garden – Page 6 – linsenbardt.net

June 6, 2016

Garden Update: Early June

I’ve got a few things to cover here, so it may get kinda lengthy… The first thing that bears mention is the bees! We don’t have chickens here (yet…), but for the time-being, bees will be our means of extending this homesteading venture beyond growing stuff in the ground. Brooke ordered some bees a few months ago and they arrived in early-May. Since that time, we’ve largely left them alone, aside from giving them copious amounts of sugar water to keep them happy until more flowers are blooming. The hives are in the yucca plants underneath our maple trees near the garden, providing them with a decent amount of protection from the elements (more on that soon…). They don’t get a ton of sun, but I’ve trimmed the maple trees a bit to make sure they get it for at least an hour in the morning and in the evening. We’ll see how they do there, but right now, it seems like they get especially active in the early 10:00 hour and remain that way until the evening. In the picture above, Brooke was opening up the hive to make sure the queen was doing her job and, at least a few weeks ago, it seemed like comb was being laid and brood were present, so thus far, the bees appear to be doing their jobs!

Now, speaking of “protection from the elements…

Our ocean of bean plants... — Our ocean of bean plants…

A pretty big hail storm came through just before Memorial Day weekend. And by “huge,” I mean some pretty big hail. It was over golf ball size at our house, but larger stones fell just north of us. Thankfully, Brooke’s new car was on the other side of the state at the time and mine was in the garage…

The house is mostly undamaged, but we’ve got a few estimates coming in to see if we need to do anything. The garage roof needs to be replaced, but we need to look at just how much work we want to put into it right now.

Again, the bees were fine because of their placement under the trees, but the garden got hit pretty hard. Brooke had just planted green beans, soup beans, and soybeans in the garden plot above, where you see a small ocean forming.

Our tomatoes were mostly spared, but many of the milk jug covers were blown off as the storm came in. The unprotected plants were mostly decimated, but the ones that remained covered were fine. We lost a few plants, but the rest of them have bounced back pretty well by now. The peas got hit too, as they were probably the largest plants at the time. Since then, Brooke has harvested all the peas and pulled up the plants so we can make room for planting popcorn.

We still don’t feel like we’re getting all that many peas. This is the third time we’ve done it and it seems like we’re always getting enough peas for one or two meals. We can make green beans and soup beans like nobody’s business, but peas are always difficult for us. They tasted great last night! We just want more…

The carrots are looking good and probably need to get pulled soon. Again, the peas and radishes were to the left of the carrots, and we’re going to put some popcorn over there today or tomorrow. The weather looks to be getting pretty hot this week (highs in the low 90s), and no rain chance in sight, so we’ll get them planted and I’ll need to water them in the coming days.

We’ve been gone for the past few weekends, and any available time during the week has been taken up by Brooke traveling, or by rain, so we hadn’t planted the rest of the garden yet. Finally, yesterday, Brooke made some mounds next to the tomatoes where the pumpkins are going to go. This is a section of the garden that flooded last year, so we’re hoping the mounds keep the pumpkins out of the water better than the corn seeds were last year.

We’re also trying watermelons for the first time, but considering they were planted in early June, we probably won’t actually get any until September. Not exactly “prime watermelon season,” but hey…we’ll see what happens…

Thankfully, the beans survived the hail and flooding from last week! Since then, the green beans and soup beans all popped up and are looking great. The soybeans are moving a bit more slowly, but I think nearly all of those seeds popped out of the ground, too. We’re adding fewer green bean and soup bean plants than previous years because we’ve still got green beans canned from two summers ago. If the soybeans take off, we’ll probably keep using those in the coming years for edamame. Soybeans are good nitrogen-fixing plants, so we’ll rotate them around the gardens to maintain good soil health.

The herbs I planted in the plot in the background are kinda growing, but not all that well. Many of them got hit hard by the hail and a few of them weren’t looking great when we put them in the ground. We’ll just have to see how they turn out. In the extra patch to the right, Brooke planted some sunflowers yesterday. The bees will like them, too!

