2018 Goals

Life in our quiet neck of the suburbs seems to always be busy and my garden goals for 2018 are no different.

The first thing I did this year (like every year for the past three) is to pick up some new chicks for our flock. Unfortunately, last year, our girls didn't survive through the summer as we earned a new neighborhood chicken hawk AND an owl. With the combination of those two and the fact that our birds are stubborn about going into their coop at night, we ended up with 2 survivors out of 6. So this year, I decided we were going big or going home. We got 6 new chicks and, until recently, all have survived in our backyard.



That darn chicken hawk returned before I could patch the holes in the fence roof and took out one of my babes. I decided that they all had a bit too much room to run which put them at a risk since the entire run wasn't roofed for protection. My husband agreed to build a new run that will be entirely roofed but it requires that we cut back the amount of space they currently have. All that being said, the 7 remaining chickens are in a pen about 1/3 it's original size, completely safe, until we can get the new one built in the coming weeks.

However, with this new change, I have been able to expand my garden to almost double its size! I basically moved the outer fence to encompass some of the new areas I have been working on. You can see in blue where my original garden from the past several years ended and how much expansion I've gotten simply from opening up the fence.

The first new area is a strawberry bed. My Little Man has quite an obsession with strawberries so, naturally, we had to plant some for him. I bought about 24 strawberry roots this past winter from Amazon (Hand Picked Nursery) and planted them about a month before our last frost (which turned out to be longer as we got some later than usual/early April frosts). They have been doing great in my new raised bed that we set up specifically for them. I'm excited to have strawberries in about a month!

 

Happy little strawberries

The second area I dug up was a spot for pumpkins and other large squash to grow. Last year was not sucessful for these crops at all so I made some room on the outside of the original garden in order to accomodate them. 

Look at those happy growing squash and pumpkins!

Since Little Man loves all fruit in general, I also picked up some blueberry bushes from our local nursery that are doing exceptionally well right now! I them in large containers because I want to be able to move them around if needed or take them with us if we ever move.

Blueberries in the blue pots

Some other new additions are some lavender plants and around 8 milkweed. I've been doing a lot of research about saving the Monarch butterflies (especially because we live in the Midwest which is a pathway for the Monarch migration) and have decided to use the newley freed space in the back that receives a lot of sun for planting milkweed and other plants that are beneficial to bees and butterflies.

Milkweed and actual weeds that have yet to be pulled.

DIY Bee/Butterfly bath made from an older tomato cage.

More milkweed and borage

And here are some pictures of the usual suspects:

Tomatoes with some borage

Bell and Jalapeno Peppers

Summer Squash

Green Beans

Onion / Collards / Carrots - the chickens got out and dug up this bed :(

Brassica / Okra / Eggplant

Opposite view of brassica (cauliflower / broccoli / brussel sprouts)

Peas

Cucumbers (starting) with lettuce, spinach, leeks, and carrots

Herbs

So that's it for a garden update so far! I have more projects in store to complete this summer which include building a small greenhouse from windows and mulching the entire pathway of the garden.