Veggie garden at last......

 "I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life...." -Calvin and Hobbes

 Today was THE day to put in a veggie garden.  I haven't grown veggies in dirt for eons.  But now was the time to do it. Spencer, visiting as usual, came along to inspect. Quality control expert. I'm not sure why I don't plant veggies. I  just am so into flowers mostly. So this will be a great experiment to see what grows. And what doesn't.

 Last fall I ripped apart the last of the sunflowers and over-wintered the seeds, plus I added a few packages of Velvet Queen heritage sunflowers. Held onto them for months.  Today  I sowed those seeds in the centre of the plot. Added huge tomatoe cages as support.

 This year, I decided that we needed some sort of fencing. Chicken wire.  Cheapest and easiest. Not sure if the deer that ramble through would come up the hill, but they might.

 We get deer roaming through here all the time. Dark loamy jelly beans  as  calling cards. 

 Using the Chicken Wire and Bobbexx on the grass and  bushes I hope to keep the critters out.  Have not really had  a problem with them before, except in the fall. Deer love to eat  apples from the trees at the top terrace.Bobbexx is a fantastic deer repellent. Doesn't harm the deer. Bobbexx contains fish oils, meat meal, garlic and cloves.  Smells kind of yuck. You can't spray it on any veggies or fruit...

 First thing to do  was to make markers with tall garden stakes at various corners of the dirt.

Stakes were threaded through the  wires, then tied  off. Not sure how it will hold up on  windy days.

 We ended up doing two sides, attaching one part to the fence, leaving an opening right up at the compost so I can get in to weed and so forth. I thought about complete shutting off the top side, but would make it so difficult to get by. 

"Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil,getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity." -Lindley Karstens

 At the end of the day, the ground was all dug up , and  chicken wire fence supported with extra wooden stakes tied across the top. 

 I wonder if it will last to the end of  the summer into the fall.......

 Also curious to see if the one deer that comes here, every other day, will even bother with it. 

 By the time dusk rolled around I had planted a gazillion sunflowers. Not sure how many will grow.

 Lettuce. Enough lettuce to make Peter Rabbit chubby.  Beets, Swiss Chard, Radishes, Heirloom Carrots, Bok Choy, Cabbage, Romain lettuce and a couple of other things.

 I must admit, not all that fond of cabbage so I put it at the top of the entrance into the plot. So if the deer want to nibble they can eat the cabbages. I won't mind in the least.They can have them all. 

 Spencer had such a hard day of supervising that he crashed out for a nap on the porch. I could hear his snoring  as I passed by....

 "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." -Mahatma Ghandi

2017