Lastly, I wanted to mention the hops we’re growing in Hannibal. Clearly they’re doing as well as they usually do! Mark and Diana got us a nice new vacuum sealer for Christmas this past year, so we’re looking forward to harvesting and saving some of these hops once they’re ready, hopefully earlier than we tend to harvest them.

...something's eating my hops...grrrrrr.... — …something’s eating my hops…grrrrrr….

Unlike previous years, though, it looks like somethings chewing on the leaves. I didn’t see anything obvious on them, but the evidence is pretty clear. I’m sure Mark will keep an eye on them, as he planted some new fruit trees near the hops, so he’ll be out there checking on everything frequently.

I think that’s about it for now! Lengthy post, lots of pictures…you know how it goes…

May 12, 2016

Garden Update: Early-May

Finally got the tomatoes in the ground... — Finally got the tomatoes in the ground…

First of all, let me say that it’s been a long time since I got anything posted up here, but now that school’s out for the summer, I should be able to post stuff more regularly.

Otherwise, it’s that time of year again when I start posting garden-related stuff. We’ve expanded into another section of the yard, but mostly I wanted to focus on what’s growing and what isn’t. Up top, we’ve moved the tomatoes to the larger plot this year. Last year, we went with a similar configuration, but had the two trellises really close to one another, not knowing how well the plants would do. Well, they did really well. Almost too well. To the point where light couldn’t get between the trellises. Thus, we’ve put them as far apart as possible and will likely not put anything between them. 19 different plants are in there right now, ranging from “slicer” tomatoes to “cherry” tomatoes to “heirloom” tomatoes.

Some carrots, peas...and weeds... — Some carrots, peas…and weeds…

The other plot we planted in turned out pretty good. The carrots are over-run with weeds and Brooke made a valiant effort (in the right foreground) to de-weed them. The peas are moving very slowly, but there are some buds on there, so perhaps we’ll get something. We dug up all the radishes on Tuesday night…

…and ended up with a solid haul. There are quite a few “heirloom”-type radishes in that mix that I haven’t tried yet, as they sure look awful “root-y” to me, but we’ll see. It was a mixed back of radish seeds, so we knew we’d end up with some different varieties. Still, we’ve got a few gallon-sized bags in the crispers to munch on for a bit.

The berry bushes have been doing remarkably well. We’ve seen some flowers on the blackberries for a few weeks now, while the raspberries are taking it a bit slower. There are some starts popping up, but compared to their nearby brethren, it may end up later in the season before we get anything from them.

All of our trees are doing well, too! We had to water them quite a bit early on, but it’s been rainy these last few weeks, so it hasn’t been quite as essential. All of the tree varieties have leaves on them, though the pear trees are moving slower than the others. The almond tree is probably doing “the best,” but the apple trees are close behind.

Lastly, I wanted to mention the back of the house, which is a bit more manicured than it was at this time last year. I’ve been using some herbicides on the left-hand mulch to prevent stuff from popping up, so that’s making it stay pretty clean. We were initially going to try and remove all those hostas, but we changed our minds and we’ll just have to remove the weeds from around them by hand. We’ve also got some concrete bricks lining that bed now, so it looks just a little bit nicer.

I don’t have much going on this summer, so I’m hoping to get a lot more gardening in. More posts to come!

February 21, 2016

Knocking on wood…

It's February. Seriously. — It’s February. Seriously.

I know it’s been awhile since I posted anything, but this particular post has been bouncing around for a bit and I didn’t want to jinx anything.

So far this season, “sickness” has passed us by. This isn’t to say we haven’t felt ill or anything, but the week-long, knock-out D.B.D. that we tend to experience each Winter has, thus far, eluded us. Meg had a bout of strep throat two weeks ago that kept her out of school for 3 days, but the antibiotics took care of it, and really, by the third day, she was back to normal and just couldn’t go to school.

Calvin, somehow, hasn’t really come down with anything. He’s had a lot of gunk in his eyes the last few days, but that’s begun to subside. It was probably connected with the runny nose he’s had, but again, nothing to keep him from school. Thus far, he hasn’t missed any days because he’s been sick, which is craziness compared to the last few Winters.

