I'm going to grow all the things!!!!

I have been in a planting frenzy. Between flowers/vegetables/grass and whatnot, I believe I have gone slightly crazy.

The kind of crazy that involves drawing super detailed diagrams on where I am going to put the next thing, and so that I don't forget where everything is. Yes, I've gone a little nuts. I blame my father. My dad has the most amazing garden. Flowers everywhere, a waterfall/pond he made himself... anyways. 

My vegetable garden is almost all planted. My broccoli, cauliflower, beets, peas, and lettuce is coming up nicely. The lettuce from last year went to seed (oops!) and is now coming up in the yard. I had the kid who mowed the yard promise he wouldn't mow over it. :) I planted tomatoes, peppers, and a nice purple basil plant yesterday. I'll take a picture tomorrow, because my fence is made from pallets. It's very fun. 

Along the entire back fence, I planted zinnias and 12 foot sunflowers. Where the posts are I planted some of the tall grass seeds and sweet peas/morning glories/trumpet vines. I rotated those. Tosha helped me make some flower beds and I've got dahlias and gladiolas and more sunflowers and more zinnias and cosmos. I have rosebushes, and an elephant ear plant and tulips and daffodils and daisies and my yard will be so pretty! 

While I was thinking of how gorgeous my yard will be this summer (if everything comes up!) I was also thinking about how it should also be practical. My vegetable garden will obviously be practical, because it will provide us with delicious food. I've got lots of flowers planted along the pallets to climb up the outside and make it pretty, with marigolds helping keep icky bugs away, and sweet peas and morning glories to bring bees. I throw a lot of scraps to the chickies. They make an amazing garbage disposal. They love vegetables, leftover eggshells, bread, cheetos... you name it. I was digging up dandelions today with the sole purpose of feeding them to the chickie bitches. You can see how much they liked them. I threw in two bucketfuls because it made them so happyyyyyy! They love green things. I was digging them up from the 

front yard, and decided that when I run out of dandelions in my yard, I will go across the street. 

I can't really let our chickie bitches out into the yard because they will destroy all of the things I have planted. But I was thinking, if I'm growing food for myself, why not grow food for them. And that is when things got a little crazier. I realized I had a little more space to grow things:

So I'm going to start growing these: 

WTF? You're going to grow weeds??

Yes. Yes I am going to grow weeds. ON PURPOSE. That is a lambsquarter plant. I'm sure you've seen them before. They're a bitch to pull up, but did you know that they are better for you than spinach? BETTER THAN SPINACH! It tastes better too. Put it in salads, cook it, whatever. So this plant is dual purpose, because we can eat the nice little leaves, and when it goes to seed, we pull some off for next year and throw the rest to the chickie bitches who go nuts. 

I will also be growing/foraging for these: 

                                                          

Sunflowers? Seriously? 

Jerusalem Artichokes. Not actually related to artichokes, but to daisies. Grows wild everywhere. It has a tuber like a potato, and they're delicious. Also, chickens love them. I'm going to plant pumpkin, sweet corn, all of the purple millet my dad sent me, other squashes, and probably some other cereal crop.

I planted about 50 pinto bean seeds along another side of the fence. We have 50 12 foot sunflower seeds planted. I'm going to plant all of the sugar snap peas, pole beans...  What I don't eat, the chickens will eat. Lets see just how self sustainable we can be this summer. :)