This Years Garden Challenge - Part 2

Well I sprayed all around the outside fence of the garden including the hen house. Wasn't sure if the hens would cope but they are still all alive!

But a lot of the weeds aren't! 

Remember three weeks ago

And then to my surprise I discovered something left over from some plantings a few months ago that I thought had all died.
 
Mind you it doesn't look too happy but we will nurture it and see how it goes.


So after pulling out all the dead weeds and finding the edge of the garden, Harry helped to spread out eight bags of stable scrapings (Horse poo) over the area I had cleared for the first plantings. Not the nicest of jobs as the bags were well and truly starting to "mature" and the flies were thick. We had added this to our veggie garden for years now and find it so good, not just for fertilizer and mulching but for just building the garden up.



Then comes the hard part. It took forty minutes to dig it all in and rake it over, taking care not to destroy or disturb the little seedling that might grow. Sounds a bit like the little engine who could.

I rescued the seedlings from my kitchen window box that I had grown from seed and the lettuce seedlings I had recently purchased and then got to work planting out.




Tomatoes, lettuces (fancy and heading), bell peppers, cabbage and broccoli (or were they cauliflowers - only time will tell!), a zucchini and a row of carrots and a few radishes.

I also had two pumpkin plants I planted down the other end of the garden.
 
I found my old slug and snail bait holder (the frog) and set it up. I know it looks silly but it holds the bait as well as little reservoirs for the slugs to die in. It's covered so animals can't get at the baits and stops the rain making the bait soggy.

And all this in a mornings work in the garden as the weather report predicted rain in the evening and more the next day. How ever the rain didn't come that evening but it certainly did the next day. In fact over the ranges there was flooding.

So I may be late in getting the garden going and there is still an awful lot to be done to restore it to a thriving plot, but it's a start and little by little it will improve.

I miss not being able to pop out to the garden to gather fresh veggie for meals, or to preserve or bake with.