We also worked a little bit in the living room and dining room area. We are continuing to slowly remove the old varnish from the original wood floors and we finally removed the supporting pillars. The pillars were made of treated outdoor lumber - not something we really wanted in the house due to the chemical processes used. Now, my wonderful husband likes to measure the distance between the floor and the support in the ceiling to make sure nothing has moved.
And, of course, we put in our garden. This is our third year doing the Back to Eden garden method. This year, we were also able to start some of our seeds in the house - and managed to not kill them before getting them into the garden! That was a first for us. Since last year's garden resulted in some unintended produce - like green and gold gourds - this year we did something a little different with our layout. And, we added some new-to-us produce: potatoes, acorn squash, turnips, rutabagas, and cantaloupe. Plus a whole variety of beans that we had never heard about before.
We have plenty of wood chips from the deliveries that we received last year and actually have some extra stored around the garden. This year, I have been spending more time working around the plants and, unfortunately, weeding. This was due to a decision, regrettably, that we made last year. We wanted to try and save our own seeds and thought we would try with dill. And so we let it go to seed. Big mistake. I should have sealed the seeding plants in bags or something because they spread their seeds throughout the entire garden. And so, I have little dill, and for some reason parsley, sprouting everywhere. Fortunately, the "weeds" are coming out of the ground fairly nicely and once pulled, I have been putting down additional wood chips in an effort to prevent any reappearances.
Little Peter Rabbit had also discovered our garden this year. Unbeknownst to us, a momma rabbit had her babies in our garden and was keeping them in some tires we had set aside for our potatoes. We noticed momma rabbit getting into the garden and so we added additional fencing around the gate and did some other minor repairs, which successfully locked momma out - and away from her babies. Once we realized that we had baby bunnies in the tires, a couple of days later, we felt really bad. Of the four, one had already died. We moved the surviving three to a corner of the yard where there was plenty of old wood and some shade and security. Unfortunately, it was too little too late and over the course of a few days, we had to dispose the rest of the bunnies. It was so sad.
And yet, we continued on and our garden was thriving. The beans were doing especially well and then, one day, an entire four foot section was gone! The culprit - Peter Rabbit. We finally caught him in the garden and my husband began to chase him. To our surprise, he jumped through the fence - literally. What?! Upon closer inspection, we noticed that the fence we put up the first year, made of plastic, had been chewed through in several placed, providing an open air restaurant for Peter Rabbit! Not good. We reinforced the fence with chicken wire. And since then, have not seen Peter Rabbit in the garden.
We thought that we might not have any radishes this year. For some reason, our plants seemed to grow almost too fast, in same cases already getting ready to go to seed. We thought it might be because of too much water combined with a succession of hot, sunny days. I finally decided that I would just have to thin out the radishes, pulling those that were going to seed as well as those that were starting to overtake the row of tomatoes in the next row. To my surprise, I ended up pulling several very nice sized radishes! Enough to fill a quart jar for my wonderful husband to enjoy!
All in all, a very interesting spring!
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