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Friday Favorite: Back in the Garden

April 17th, 2015

This Friday favorite is a given, you knew it was coming. Spending time in the garden is truly one of my favorite things. This week I’ve been able to spend a few hours on three different days working outside. Yesterday I put a fence up around the potager, cleared out 3/4 of it, and even got 10 rows of seeds planted.
potager 1 (1)
potager 2 (1)
It’s simply wonderful to feel the sun warming my back, to soak up some much needed vitamin D, and to get the garden in order while I do. I’ll be even happier when the vegetables I planted grace my table and save my on my grocery bill. Life is good in the spring. Garden chores still have the wonder and beauty that they lack when the heat of high summer can make them miserable. This time of year being in the garden is pure bliss!

What are the first chores you do in the garden in spring?

6 Comments to “Friday Favorite: Back in the Garden”
  1. Nebraska Dave on April 17, 2015 at 9:27 am

    Susy, most Springs the garden is cleaned up and mulched down to wait for the planting time in May. Terra Nova Gardens still has a major weed problem with wild grape vines and other tough weeds that will grow up through mulch making it very difficult to weed. This year I’m taking a new approach which will leave the ground bare in the planting beds which makes weeding ever so much easier until the time comes for planting. Then the mulch will be applied just before seeds or plants are put into the ground. I just finished round three for removing the vines and weeds from the main section of the garden.

    For extreme weed control 1/4 of Terra Nova Gardens will be covered with old carpet. It will smother all weeds, vine, brush, or any other plant. Many have asked why I don’t have concerns about chemical leaching into the soil. I’ve had some of the carpet in the garden for three years without any sign of deterioration so I don’t really think there’s much leaching of chemicals into the soil. Besides, the carpet came from houses that kids laid on to watch TV and babies crawled around on learning to get mobile. I’m not a totally organic gardener and probably never will be but pretty close.

    Have a great planting seeds day in the garden.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

    • Susy on April 18, 2015 at 4:39 pm

      Hopefully you can stay on top of those weeds. Too bad you can’t get chickens to deal with them!

      Reply to Susy's comment

  2. sarah on April 17, 2015 at 10:32 am

    I grow a lot over the winter, so pulling out bolting cilantro and spinach, kale covered with aphids, and harvesting carrots and garlic is usually the first thing I do to make room for new stuff.

    What do you recommend as a fence to keep chickens out? I go back and forth on whether I want to do one, right now I only have 3 chickens and they don’t do too much damage (most of the time).

    Reply to sarah's comment

    • Susy on April 18, 2015 at 4:41 pm

      I use an electric poultry net, but I have a few short fences that I use around a few raised beds. Even something that’s fairly short will keep them out. I visited one garden on a garden tour last summer and they have 18 inch green wire fences attached to short posts around their flower beds to keep the chickens out. They were practically invisible. I’ll have to look up the photos and write a post about them.

      Reply to Susy's comment

  3. Kristen on April 18, 2015 at 8:34 pm

    My chickens tend to fly over any fence I put up. Does the electric poultry net shock them if they land on top and deter them from flying up and over again?

    Reply to Kristen's comment

    • Susy on April 19, 2015 at 10:46 am

      They often will get shocked by stepping on it at the bottom and learn quickly to stay away from it. I have one chicken that will fly over the fence, but she never flies over it to get into the garden, just to get out of her pen to eat the duck food in their area.

      Reply to Susy's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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