Disheartening Work

The most disheartening work in the garden must be the thinning of young seedlings! I set to work on my radishes this afternoon, making room for the survivers to grow. One thing that makes me feel better about this chore is I know nothing is truly wasted. My chickens will enjoy the rejects and will turn that raw material into eggs.

I pulled up the cabbage plants that were planted at the end of September. They didn't have enough time to grow and "head up" in the fall, so I left them in the garden to see what would happen. After surviving the winter, they bolted instead of making nice solid heads. So, that experiment didn't work. I'll have to check the proper time to plant cabbage.

The turnip greens had also bolted and gone to flower. We ate some of the tender young buds last week. The bright yellow flowers are actually quite pretty. Despite their good looks, today I pulled them all up and dumped them into the chicken yard. The chickens enjoyed the diversion.