication to feed them to the chickens was preposterous and they dramatically told me so. So whatever I left the issue alone and then after a few weeks of their slimy untrainable friends not living up to their entertainment expectations they started feeding them to our ever so patient flock of hungry hens.
Suddenly this became the #1 activity on the farm! Each morning they came running out to the garden with me and lifted up their empty flower pots checking every “trap” for snails. They haven’t quite got the hang of collecting them all first and them taking them to the coop but instead get so excited each time they run straight over with only one in their hand. I think part of this strategy also involves the humorous game of keep away that ensues when one snail is tossed in a coop with 15 hens who all want that one delicious snail!!
This time of year is so wonderful for the gardens. It is beautiful to watch the precious plants you grew from seed and nurtured sprout through the top soil and reach delicately for the sun.
I think my all time favorite feeling isn’t when I harvest from the garden as it is the feeling of looking at all the garden beds and seeing them full with green and colorful things growing happily and healthy. Seeing the fruits of my labor and love successfully growing and overflowing the planting bed makes me so happy! They are not FULL yet but I am still tickled with joy just looking at everything coming up in different stages and I know a few weeks from now it will be full!
A funny little thing that happens when you garden season after season is Volunteers. Between the wind, the birds and just plain natural selection seeds from last year’s and sometimes even the year before have been carried off to strange locations and now are beginning to sprout. I have various tomato plants coming through the ground by the hose. Tomatoes are notorious volunteers though. I have bean plants coming up between my apple and plum trees and I’ve planted so many different kind of beans over the years i have no clue what kind they are. I have a plant that looks like ivy or grape or some kind of wild cucumber (the sponge kind) but I have no clue! I have bunch onions coming up everywhere! Volunteers are so fun!!
I have also discovered that I will need to make my next project with the kids a Scarecrow for the garden. We have pesky crows Down here in San Diego. They’ll get into the trash or pester our big red tailed hawks just because they can. Darn things are starting to scratch around my garden like it’s a free buffet!! If I could trust them to only eat the bugs I’d allow it but I know they are not to be trusted!
Speaking of bugs. I have some master worms which I believe I have identified as meal worms in my garden but also now I have an infestation of a nasty little thing called a Black Fungus Gnat. They are little black flies that come out of the soil when I water. They attack the root systems of My plants and need to be gone asap!! I am still working on a natural pest repellant for these little guys as we speak.
With flowers blooming everywhere I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dress up our playhouse a little to make the play area even feel like Spring! We have bulbs coming up from their deep sleep and blooming vibrantly and man oh man the Bees are SO happy!!
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!