I can only assume that he’s been infected by literally all childhood diseases at this point and he’s now built up an immunity.

Regardless, we’ve been pretty good on the illness front. Even Brooke and I have resisted sickness pretty well, with the exception of the odd runny nose and headache.

The weather is the other story of the season, where we had a high of 72 F yesterday. On February 20th. In Missouri. It was nice enough late this week that I pulled out the bike trailer and hooked it up to take the kids to the park on Thursday and Friday (pictured above). Yesterday, since the sun was out and the temperature broached the 70 F mark, we went out to the garden and started working the soil a bit.

There's Calvin..."helping"... — There’s Calvin…”helping”…

Brooke went ahead and started on the new garden plot, a third one to complement the other two we made last year. She nearly completed it too, as the ground was soft enough to work efficiently and turn it over in a few hours that morning. I turned over about half the old, large plot to prepare the way for some carrots, radishes and peas Brooke wants to get started with. The weather should be in the 50 F range this week, so while it’s going to get colder again, I’m hopeful I’ll have at least one warmer day over Spring Break in a few weeks so I can get out there and turn over more of the garden.

It's mostly herbs. I promise. — It’s mostly herbs. I promise.

For now, Brooke started up her seed warmer and a lamp down in the cellar. So far, she’s got mostly herbs planted, as well as peppers, tomatoes and some flowers. This is a bit sooner than she started them last year, and we had them on the back porch last year, where the temperatures got a bit hotter earlier than we expected. Hopefully, the cellar will maintain it’s temperature better and the seeds will be a bit happier.

Feels like Spring is just around the corner!

November 10, 2015

Garden Update: Early-November

Them's some sweet potatoes... — Them’s some sweet potatoes…

I’ve got a few posts rolling around in my head but, frankly, I just haven’t had much time recently. Midterms were a few weeks ago and I gave 3 exams last Friday, so now that I have a window of downtime, here’s the last bit of updating for the garden.

Brooke gave up on the tomatoes weeks ago, after she crossed the at least 40 pint line for tomato sauce. Seriously, that last batch of tomato sauce she made was a slog – I could tell she was totally done with tomatoes for the year.

But at the time, we still wanted to wait for the sweet potatoes. Finally, just after Halloween, Brooke pulled out the potato crop to see what we ended up with. Not too bad, but I don’t think we got as much as we did in Iowa. Still, for our purposes, it was still a pretty good haul.

...the potatoes in our garden basket... — …the potatoes in our garden basket…

We haven’t tried eating any yet, but have no reason to think they won’t be solid. Brooke’s busy processing pears from my aunt and uncle’s house, so these things aren’t exactly a priority.

Still, just wanted to post this for posterity’s sake. We’ll probably plant some again next year, so we want to remember how many we got this year!

October 9, 2015October 9, 2015

Garden Update: Early October

This will be relatively short, but as I’ve been posting about this all summer (and now Fall), I figured I should present the aftermath of a relatively successful first year with the garden.

Clearly, the main garden is mostly dead. There’s some broccoli struggling to survive, but that’s about it. As you can see, though, the corn stalks have been pulled down (and re-ordered into decorations for our upcoming Oktoberfest party), and the pumpkins have all died off. We ended up with something around 12 pumpkins, but only 4 of them survived to be useful. The rest were chewed on by beetles, so we may need to do a bit more proactive spraying next year.

Slowly dying...still... — Slowly dying…still…

The tomatoes and peppers, on the other hand, are shockingly still producing! They’re looking a bit saggy, but that’s more because they’re still growing and I’m not trimming them or tying them up. There are absolutely some areas of death and destruction, however, as leaves continue to die off due to a lack of water.

The picture just above this one shows a little bit of the dying leaves in the middle of that dense forest, but still, there’s plenty of green still in there. As of today, we haven’t had a frost yet, so the tomatoes are still coming on and there are still flowers on some of the plants. Even some of the peppers we planted, that hadn’t made anything yet, have finally put on some full-size veggies for us to pluck.

