Busy days ahead...

I took a stroll through my "winter garden."  There, quite happily and completely oblivious, were dozens of garlic emerging.  What began frigid became a milder winter for us due to El Nino.  I may be planting much earlier this year...  The evenings are filling up with contemplations...what trees to add to our orchard, how big should the garden be this year, what to grow, and what to skip.

Always, sunflowers!

Happy Homesteader Embracing Warmer Weather

We are enjoying higher temperatures than normal, which allowed me to get over 100 Garlic planted (Elephant Garlic, Romy's Heirloom German Purple Striped Garlic, Martin's Kitchen Garlic, and Martin's Hot Garlic). The seed catalogs have arrived and I am already looking through them, dreaming of expanding my garden areas, getting my greenhouse set up, and soon to plan the raised beds for Spring 2010! The latest compost experiment has begun. After cleaning out the chicken house, the "sweepings" were placed beneath my rabbit hutches. The layering commences and the expected end product will greatly enrich our garden beds.

Here you see one of our 15 chickens, a Silver Wyandote happily foraging in our Orchard! They are now able to meander between their chicken pasture and our Orchard. The happy hens (13) are laying between 8 and 10 eggs/day. Not bad for this time of year!