My Coffin Bed and Wheatberries

So this weekend this happened:

I opened my last bottle of homemade red.  Yup, you are reading the label right, it's from 2013.  And it's finally really good.  And that was the last bottle.  

I finally finished my raised bed that resembles a coffin.  I took down 2 layers of boards cause I was getting damn tired of dragging wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt down to the back yard.  I did still manage to blow my Fitbit's daily expectations out of the water even with the reduction in workload (it was still a lot of work, tomorrow I expect to moan a lot).

Here's whats going on in my coffin bed.  Under the cloches are zucchini, eggplant, peas and peppers, two seedlings of each.  The tomato has the red plastic under it.  Supposedly the red under the tomato plant helps it grow.  It was too big to fit under the cloches so I'm really hoping the red mulch plastic works because I don't think it's really warm enough for the poor tomato plant.  Under the floating row is carrot, kohlrabi, kale and swiss chard seeds.  Mixed in all over the bed are onions, green onion (scallion) seeds and marigolds.  They are all suppose to help with managing pests.  I put a layer of newspaper fairly low in the bed and mixed coffee grinds in low and at the very top of the bed.  My soil is a mix of peat, compost and manure.  After I got everything in I remembered I had some sage I wanted to put in so it ended up in an odd spot.  Nothing is terribly neat or organized.  It's more higgledy piggledy.  I tried to leave space to sow more seeds over the summer for on-going harvest.  We'll see how that works out....

I prepped supper before heading out to the garden, knowing that I'd be too tired to do much after.  I deboned a very large chicken breast and stuffed it with sauteed spinach, garlic and feta.  I also cooked up some wheatberries.  They take an hour!  It worked out perfect as I let them simmer away while I enjoyed my morning coffee and brunch.  

I tossed the wheatberries with fresh basil, oregano and chives.  I toasted some pumpkin seeds.  Right before serving I add the pumpkin seeds and some feta.  That's it.  Simple and delicious.  It was a heavenly meal, well earned after a hard day in the garden.