Can't Stop Till We Get Enough

Except we never get enough. Planting, that is. One of the biggest surprises to me when I started gardening is that the planting never seems to end. I mean, you'd think it's spring, so you go out there and throw all your seeds in the ground and wait for them to grow, right?

No.

If you attempt to eat year-round from the garden, as we do, the planting never really stops. First thing in the ground in March is lettuce, and the planting continues throughout the spring. Then when the early spring stuff like lettuce is done, it's replaced by fall and winter crops like collards. And in the fall, when surely all we should be doing is harvesting the fruits (and vegetables) of our labors, the garlic is planted to over-winter.

We don't plant anything in January, seeing as how the ground is usually frozen hard as a rock and digging it would require a pickax, but still. Year-round eating requires almost year-round planting.

And on that note, I shall go dig out the squash seeds. Which need to be planted soon so we can eat them over the winter. There's nothing like gardening to develop long-range planning skills.

P.S. I almost wrote a post today to tell you Chickie had disappeared. A. couldn't find Chickie anywhere last night when he closed the chickens up for the night in their coop, and Chickie's mom, Poppy, was on the roosting perch instead of in the nesting box with Chickie underneath her, as she has been since Chickie was born. We thought possibly Chickie had been eaten by the dogs when the fence was down as A. was working on it for the sheep. We were pretty depressed about Chickie's apparent demise last night, but then this morning . . . A MIRACLE. There was Chickie, in the coop, apparently grown big enough that Poppy no longer felt the need to keep Chickie warm at night. Our little chick is growing up. And not dead. Yay!