Strawberries!

As I mentioned before, our strawberry plants went insane. Went from having 4 to 40+. I even gave a few away. The June Bearing variety are ripening up nicely, while the Ever-Bearing still has a little more to go.

Here are pictures of the patch and the first picked berries (5/25/09). And boy, ARE THEY GOOD!


Before & After!


Now here are pictures from today, a week later:

And just as many will be ripe enough to pick tomorrow! I love summer!

We put a net over the patch due to only getting one half-ripe berry last year, before some creature ate them all*. We have a rabbit under the tree, but I have a feeling it was a mole last year that had a hole near the patch. Along with Grammie's plastic owl, these seem to be successful against curious critters this year.

*Well, it would rip it off the plant, and then leave it with a bite mark- not even eating it- just to mock us!

The Return of the Garden

It's gardening time again, so I suspect that will push me to keep up here!

Let's keep this post basic! Here is what the garden has done BY ITSELF over the winter and spring:



-The strawberries came back in full force. Strawberries are really a weed that we actually like! We planted 4 plants last year. There are over 40 now.
-The sage bush has taken over the entire herb area. It will definitely be getting cut back this fall! Thyme doubled in size, but is over shadowed by the sage.
-The blackberry bush has also gotten much bigger.
-The spinach that did not survive at all last year, is nice and hardy now!
-The lettuce that bolted while we were on vacation left its mark with some nice fresh Spring lettuce for us!
-Cat nip survived winter in their tiny pots are are regrowing now.

On Memorial Day (May 25) we planted more goodies!



In addition to the plants listed above, we now have:
sweet basil, small yellow onions, red Chieftan potatoes, eggplant ("little fingers"), orange bell pepper, red bell pepper, Tokyo long white onions, broccoli ("Packman"), zucchini, rainbow swiss chard, and a roma tomato plant.

It's been a week since we planted them and they are really doing well- especially with these on/off storms!


June 1

The sage flowers are really pretty and the honey bees love them too. I cut some stems and brought it in as a bouquet!

Close ups:



Broccoli, red leaf lettuce, swiss chard, strawberries (more in next post).

And just for your reference, the layout plan: