Second garden planted!

More good progress! This evening after work, I was able to move the tomatoes and cucumbers out of my living room and into the larger of the two new garden beds today! The cucumbers were already blooming so hopefully they will take off now that they are into the garden. I'm not sure the tomatoes will do as well as I hoped - they are very tall and spindly - so I will have to keep an eye on them. Worst case I replace them with transplants from the store. I also transplanted the tomatillos transplants and the two tomato transplants I bought - so those are all in the ground!

I still need to get the red peppers into the garden so I left some room for them, but I have almost filled in the rest. In addition to the transplanted plants, I sowed seas for corn, fennel, bush beans, purple cow peas (like black eyed peas), carrots, watermelon, yellow squash, a mesculin mix for salad and dill. I tried carrots once before but the soil was too heavy and I pulled them too soon - so I thought I would try again. Worst case I can pickle them like last time!

In my other garden things are progressing - most of the garlic shoots have come up and I see tiny, tiny grass like sprouts coming up where I planted leeks. I'm very excited about the leeks - I love them in soup ans braised and I can't wait to see if I can grow them successfully! Once they come up I understand that I need to pile dirt up around them so that the base of the leek is buried - this is what keeps that part white. I need to read up more on it to see exactly when I need to do that.

I hit Home Depot at lunch and got all of the coop supplies ordered - they say they will deliver it all tomorrow - hopefully before lunch but we will just have to wait our turn on the delivery schedule. I am excited to start work on it - but a little nervous too. I have built small things on my own (like step stools for the kids) but most things I have built I have had help on - or I assisted and someone else did the main "building" part. Either way in a few more weeks the chicks are going to be ready to move into bigger living quarters! Today I was able to feed them little bits of egg white from my fingers and when I put my hand in now they come running. They don't really like being picked up still, but the kids are determined to solve that!

In this picture my daughter s holding the smaller of the two Easter Egger chicks. Although it looks like her eyes are closed - you just can't see them because she has big tufts of feathers on her cheeks that nearly cover her eyes. This is the brave one - she is always out in front of the gang - the first one to explore and is definitely already trying out her wings - perhaps we need to name her Amelia after Amelia Earhart! The kids think that the yellow chick should be Milkshake - they are sure she will be white - I am betting slightly beige speckled - but we will go with Milkshake regardless. :)

Wish me luck with the building project tomorrow!