I think Brooke’s generally tired of canning tomatoes already, so I haven’t bothered to pick the really tiny ones anymore. I’m still grabbing the larger ones as they slowly develop, and as you can see above, there are some pretty big ones in there that are finally turning red. I pick them when they’re starting to turn so we can keep them protected inside.

As of right now, Brooke’s canned about 24 pints of tomatoes, and there’s still quite a few bags left in the freezer to be canned (she thinks another 15 pints or so) after we’ve got more batches like these accumulated.

So ultimately, not too bad for our first year’s harvest! We still haven’t dug up the sweet potatoes, so I’ll likely do a post on that yet. Surely they’re done, but with the party coming up, we didn’t want to disturb that area of the yard with a ton of digging. Soon, though!

September 1, 2015

Garden Update: Late-August

Yeah, I know, it’s technically September now. Whatever.

The main garden has looked like this for a few weeks now. Brooke pulled out the green beans a few weeks ago and the corn has been done for awhile (we ended up with 24 pint jars, a few quart-size bags we gave to others, and a decent amount we could eat on at dinner – not bad for a first year). We didn’t end up with much corn, sadly. Some of the ears were actually pretty good, while others were under-developed or pre-chewed by insects.

In total, I’d say we had less than 15 ears out of our 3 rows of corn. Some of the plants never quite finished up. The ears we did get tasted sweet, yet the overall texture of the corn was a bit tougher than we’d prefer. Still, Brooke turned it into a corn casserole and it was absolutely edible. Not the greatest, but functional.

The pumpkins also finally did something. Brooke planted pie pumpkins, so they’re smaller than regular, Halloween-style carving pumpkins. So far, we’ve got 3, with at least a few more still green on the vine that we’re nursing along.

No word on how they taste, but we wanted to pick them because a). they looked done, and b). beetles have started showing up, so we were afraid they’d chew into the stem and ruin the pumpkins. We’re thinking pumpkins are a safe bet for future planting, and had we planted them sooner (and watered, like, at all), perhaps we’d have even more.

The tomatoes kinda took over... — The tomatoes kinda took over…

We’ve had to keep trimming the tomatoes to limit their growth. I think our trellis system has worked pretty well, but putting the trellises close together has meant that it is kept pretty shady in between them. I’ve trimmed them since this picture was taken, so more tomatoes have started finally turning red. Not a ton yet, sadly.

That's about it, so far... — That’s about it, so far…

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got a decent number, and we’ve had more than a few good slicing tomatoes. We just haven’t had a huge number of them develop all at once to make it worth Brooke fire up the oven to process and can them. We’ve got lots of little tiny ones still, too, which are great in salads and eating individually, but again, you don’t get much sauce from them. We’ve been trying to water them a bit more judiciously in hopes of keeping them alive long enough to keep developing.

One thing worth mentioning, for posterity, is that we were able to turn our A/C off for the last two weeks. You know, prime tomato-ripening weather? In August? Yeah, didn’t have much of it. Lots of green tomatoes and no hot weather to turn ’em red. Thankfully, it’s 90 F outside again, and it should remain that way at least through this week. I was just out there watering and saw quite a few more red tomatoes, so perhaps we’re finally getting to the point where we’ll get something out of it.

Lastly, the sweet potatoes are still truckin’ along. No actual sweet potatoes to show, but the plants have certainly gotten larger!

Vines that are hopefully attached to sweet potatoes...somewhere... — Vines that are hopefully attached to sweet potatoes…somewhere…

Hopefully the next post on this subject will be the last one until next year! Still some work to do…

July 18, 2015July 18, 2015

Garden Update: Mid-July

We came back from our vacation and the garden was, shockingly, not destroyed. Definitely quite a few weeds in there that we need to take care of, but I bet it’d be worse if I hadn’t been putting grass clippings in open areas.

As you can see above (shaded, so perhaps not that easy to see…), the corn is tasseling and we’ve got a few other small rows of corn popping up. The stalks aren’t all that all, but we’ve got some ears showing up. Also, the green beans have some pickable veggies ready to go. We’ll probably pick those and eat some in the coming nights, though Brooke wants to wait on some until they get bigger before she cans some.

