Well, today was another lovely sunny day after all that rain we'd had. We went for a long walk this morning, home for lunch then down into the garden about 2pm. The garden is booming and the silverbeet and spinach has really taken off. My other little brassica seedlings seem to be showing some progress too.
Now that the soil has had a wonderful soak, I dug over a bed that the chickens had vacated a couple of weeks back and sowed some seeds - spring onions, kale, carrots and cabbage.
After weeding the other two beds, I transplanted one of my perpetual spinach plants that seemed to be crowded out by a few of the other plants and just wasn't growing.
I've allocated my next plot for all my garlic cloves to be sowed into later in May/June.
The chickens were happy to have us down in the garden and hung out with us while we worked. While they've been out roaming most days, we really haven't kept them company a lot, so it was nice to hear their gentle, friendly, bok boking as I worked. I loaded up their nesting box with fresh straw and they checked it out and put themselves to bed at 3pm. Peach who has been roosting on top of the box at nights was first in the box, so will be interesting to see who puts themselves where with the icy southerly making it's way through the country this afternoon.
5 comments:
Sounds like a lovely day :) I wish I could have chickens. I don't have a garden of my own and I can't keep them on the nearby allotment I will hopefully be getting soon.
They always seem to have so much character :)
- Sera
Hi Sera, yeah I love having the chickens. They really do add life to the yard and are so peaceful to have around.
Hi Nikki,
I came across your blog via. Johanna's, and have been enjoying it, thank you! May I ask, where did you obtain your perpetual spinach? I've only very recently came across the idea of perpetual vegetables, and think that they would suit me very well. I love growing my own vegies, but have a disability that means I only get out into the garden erratically. My flower garden thus has a mix of perennials that require next to no care, plus each year if I can I plant annuals. If I don't manage it, then the perennials still make it look OK. It'd be neat if I could establish a similar pattern with vegies!
I live in Auckland, but I presume it'll grow OK here if it grows in Kapiti, and if you got it somewhere local I have a friend who visits Wellington from time to time who could probably pick it up for me.
Thank you!
--Heather :-)
Hi Heather. I think my last perpetual spinach plants lastest a whole year, so if you get the new lot growing a couple of months before the year is up you should have a good supply. I got my seeds from Kings seeds online. Another you could also consider is NZ Spinach - it's not really a spinach and has quite little leaves and slightly succulent in texture - but tasty and can be used as any sort of leafy green (I actually haven't really eaten ours a lot, but the plant is there forever lol).
Cool, thank you!
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