In The Garden With The Vegetables (Spoiler Alert The Beet Did It).

 I must say after a long winter of reading and eating bon bons, getting a garden planted in spring is a lot of physical work. 

Hoisting trays of plants and dirt.

Using my trusty Groundbreaker to hack roots out of my raised beds so I can plant in them.

Moving lawn furniture around.

This week, I hacked out a place in Raised Bed One for two rows of fingerling potatoes. They were all sprouting like mad so I didn’t “chit” them ( a word that raises my hackles somehow so I more often rebel as not and don’t chit). Pictures when I find them. 

I’ve been using my camera rather than my iPad which continues to inch toward death.

I did use it today to take a picture of Raised Bed 3 which has three kinds of peas, five shallots in a row, a large number of red onions in a row, and three lettuces I purchased last week while plant bingeing.

Why yes, I did over plant those peas. This bed is a target for creature attacks. It could all be dug out by morning. For sure if there’s an undetected rabbit in the yard, he will get those lettuce.

Needer, rabbit boy. I planted only three lettuce here and the others from the packs are off the ground in pots. The lone strawberry I purchased so far is in a pot. The three beets I purchased are in a big bowl that I can move into a shadier spot if need be.  I saw a recipe for pickled beets this morning by chance. Grow, little beets, grow!

Raking Out The Vegetable Garden 3/25/21

 The vegetable garden actually has a fair few perennials, but it keeps the name anyway.  I went out and raked most of the leaves out of the in ground beds and the raised beds.  

There are lots of things coming up!  Including my hollyhocks both purchased and grown from seed. I had Hollyhock fever last year.  Only one hollyhock, that I purchased, put out a tiny flower last season.  I have high hopes for this year.

Somehow, I'm also going to cram in sunflowers (which I've only grown successfully once).  Also, morning glories of various shades.

I wanted to be that person who got their peas and sweet peas planted by St. Patricks Day, but there was still ice and snow.  

All I did was uncover everything to warm the soil and provide my babies with more light and water from upcoming rains.  Tomorrow the weather should be fine again and I'll go out and bag up the leaves and cut back any dead foliage on the plants.

I'm pretty thrilled my strawberries seem to have filled in their area.  Last season they didn't produce much or look happy.  

Two blueberries I grew in pots last season went in the ground in the fall and they're budding!  They live!

Lovely Greens Planting Strawberries in a Pot

 

 I planted quite a few varieties of everbearing and June bearing Strawberries last year, hoping to get a nice ongoing collection of strawberries last season. I thought I was so clever, honestly, planting both, and planting them sort of thickly, to ensure some success.

Apparently I'm a strawberry fool, because only a few kept going, and we shall see what comes back in the spring.

Seeing this article by Lovely Greens on planting strawberries in pots revives my hopes I could have enough of a teeny harvest to make some strawberry preserves for my garden this year.  

https://lovelygreens.com/the-best-way-to-plant-a-strawberry-pot/

This is the sort of day we like to call "Spring"

Finally today the sun was shining and the horrid blasts of wind were gone.  I raked out more leaves and got them in my composter.  I have so many more leaves that I'm going to make a compost heap from green metal posts and chicken wire.

I ruthlessly chopped at two lilacs that were in my way.  I only need them to provide screening at about a 6 ft level, they aren't meant to be specimens.   I have about 20 lilacs still in the front yard so don't weep for my lilacs.

The Creature (my neighbor) was apparently spirited away to assisted living or something of that sort in the dead of winter.  I don't need to block her anymore but certainly someone will occupy the house sooner or later.

I'm putting in one each of dwarf Zestar and  dwarf Honeycrisp apple trees this spring and after looking up their growing requirements and ultimate size, I have spots picked out for them.

Also incoming are a red currant, a gooseberry and a "pink" blueberry.  Those I haven't quite placed in my mind yet.   I have two other blueberries I'm moving from their current locations.

A hydrangea that has bloomed perhaps twice?  Poof.   When I do a makeover, the scraggly get the boot.

Pruning isn't easy.  I don't seem to have much strength in my hands or arms so for a few of those branches I had to brace the pruner and do one of those "this is blah blah's head" things before really applying the pressure needed.   It's the thing you do when you can't open a jar, right?


Crocus happily un-leafed

I love strawberries and have had variable luck growing them.  I have some "Pineapple" Strawberries growing under lights.

This winter I went wild and ordered Jung's "Strawberry Pyramid" something I've secretly lusted after my whole gardening life.  If not now, when?

I have just the spot picked out.  I did not buy the netting cover kit or the winter cover kit but I might.
I haven't taken it out of the box because it is supposed to be a six foot circumference which means it is wound pretty darn tightly in its little box.