Gardens Present and Gardens Future

I spent a very relaxing afternoon with Mom and Dave in the Main Street garden yesterday. A robin landed in our broccoli and cauliflower bed as soon as we were done planting, which has to be good luck. I got the feeling the bird approved of our work - the worms we had turned up didn't hurt either!

We have officially taken over two beds in front of the small patch that Dave and I dug up last year. They were gardened in past years by a man who bought a house in Monona this year and moved away. There are few rules governing these gardens on East Main - basically first dibs goes to the people who live directly across the street from them, and from there it's a free for all. We didn't want to be hoggy, but since no one had done anything with these beds yet we decided to take them over. Ben and Erica's neighbors took one of the three beds, and we took the other two.

You can see the broccoli in the bed closest to the camera. The second new bed on the right is still unplanted. In back of that is the potato patch and sugar snap peas will climb up the trellis along the very back.

The potatoes have broken ground!

You can just barely see the row of peas coming up along the back. They germinated well, and I'm confident we'll have more peas than we know what to do with.

This rhubarb is a good sign of the spring we've had. Everything has been very very early, and spring things like rhubarb and asparagus are coming and going much quicker than usual. I haven't even had a chance to make pie, and the rhubarb is already going to seed!

Dave and Mom working away over in the other plot.......

Dave planted these onions - reds and whites. They're a bit close so we can pull some as small spring onions and let the others mature into full sized bulbs.

Baby cherries!

Cilantro starts being watered in.

Here's the garden of my future! This is the house I'm buying - I'll move in on May 28. My plan is to dig a garden in the front half of this side yard, and build the chicken coop in the garage with a run coming out into the yard. There are a few trees nearby, but there is some good south sun, and I'm hoping my garden will do well here. This year I'm planning to keep things easy and put in a just few melon plants. I can't wait!

Just in case you're afraid I'm not eating well.... here's dinner from tonight. Local grassfed steak broiled with Willow Creek pastured bacon and caramelized onions, local potatoes with butter and fresh scallions, and a salad of local watercress, scallions, and Jerusalem artichokes. Simple to make (it took Stanley and I about 30 minutes to put this together), and oh so good.

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