Chickadees and Planting Time

Today after church, Kristyn went to a baby shower for our neighbor. While she was away Austin napped and Gavin and I (Steven) spent some father-son time in the back yard. We kicked the soccer ball around for a while. I kept an eye on our birdhouse, because the last time I checked it there were a couple of eggs. When I saw Mrs. Chickadee fly out to get something to eat, I took Gavin over to inspect the nest. I built the bird house with a hinged side, so you can open it to check for nesting and clean it out when the nesting season is over. I opened it up, and pulled the tightly-packed nest out. Here's what we found:

Mama Chickadee formed a little cup in the back corner of the nest for her brood. I guess I should've guessed given how small chickadees are, but these eggs were even smaller than I thought, barely larger than a jelly bean. We quickly put the nest back and closed up the box. I saw the chickadees come back, so it seems the disturbance was not noticed. We won't open up the box again until it's time to clean it out.

Next, Gavin and I did more work on our little garden boxes. This year I plotted out exactly what we are going to grow and where, so we can maximize the harvest from our small gardening space.

In one box, we'll have cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, jalapenos, and bell peppers. I spread out some marigold seeds and put in a small row of onion seeds (planted those two weeks ago) to deter insects. The two mounds in this photo are for the zucchini, and the redneck trellis (two tomato stakes with twine laced between) is for the cucumbers. The rest of the space on the right in the next picture is for tomatoes and peppers.

Here's a close up of the zucchini mounds and the long cucumber mound. Exciting, huh?

I had lots of volunteer pumpkins where I dumped one of our halloween pumpkins last fall. I pulled out all but one. If it spreads out of control like I think it will, I'll likely be pulling it out later.

The second bed has strawberries (in the far right of the next picture), potatoes, carrots, snap peas, green beans and more onions and marigolds. The redneck trellis in this one is for the peas. The potatoes, carrots, onions and peas were planted a few weeks ago, and all have come up well. I planted a row of green beans and some marigold seeds today.

The strawberries were planted last year, but were shaded out by my tomatoes. The layout this year should be more favorable, and as you can see they are already flourishing and putting on fruit.

I may have planted the cukes and zucchini a couple of weeks early, but as warm as it's been and the way the pumpkin volunteers were coming up I figured it was time. If we get a late frost these beds are small enough that covering them up is easy. And frankly, seeds are cheap and if I have to replant I'm not out anything. We'll no doubt keep you posted on the garden's progress this summer.