We picked some of the broccoli before we left and had some. Not bad! Kinda “gamey,” perhaps? Difficult to describe, but not quite what I would expect if I were picking up a head from the store. You can see another head in the picture above, but it’s flowering, so probably won’t taste all that good.

Also, you’ll notice the pumpkins proliferating and vining. We don’t see any buds on them yet, but they’re looking pretty good!

Mom was wondering about the soup beans, so here’s a picture… I don’t see many buds yet, but like the pumpkins, the vines are really taking off, so it shouldn’t be much longer!

Now that the sun has finally returned to Missouri and the rain clouds have slowed down a bit, the tomatoes are starting to take off. There are three plants in the foreground (that we thought were peppers…), and all the plants on the trellises. The three remaining pepper plants are still pretty tiny, so I’m not getting my hopes up for them, unfortunately.

The tomatoes, however, have quite a few flowers on them…

…and we even have some actual, legit, tomatoes on there! Totally green still, but they’re getting to a good size. Not very many yet, but we’re hopeful that the July heat (that, literally, started last weekend…as in, we hadn’t seen 90+ F temps until last week…which is crazy for July…) will start to move the tomatoes further.

More later!

July 2, 2015

Garden Update: Early-July

Main view of the garden — Generic garden shot

Just a brief update about the garden, as it’s been a few weeks. We’re making more progress getting the concrete bricks lined around the plot(s) and hope to have most of them surrounded in the coming days. Brooke picked the peas and dug up the carrots a few weeks ago and planted more corn in its place. However, the rain over the past few weeks has been ridiculous. Literally, 4 in of rain fell in 2 hrs one night last week, leaving a lake where the new corn was just about to come up in the garden. Thankfully, it looks like at least some of the sprouts survived and we’ve got plants coming up…

Also, the green beans and soup beans are coming up well, with buds on the green beans already.

IMG_20150702_125658840 — From left-to-right: green beans, pumpkins, broccoli. Soup beans in back.

In the middle of the shot above, Brooke’s got some pumpkins growing. After the massive rainfall, they actually took off surprisingly well. She’s got 6 pumpkin plants in right now, and obviously they won’t be making much for awhile.

This is probably the most success we’ve had with broccoli. We tried it in Iowa and got a little out of it, but the heads we’ve got right now are already looking larger than we remember from before. It’s a bit late for broccoli, we think, so we aren’t sure we’ll actually end up with anything, but it looks good, at least…

The tomatoes are coming in pretty well, too. Really, the one side is taking off, while the other (in the back) is moving a bit more slowly. The ones in the forefront were in the ground sooner and were also larger when they went in, so it isn’t surprising.

More impressively, this is the first time we’ve successfully grown tomato plants from seeds. Brooke got them started on our back porch months ago and they’re doing pretty well! We’ve also got flowers on at least one plant. I suspect we’ll have them showing up on more soon.

The berry bushes are moving slowly. We don’t expect to get much out of them this year, though at least one bush has already produced some berries. We put some mulch around them to make mowing a bit easier, as they’re taking their sweet time in betting big enough for me to see, but they’re moving along. Next year, perhaps…

The sweet potatoes are also going a bit slowly. We don’t really remember how quickly they went last year, but by the time we moved from St. Louis, it was like they’d taken over our garden. It feels like they should be further along than they are, but oh well…they’re doing something…

Probably enough for now. Hopefully by the time we get back from our vacation, we’ll have something to harvest! …more likely, we’ll have tons of weeds…

June 10, 2015June 13, 2018

Garden Update: Mid-June

The main garden area... — The main garden area…

It’s about time I updated everyone on how the garden’s going. Again, we bought this place with the intention of taking advantage of the extra lot next door to the house with growing some fruits and vegetables, so we’ve been busy trying to get that going.

I say “trying” because rain has been something of an issue. It seems like Marshall has been getting the brunt of the weather these past few weeks, with at least 10 inches falling since the last few weeks of May. It has slowed down this week, though, giving us a chance to get some work done and let the sun come out to do its thing.

