Buds and Blooms

We have been working constantly on getting things settled in the gardens this spring.  The main garden beds are all built and filled with good soil.  It's still been a bit too cold at night to put the tomatoes in and I really want the fence up before I do much more.  That should happen this Saturday.

I have a bed made for the potatoes, but need to do ones for the asparagus, squashes and melons still.  Also need to build an arbor for the kiwi, put a trellis up for the peas, build the chicken run, plant all the beds and the herb bed and some flowers, I also desperately need to weed the flower beds and prune some of the bushes.

The lilac, dogwood, hyacinth, wild violets and tulips are blooming.  There are buds on the roses, irises, and peonies.  The strawberries are doing great!  The thornless blackberries are coming right up, they usually do well but then the deer eat them down - this year we will be fencing them in.  The wild blackberries are everywhere as usual.  The trees have new leaves unfolding and the ferns are beginning to unfurl.  I am considering adding a miniature apple tree to the center of the small garden.

I will add some more pics from my walk around the garden today.

Chicken House

This is our redneck chicken house. We built it with absolutely $0 expense! Tom found pallets for free and we cut them apart and used the lumber to build this. Tom built the frame and the kids and I put up the slats and built and hung the door and installed the wire around the bottom.



Tom then found a thrown away metal garage door at the storage shed that worked perfectly for the roof! God is so good at providing what we need. :-)




We will build a run later when the chicks are bigger. I will post some pics soon of them in their new home, I know I took some - but can't seem to find them!