April 25, 2010

Again, it seems like I've been blogging every day.  Well, I haven't.  Mostly I've been spending every sunny day in the yard working on something or other, thinking I should blog about it.  Then I get the kids down and do some job search and stupid FB crap, then it's time for bed.  Oh, and I'm reading a gardening book for Patti's newsletter and going to review it for her.  Other than that, the job market appears to be picking up a bit by the number of calls I've gotten and interviews I've got lined up.  The potential for me finding a job has sent me into daddy overdrive, trying to eek out every moment with the boys that I can.  Still, the nice weather screams garden, so I obey.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned my strawberries.  I've wanted to plant strawberries along the edge of my rock wall blueberry bed for ages.  Each year at our preschool auction, one of the parents contributes 6 or so pots of 10+ strawberries that they weed out.  Every year I bid and lose.  This year, I worked it out so that if I did lose, I could snag some directly from her.  Alas, for $7 I got a pot.  The next day my Aunt and I got them in the ground since they were about to flower...

First we weeded the bed, at least where we were planting.  Despite the aging layer of beauty bark, weeds are prolific in that bed.  Then I dug little holes about a foot apart along the edge of the bed, leaving a 2 foot opening between the two blueberry plants for easy entrance to the bed.



Then I collected a bucket of my trusty 2-year-old compost and worked a handful into the soil at the bottom of the holes.  After that, it was time to separate out the pot-o-strawberries.  My aunt had the great idea to do it in my wheelbarrow to avoid bending so much.



I ended up with 11 plants that could easily be separated.  Some were more like 2 plants and some were barely plants at all.  Still, we got to work planting them.



You can see in the background that the blueberries are benefiting from the heavy mulch of pine needless from my neighbor.  That and the rock wall may be in desperate need of repair, but it still makes a nice bench to sit on to plant.

After filling in around the seedlings with native soil, I mounded with more compost.



You'll note that the compost still has a bunch of little dried grass clippings and twigs in it.  I don't use a shredded to chop up my compostables into fine bits (though I could).  It's also drier than I'd like, but having a cover over it for a year tends to dry things out.  I have since propped up the lid to let rain get to it.

Since I planted them, most of the plants have flowered and grown the little hard buds where strawberries form.  I was told by the donor that this should be a heavy producing year for the plants, so I didn't pinch back the flowers.  I had intended to train the runners to fill in the gaps.  However, a good friend of ours just offered up their own strawberry weedings.  I am excited to fill in the gaps with different varieities to have strawberries all season long.  I may go 2 rows deep with runners some day. Not sure.  My whole family loves strawberries.  Time will tell.

Well, this post is long enough.  I will do a few more and forward publish them since I have time.  Hope your spring weather is as gorgeous as mine and you have had time to enjoy your garden!