A homesteading thread... What are you doing today?

I'm still working on establishing a garden, but I had an area I worked on last year, and the corn is doing good, and my Iris is blooming. The other garden box didn't have enough soil put in it, so I planted everything in neat square grids and then it poured and now all the plants are mixed together on the downside of the box.

Today, I was going to plant potatoes in buckets, but decided to lay them on the ground where I'm trying to expand the big garden, and covered them with potting soil. I'm hoping that will help the dirt for next year.

I've been using straw in the run with the chickens, but my husband can hardly ever get out of work in time to get to the feed store to buy the straw, so the run is starting to smell. But the dump has a giant pile of free mulch that we can pretty much get any time, so we switched to that. The duck isn't sure what to make of it.

And lastly, last year I planted probably 2 year old apple trees. Does anyone know when they will fruit?