Spring

The first day of Spring has come and gone. Living in the Central Valley of California, it’s difficult not to plant my seedlings. Last week the average daytime temp was 77 degrees. However, it almost froze on Sunday night. It is beautiful outside and I want to start growing things! My garlic, onions and lettuce are up and growing nicely. But I want tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers! But more than that, I really missed the spring growing season for many vegetables. I am new at the large vegetable garden and I am trying to learn as much as possible about succession planting, permaculture, and trying to live off the fruits of my own labor. I am used to doing everything big and well the first time around - my vegetable garden is teaching me new levels of humility. It doesn’t help that trying to finish my master’s degree is more than a fulltime job.

I did make a few trellises for the cucumbers to climb if my seedlings make it to planting time. (I think I started my seeds too early and now they are languishing, needing to be in the ground.)

I also installed bird netting over half of the chicken coop so the quickly growing chicks could have more space. They were in the dog crate on the patio, which the cat enjoys sleeping on top of, and they were making a mess of the patio scratching the shavings out. 

They are much happier, and have started spreading their wings and running, scratching, and flying. The older chickens seem to be mad that there are intruders in their coop and their coop has been segregated.