Putting the garden to bed

As this year's garden effort, admittedly my first true garden attempt, was a bit of a bust, I have started putting most of the garden to bed. I am still getting some Roma tomatoes, which I share with the chickens, but most everything else has petered out.

I have learned a lot this year. I like the square foot gardening method, put forth by Mel Bartholomew, but find that only six inches of soil does not allow for enough root growth to maintain healthy plants. I really like the method used by Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl, with standard sized beds that can hold her chicken and rabbit tractors. Her beds are deeper. I think a hybrid of both methods is ideal.

This year taught me a lot about the pests in this area. I can spend some time in the off season learning about organic methods to control these pests.

I have a lot of good substance in my compost bin. I need to have Hub help me put together another bin to start the next pile.

I have a plan for next years garden, twelve raised beds. Ambitious, I know, but I am hopeful I can grow a bunch of our favorite fruits and veggies.

Bunnies

Finally, I have firgured out how to upload photos! These are shots of Esther Bunny on the day I brought her home. She is huge! Think I will need to shear her in the next week or two. I want Hub to be home to help me as I am nervous about the process. I don't want to hurt the bunny!

Photos

I am going to try to add some photos to my blog. Hub is out of town and I have some new pics of Bean he might like to see.

My online friends also want to see pics of Binky and Esther Bunny. I hope I can figure out how to do this. If not, I'll have to try again later.

The chickies have been laying the occasional egg. They are so funny. They aren't nesting, they just seem to drop eggs where ever. I have to laugh--every night, they gang up on me to get scratched before they settle in for the night.

I made an awesome salad today. My homegrown Roma tomatoes, a homegrown cucumber from a friend, a sweet onion and one of my homegrown red bell peppers. Chopped it all up and added some of that new bountiful dressing. Very tasty.