Decisions

Rachel and I went out and started working in the garden. We have a lot of piles of rabbit bedding that we were hoping would compost down during the winter. I am not sure what we did wrong.  It worked last year.  Jacob was looking sad having to stay inside doing school work on a nice day, so I let him come outside and join in the fun, but really I was getting tired and needed some help. We worked for 5 hours and it was a nice day. We are all sore and tired now.

I hated to take all this nice compost material to the dump. We just do not have enough room. I put some of it along the edge of the garden and put compost on top. The kids would take most of the piles and I would come with the wheelbarrow and raked the bottom part of it up and put that on the compost bins.

I cleaned the hay and straw out of the hutch, so they are on wire and they have their board.  I cleaned the litter boxes too. If it gets into the 50s tomorrow, we may have to go ahead and open the sides of the hutch and take the cardboard down. They think they are cooking when it is 60 degrees outside.

Rachel and I decided we are going to have to move the herb garden. I am going to keep the pen for the rabbits and the 2 cats are going out now when we are outside and they are not trying to get out of the pen, but the rabbits will be using the herb garden for a litter box. There are 2 other 4 x 10 boxes that I used to plant greens in. I am going to take those out and all the dirt and move that to another area. We will plant grass where the boxes were. We are going to take out what herbs we want and leave some for the rabbits and leave the flowers.

The herb garden will be moved to the front on the west fence. This area gets a lot of sun and the only thing there is the neighbor's weed patch on the other side of the fence and our grass on our side. Rachel has decided it will not just be a straight line, but will have a design to it. We are going to till and then put down cardboard and use all the compost that has not finished, old bedding of straw, hay, wood shavings, rabbit manure and then probably go get some old cow manure or horse manure and then put a lot of compost on top of that and transplant the herbs into it. I wish we had done it last fall. I have read about lasagna gardening and I have read you can plant without waiting. I am not sure yet.

The rabbit fence will have things planted on the outside to make it look better. I am thinking of planting climbing roses. I am not sure where the strawberries will be moved too.  I still have to figure out how to get some of the rabbits out of the hutch without a big fight, especially Twinkie.

Twinkie

He just hates to be taken out of the hutch and he has started to get a little bit aggressive. It is because when he was sick and I had to syringe feed him and he thinks I am going to do that again and Bella is the same, but they love the pen. Lulu and Sunshine are hard to get out of the hutch and I do not want to scare them.

Hot Shot

Hot Shot almost jumps in your arms to go to the pen. He watches and knows what we are doing and looks sad when I pick a different rabbit to go play.

Andy finished the sawhorse greenhouse today. I will take the plants out of the greenhouse in the kitchen and put them outside tomorrow.  I have onions, cabbage, bok-choy, and then all the cups that are mixed up and I have no idea what they are yet. It looks like 29 of the 48 cups have sprouted. I know some of them are the hollyhocks and Love In A Mist flowers. I will look at the seedlings tomorrow and figure out whatever thing is.

My seeds from Park Seeds arrived today, but they are beans and I will not be planting those for awhile. I am waiting for tomatoes and peppers from Gurney and I have seeds coming from Baker Creek. I am going to Ace tomorrow and get hay for the rabbits and pick up a few things that I did not order. Baker Creek did not have the basil I wanted. They were sold out. I have noticed a lot of different things from all the seed companies sold out already. Maybe that means a lot of people are planting gardens. I hope so.

When I move the seedlings out of the greenhouse, I am going to start eggplant, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and basil. I will plant the other things when they get here. I am hoping Andy can turn the swing set into a greenhouse this year. He thinks it will be easy. He will be working on the fence this year and we will enclose the whole back with cedar fence. I had wanted wire and I go back and forth on it, but I think having our privacy would be better. I am worried how much shade it will cause though, so a lot of decisions to make. We are also thinking of not tilling this year and making the permanent beds.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.