Scrambling to catch up...

Gardeners are such an optimistic bunch...no matter how discouraging the passing season has been, next year will "always be better". Here are next summer's garlic cloves going into their new raised bed, amended with 2 buckets of super wonderful compost. My visions of tall green garlic plants with their artfully curling scapes are basking in sunshine, unlike this past summer's monsoon season... well at least with the raised bed they cant wash away.
A little more work on the greenhouse/chicken house. I've really got to figure out the eaves before I can go much further with the cedar shingles. The last few days I've been cutting glass to double the small windows between the doors, and caulking every draft I can find.







These are the plywood doors high up on the inside partition wall that will stay open during the summer to let out the excess heat in the greenhouse. Below them is the window through to the chicken house which can be opened on sunny winter days to let the heat through to the hens which hopefully will make them happy enough to lay.
My max/min thermometer is indicating that the greenhouse is about 4 degrees warmer inside than outside in the dead of night.
The lettuces, parsley and leeks are all thriving and I'm deeper into winter denial with each passing day....

Still sawing and hammering...

Too busy building to keep up with the blog... I've made good progress the last few days and by dark tonite got all the holes closed in. I've been blanketing and plastic covering a row of lettuces in the garden, seeded in mid august, to protect them from some killer frosts and at last I was able to move them to the new greenhouse bed.(Wow, I should have cleaned that last window before I started taking pictures!) It'll be interesting to see how warm it gets with the sunshine forcast for tomorrow.

Unfortunately the frost went right through my old leaky single pane greenhouse last week and killed off my sweet million tomato plants with a couple hundred beautiful tomatos hanging on them, sigh.

The chickies have moved in to the adjoining winter coop and are all getting along well. The have figured out how to find the roost and they put themselves to bed each evening at 6. All I have to do is close the door. Clever birds!

Building progress

A week post surgery and I'm beginning to get some strength back, thank heavens. I can just putter at little things, but with some help the greenhouse, chicken/garden shed is coming along nicely. All the plywood scraps we accumulated over the summer from yard sales and freecycle have gone into the shed walls. Today I hired an energetic teenager who transferred 2 truckloads of compost from the bin, and a few wheelbarrow loads of soil from the garden into the greenhouse planting bed. It is 4 feet x 13 feet and will give me lots of room for spring and fall gardening.

As soon as the roof is finished I will transplant some lettuces started mid august , from the garden to the new bed. I'm hoping they will be ok in there til near Christmas.

The sweet million tomatoes in the old greenhouse are coming on faster than I can eat them, and I eat them like candy, so sweet and delicious. They are doing much better than my poor beaten up outdoor tomatoes.

The little chicks seem to have turned into miniature chickens the week I was gone.

Its like they doubled in size when I wasn't looking.

I think the one eyeing the camera with its head sideways is a little rooster. He seems more assertive than the other two and is quite the little character. He is strong enough now to grab an entire piece of bread and run with it, with the other two in hot pursuit. We call it Chicken TV.