Planting anything on the property I'm on is extremely challenging, since the ground here is rocky, dried-out, and full of pine needles. . . but I spent three years readying a small scrap of ground with chicken manure and some fill, so that I could FINALLY plant a garden this year. And holy crap! The results have been so explosive, I literally cannot contain them.

I didn't expect I'd need to cage the tomatoes in my garden, but now I really wish I had :P I now refer to my 100% tomato garden as the 'Tomatopocalypse', because it's just chaos in there. The plants are already bearing fruit, and if you've experienced the unseasonably cold, wet spring we've had up here in NY, you'd know how awesome that is.

You can see some of my landlord's trash in the background there. . . he's fond of using our lawn as a dumping ground, one of the MANY reasons we're planning on moving. But I'm glad our last year here, I was finally able to grow something in my little plot.

I've got some patio herbs and hanging baskets going on, too, as you can see, and I get to have fresh herbs with my cooking nearly every day now :D

My chickens like the garden, but are very careful not to stomp anything. That's 'Baby' and 'Chuck' in the shot there. . . Chuck was named after Chuck Norris, being a bantam blue cochin, and still the biggest bully of all of my roosters. Baby is a cuckoo maran, and an unwanted rooster :P He was supposed to be a hen!

I can't for the life of me remember what those flowers are, but they're awesome. They stay small, but flower like crazy.

Ah, the wonders of chicken poop!