We've been busy farming. Well, you know, gardening. Digging and amending and planting things. We put in fifty square feet of blueberries and fifty of black currants, prepared a hundred square feet for strawberries and planted a little more than half of them. We did a lot of groaning and I took a lot of hot baths. My muscles still hurt.
Next is planting the rest of those strawberries. And a modest already-prepped bed of snap peas. And prepping and planting fifty-or-so square feet of raspberries. And I'm thinking of buying some blue honeysuckle/honeyberry and alpine strawberries for the half-shade corner; shade fruit seems like cheating, in a delightful sort of way.
We're spreading great swaths of landscape fabric or weed paper over most of this, and even bigger oceans of plastic over the areas that we're not planting yet. The number of square feet that I have to hand-weed will be very small...if the landscape fabric and weed paper work, which isn't guaranteed.
So you see why I'm too tired to write. Mostly.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
yum, berries
ReplyDeletelucky you being able to garden in February! Our last frost day is in mid-May, and the ground has been to frozen most of the time to do anything (we have had a few days of rain, but then the ground has been freezy-sodden)
No gardening here either, also for weather reasons. The snowdrops are peeking coyly up through the soil - it's my first year here, so I never know what to expect next, plantwise! - but it is not very clement for gardening.
ReplyDeleteAre you going to sell what is shaping up to be a vast crop of produce?
I hope we get beautiful photos of strawberries and blueberries soon enough. I love snap peas. That all sounds like the good kind of muscle ache, if there is such a thing. Have some tea and another hot bath my friend.
ReplyDeleteYo, Carol! Our last frost day is yet to come, but, yeah, we've had plenty of well-above-freezing days. I'm fairly sure that the lack of sodden ground and lack of snow should worry me, in terms of water later, but it's certainly convenient right now.
ReplyDeleteHowdy, Vanessa! Ooh, snowdrops. Our crocuses seem to be having an extra-happy year - it looks like they multiplied last year.
ReplyDeleteNo; we'll probably give any extra away to friends or food banks or gleaners. Apparently we are zoned for agriculture (which is startling), but someone with my Postal Regulation Phobia would insist on arranging fat folders full of licensing and insurance before selling so much as a blueberry. :)
Yo, Melody! I'm trying to remember to do a series of progressive Before To After photos. We'll see if I actually do. :)
ReplyDeleteYep, they are in a way pleasant muscle aches (we repeated the exercise today) except when I first get up out of a chair and my feet object. :)