Despite most people on my Facebook feed complaining about snow, hail, or overall just cold weather, we have had gorgeous weather up here. We had a few days of really heavy rain but otherwise lots and lots of sunshine and warm weather. We were out gardening in t-shirts most of today.
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Our trees and berry bushes from last year are all starting to bud or bloom and seem to be doing really well so far. We have bought more to plant this year. We made a new bed along our fence and plan to extend it along the entire length of the fence. It will be mostly for berry bushes and companion perennials. The part we’ve done so far has grapes, asparagus, and strawberries.
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We have planted tons of strawberries this year. We had lots last year too, but have added to them again this year. We’ve also planted more raspberry canes. Last year we ate most of our berries as fast as they ripened, and ended up buying local berries to freeze for the winter. (We still have some of the berries we froze, and it’s been really great having such fresh-tasting fruit all winter!) We also have new boysenberry, blackberry, and more blueberry bushes for this year.
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We’ve added a few extra beds to our annual vegetable garden area as well. I planted peas before we did so, so now the peas are in front of the new sections, but none of the peas I planted this year are particularly tall growing varieties so I’m not overly concerned.
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We’ve been preparing the beds since February, and so they have manure and fertilizer and compost, depending on what we had decided to plant in each one. A few of the ones which won’t be planted until May we sowed some green manures in and will just let that grow until closer to when we need the beds ready. The wooden frames standing up in the picture above are pea trellises Kris built. They are overkill for the pea varieties we will have this year but will be nice if we do taller ones another year. I’m thinking of maybe adapting them for tomatoes if the peas are done being harvested in time.
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Our potatoes are all planted. I dug trenches this year, and will slowly fill them in as the potatoes grow.
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Meredith has taken a huge interest in the garden this year, especially in regards to herbs and medicinal plants. She’s been reading some books about herb fairies, and loves them. One of the fairies is Rosa, who uses rose hips medicinally and for nutrition. We’ve planted a couple of rose bushes at her request.
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She also has her own bed in our garden, and wanted to plant lots of peas, a few potatoes, and some flowers and herbs. It’s mostly planted now, though there are a few things that will need to go in once it’s a bit warmer.
And last but not least, Kris built an awesome new compost bin for us. So much bigger and more practical than our old one. The boards in front can all come off, one at a time, to make it easy to shovel stuff in and out.
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I can’t wait to see how everything grows. This is such a fun time of year!
