The Days of Moaning Muscles

Lots of work outside the past few days.

Moved piles of dirt from last fall's excavation for the grow house which will be built over dwarf fruit trees before the end of summer arrives.

Weeded all of the raised beds in preparation for planting. 

Planted out one raised bed with lettuce and covered with a cold frame to ward off chilblains these cold nights.  (Up until two nights ago, we were still getting frost over night.)

Experimented with planting one bed of onions earlier than usual.  No cold frame.  They're on their own.

Planted three rows of kale seed in the chive bed.  No cold frame, but good ol' kale is quite frost hardy.  If the seeds survive to sprout, that is.

Planted my Sweet Pea flower seeds.  They take forever to germinate and aren't bothered by light frost anyway.

Transplanted some comfrey plants.

Gave the blueberry bushes a slight pruning (after extensive pruning last year) and weeded their patch.

Moved four goslings and their house to new spot.  (Again.)  Can hardly keep them in grass.  They graze constantly favoring grass over any other food.

With Papa Pea's able assistance, pruned the raspberries and put new support ties in place for the coming season.

Edged the strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, asparagus and field garden.  (That %&^* quack grass just loves garden soil and wants to move in!)

Got June bearing strawberries uncovered.  I made a big pile (two piles actually) of the winter mulch taken off the plants, and will use it in the garden in various spots.  Last night we had terrific winds which threatened to scatter the bigger pile to parts unknown so we ran out and put several cattle panels over the pile to hold it down.

Got the field garden completely tilled.

I hand-raked it level, and it's ready for planting.  Shell peas will be planted within the next couple of days.  Then the taters.

Weeded three long rows of strawberries.  Waiting for old growth from last year to wither and die off a bit more before cleaning up the debris and mulching for this season.  Probably should wait until it's a little warmer before mulching though.  Don't want to encourage the soil to stay cool.

No lack of things to do outside before the bugs make an appearance and I'll be forced to plan my time around their schedule.  When the bugs are too bothersome, I stay inside.  With my unfortunate trait of being the favorite food of any biting insect, I need to take advantage of this bug-less period and push, push, push on outside projects.  Regardless of whether my muscles are complaining a bit or not.

But bottom line, all the real progress being made feels very, very good!