That old guilty feeling

That old guilty feeling of neglecting my urban farmer duties was just plain boring.  I finally dusted off my gardening gloves and headed out to the garden last weekend to turn the earth and prep out 9 small hills for the pumpkin/melon/squash patch.  Yes, yes, I know that pumpkins are squash, but squash patch just doesn't incur those fuzzy feeling of walking through the floor forest of orange globes.  Back to the garden,  I turned the earth, added the last of the compost that had been curing and sitting for the last four months, and prepped the little mounds.  I planted four starts, two watermelon and two cantaloupe, and then planted out seeds in the remaining five hills.  I planted three types of pumpkin varieties:  Rouge Vif d'Etampes, Conneticut Field, and Jarrahdale.  The two other hills were planted with two different types of squash:  Yellow neck and Pomme d'Or.

I also tended to the neglected compost, which stopped cooking months ago and has been ready to be spread out in the garden.  I then turned two of the bins together into one, added some water throughout and waited to see if the temperature went up at all.  The spike in temperature was slight, but it around the 90s, so something is cooking in there, even at the low, low temperature of 93 degrees.

All in all, I am very happy to report that life has begun again in my garden.  Roots are growing into the earth, the chickens are happy as can be, the bees are doing their big job of pollinating and cross-pollinating, and I am watering away, happy to see my little urban farm back in the swing of things.