Survivors

Remember all my griping about the season being early and me being later than normal? Resulting in my being about 2 months behind? Well. I was so excited to get a day off without rain so I could catch up...

So when I went out this morning I was super bummed to find that not only had my seed trays fallen over in the wind, but my row covers had floated up in some places, and the (damn) chickens destroyed all but a few of the green things.

Chard & Kale

Lettuces

I got myself together and decided that I could still get my plants in - even though my broccoli starts were about ready to go in (I TOLD you I was running late!), I will try sowing directly in the ground and see what happens. If I can get my act together and use shade cloth this year, I might be able to get a few heads in before the heat really sets in.

Assuming we can get the rainwater irrigation system in.

I DID manage to get all the current beds that aren't being occupied (about 5) hoed and weeded, and I put up the deer netting I saved from last year up around them. At 3' ft high, they won't do much against the chickens should they really want to get in,  but at the very least I get the satisfaction of a) having done something constructive, and b) the mental image of them running towards the greens, only to be thwarted by some invisible wall. A la Time Bandits. I love my chickens dearly, but they can be destructive as hell sometimes. And if it stays nice this weekend, I have Saturday open and allocated to figuring out a chicken barrier scheme...

But there were a few survivors... in my hacking away with the hoe, I came upon several carrots, 2 Anise Hyssop plants, and an Oregano plant (3 beds and 12ft away from where I planted seeds last year...). The carrots will be dinner this evening. For us, not the chickens. As for the herbs, I picked them up out of the detritus, popped them in some pots, and hopefully their luck will continue to hold out!

The chickens scratched the mulch up over this little guy... and he escaped the fowl play that got the others...

Whoohoo! There turned out to be about twice as many as this handful. The patch I planted for seed also escaped and overwintered fine. Hopefully we'll be planting our own seeds next fall.

Oregano, and Anise Hyssop x2