A Nice Sunday.....

With the help of a strapping 24 year old guy I got all the bags of leaves out front  moved first to the east side of the house, then dumped over the goat fence into the newly revamped, now-chicken-proof east bed out back that sees tons of veggies thriving in Restricted Drainage Container Gardens made from various scavenged plastic containers. That bed looks SO good with those leaves all spread out in a 4 inch thick mulch! For some badly needed color in my back yard I last week sowed seeds of Sulphur Cosmos all  along the inside of the new goat fencing. As soon as my Scarlet Runner Bean seeds arrive I will plant many in that same stretch of soil to draw hummers with the bright red flowers followed by the tender pods. Today I ordered from England via E-Bay two packets of a cultivar called 'Butler' that bears TEN INCH long STRINGLESS pods for just $3.23 including shipping. All that remains to do in that bed is finish cutting down and chopping up branches from the Brazillian Pepper tree hanging over from an abandoned home that foreclosed two years ago. In the midst of that mini-Hugelkultur mound I will plant a Filipino White Sweet Potato as an attractive ground cover this summer whose leaves are delicious and nutritious raw or cooked.IOnce the tuber is planted that whole area will also get a nice thick leaf mulching.  By August that whole area of my backyard will look tidier and more colorful than it ever has while being MUCH more productive. Thanks again to my wonderfully generous blog reader who gave me that NEW 50 foot roll of sturdy, galvanized goat fencing that made this project possible! AT LAST...chickens can't get in there and wreak havoc!

 The young guy and I also moved into the front yard the last of the logs that are left over from creating the new beds out front.....some will go into my firewood bins, the rest will go into the HUGE swamp garden (used to be my apple snail pond) for a Hugelkultur-based preserve for my guava and jaboticaba trees hanging onto dear life after all this time in pots in NON-swampy soil.

I just set out on the stone shelf to the left of my red office door two dozen fresh TRULY free range chicken eggs, $3 a dozen, and one half dozen Muscovy duck eggs laid in the last 24 hours, also $3. All should be fertile and fully hatchable in an incubator due to all the chicken and duck fucking I witness daily! On the nearby Honor System Plant Sales Tables are a number of edible plants in gallon pots, all labelled and priced, $3-$4 each. Just slip your cash through the white dryer vent below the Thank You sign on my red office door. In a couple of weeks I will have some exciting new plants for sale!

I have six live Muscovy Ducks for sale, male and female, about 9 months old, ready for the table or to start a flock with, $20 each. They do not quack...the males make a low hiss, and the females a gentle cooing sound, so neighbors are not disturbed by an urban flock.

Humidity and warmth is up....the next five days we stand so-so chances for rain....fingers and toes crossed.