Looking forward

Grumpy as I am, I'm filled with ideas about the future.

Tonight I'm thinking about chickens, and gardens.

I think I have a better idea about chickens, and what they need, and how to put together a coop. I think that perhaps April or May will be chicken season. I've been reading books at the library, with more coming, about how to raise chickens. I don't know what breeds I want yet, but I'm looking for breeds good for beginners, good layers, gentle dispositions. And I'd love blue eggs. Anybody have ideas? We will get three chickens, perhaps all different breeds, so that I can have baskets of multicolored eggs and not just at Easter. I've been learning pros and cons of different types of bedding, how to harvest and use the manure as fertilizer, etc.

And I'm dreaming of the second season of my garden. I want to build cloches so that I can have lettuce and spinach and kale and chard more year round. I want way more garlic because five heads didn't last me long at all (especially because they were small). I'll double the strawberry patch because we can never have enough strawberries, and I think we'll add raspberry vines this year in the side yard. I never did plant rhubarb last year, and that will be good, too. Tons of sugar snap peas, lots of radishes, and at least three times the quantity of carrots. And potatoes in the raised bed (just read an article about that). Way more onions than before. And green beans, too.

And oh those beautiful tomatoes. Lots and lots and LOTS of tomatoes.

Vermicompost, regular compost, chicken manure. We'll do it organically, on our little plot of yard near the city, and when I make a salad with things from my garden I will know that it's a good day.