Wild Hope Homestead

Amidst all the hoo-ha of incubating and bringing forth a child, things have been sorely lacking in the vegetable growing department. This was expected. However, I’m pleased to say that I have managed to produce some seedlings to plant in the vege garden! There will be tomatoes, capsicums and chillies. I sowed the seeds for these exactly one week before The Little Fulla arrived. In the midst of my contractions, in the wee hours after midnight, I remembered to take the seed trays out of the hot water cupboard and put them on the dining room table. I think most of them had germinated at this point. How insightful of me. If only I had been with-it enough to open the curtains!

When we arrived home from the birth centre a couple of days later the seedlings were rather leggy. The poor things were straining to find some decent light. But they were alive. Some trays had to be returned to the hot water cupboard for germinating, but in the end only one tray of capsicums failed to fire. Now I have potted up the seedlings that made it into small pots so their leggy stems could be buried, so they can do some more growing and so they can be hardened off before being planted in the vege garden. That could be a while…

 

Speaking of the vege garden, the chickens have done a good job of cleaning up most things in there and The Husband has pulled up the buried weed mat. There’s just the small problem that in all the madness it has not been filled with organic matter goodness yet. This is playing on my mind like a squirrel sitting on a fence throwing nuts at my head. I am lacking in time and poop. I did manage to acquire two bags of horse poop and a respectable amount of time, with which I replanted the rhubarb in the raised vege bed, pulled some stray weeds out and started moving the makeshift fence so the chickens can have a new foraging pen in the orchard. I didn’t get too far before I felt pooped. Not literally… Remarkably, that occurred before I was alerted through the monitor that The Little Fulla was awake. He was having a good day.

 

The next steps are:

1. Get The Husband to get lots of poop. Two sources have been scouted already.
2. Fill the vege bed with said poop and dig in. The Husband’s help will be needed, but he will be under strict instructions not to stand on the soil that has been dug over.
3. Find three planks to lay in the vege bed, to divide it into four sections.
4. Consult vege planting plan. (First, finish vege planting plan.) Sow more seeds or buy seedlings if time is not cooperating.
5. Plant vege plants according to plan. Maybe.

Piece of cake, right? Well, normally. But my darling child has his own plan:

1. Take up as much of mummy’s time as possible.
2. Feed like a rabid piglet so that even when she has time, she’s too tired for strenuous activities.
3. Maintain an extreme level of cuteness so that the above steps will all be forgotten.