Hello Garden Gals and Guys! I hope you all had a great weekend. I know I did. I woke up Sunday morning, put on my clothes, and went right out into my little backyard farm. I know I can’t plant anything outdoors yet, but I just had to get out there and connect with the Earth.
And so I did.
Fat Earth needed some loving after a year of hibernation, so I spent my Sunday cleaning out my raised beds and doing some weeding around the yard. I also let my chickens hang out with me. They had a ball digging up worms while I pulled weeds. Come on in and have a look around!
Now, the garden cage didn’t really need any cleaning. There were no weeds growing in it because my little chicken tractors spent their days during the winter foraging in there and that kept the weeds from trying to take over. But my raised beds….well those were another story.
Here are some before shots of the raised beds along the garage wall and in front of the garden cage:
Those are chives there in the front of the picture. They just keep coming back year after year!
Ish. What a mess! I have to admit that whenever I let my chickens out to graze during the winter, I would try not to look my neglected garden beds. They made me itch. Those weeds were just a nasty reminder that I didn’t grow any food last year. Anyhow, I got to cleaning. And the girls helped. You know they weren’t going to miss out on a chance to find some worms!
I had to dig the grass out of the smaller holes with my gardening knife. That’s what you see me doing above. Now, here is something neat that my hubby bought me. These are the coolest gardening gloves ever!
No more needing a garden trowel. These cool gloves have little claws built right in. And they don’t feel clunky or heavy at all. They just feel like regular gardening gloves! Here’s a larger shot so you can see what I’m talking about.
Those little points are great for digging holes, making little trenches for seeds or bulbs, or for doing light weeding around your plants. I used them to get in and dig out some smaller weeds that I missed with the hoe. Here’s a shot of me scooping soil. These things are awesome!
Here are the after shots of my hard work:
After all of that, I didn’t want to go back in the house. So I took some chicken selfies of the girls. I just love their mean mugs! My girls don’t take no stuff! Gangsta girlz!!!
One of my ladies busy trying to find worms.
I was interrupting their grub session (below). She just kept staring at me like “can I help you with something?”
They found a worm sweet spot:
She was trying to lay an egg. I got a little too personal for her taste. She looked at me like “a little privacy, PLEASE!”
And of course little Rosa had to get in on the action. “This is my good side,” she said.
After some fun with the chickens. I decided to light a fire and do some reading.
I even cooked some sausage and chicken on the fire, but I didn’t snap any photos of that. When it was all said and done, I spent almost six hours outside. And I enjoyed every minute of it! I also may or may not have gone to my local nursery and snagged a few plants and put them in my greenhouse. But I can neither confirm nor deny that. 🙂
So, that’s what’s growin’ on at the Fat Earth Backyard Farm! What did you do this weekend? Let me know in the comments!