In the picture above, you can see the green beans pretty plainly in the middle of the garden. Soup beans are planted in the bottom-left, and broccoli is slowly making headway in the upper-left. The far-right has peas that are ready for picking, so we’ve been working on those a bit recently. Our neighbors have been picking theirs for at least a week now, but they planted a bit earlier than we did. The carrots have been in the ground about as long as the peas, though they still seem a bit on the small side.

Brooke also planted a row of corn where the radishes used to be. I say “used to” because I pulled them up a few weeks ago. Of all the things we planted, they were the only ones to really adhere to their prescribed schedule. They grew pretty well, incidentally, as we got quite a few big ones!

Yes, that's a radish. — Yes, that’s a radish.

That row of radishes turned out pretty well, so I suspect we’ll move forward with them again next year, even though I’m about the only one in the house that likes them (Brooke will eat them on salads…Calvin just spits them out…).

In the background of the picture far above, you’ll also see an A-frame of sorts, where Brooke planted some sweet potatoes. We haven’t grown any since we were up in Iowa, when Meg would eat them constantly. We’ll see if we’re as successful this time around – at least we can make fries out of them…

Tomatoes and berry bushes... — Tomatoes and berry bushes…

The other garden plot still needs some work, obviously. Lots of weeds growing in the front portion (where we still plan on putting some green pepper plants), but we finally got the tomatoes in a few weeks ago. Brooke started most of them as seeds on our back porch using a heating pad she picked up from Menard’s, but I supplemented with some plants I stole from students at school (they left for summer…oh well…). A few of those plants disappeared, likely due to rabbits or squirrels, so we’re having to keep them protected with milk jugs until they get big enough.

You’ll also notice the trellises we set up between rows of tomatoes. We’ve tried a few different methods in the past and have never been all that happy with any of them. Before we moved last year, we tried making A-frames using PVC pipes. That generally worked, but a). the middle of the A-frame got zero sun, so no tomatoes grew, and b). we moved before we actually got to harvest anything…grrrr… This time, we spaced things out a bit more and made two trellises, so we’ll see how they hold up.

In the background, you’ll also see a white frame where blackberries and raspberries have been planted. I suspect we’ve got critters munching on them as well, but we weren’t expecting to get much out of those plants this year, anyway. At least their root systems will get established this summer.

Lastly, in the top picture, you’ll notice we’re slowly surrounding the garden(s) with concrete blocks. We’ve been making them using disposable aluminum cooking trays with leftover Quickrete from our other long-term project:

The concrete path we're making to the side of the house. — The concrete path we’re making to the side of the house.

We debated how to handle this, exactly, and went back and forth between stone pavers, a mulch path, and everything in between. The problem with that spot is that grass doesn’t really grow there, tree roots are all over the place, and it gets really muddy after it rains at all. So, we needed some kind of pathway to get from our backyard down to the side area where the garden is.

Brooke eventually found a concrete form that lets you make individual stones from Quickrete, so we’ve been slowly grabbing (heavy) bags and making stones when we get a chance (or when the sun comes out…which, again, has been an issue…). It’s coming along alright, though the pathway isn’t exactly “uniform” in how each stone looks. Once we’re done, we’ll spread some sand around it and try to fill in some of the gaps to make it look like they’ve been there awhile, or so they’re more integrated into the dirt.

I think that’s plenty for now! I’m just hoping those tomatoes get going soon…getting hungry…

April 10, 2015April 10, 2015

The New Garden

When we were looking for houses last summer, the building itself definitely caught our eye, but the extra lot next to the house was the real selling point. If we weren’t going to live further out in the countryside, we’d at least like to have the space to grow a metric ton of produce and still have chickens like we’d had in St. Louis and Iowa.

We tried killing off some of the grass over the winter by covering patches of the property with large tarps, yet all that seemed to do was store leaves, sticks and live grass for the spring. In the end, we ended up borrowing our neighbors front-tine tiller and renting a rear-tine tiller to get a bit deeper and pull all the sod off. Though we’re still dealing with some grass trying to reclaim their previous home, the tilling generally worked alright. We’ve currently put in two plots: one larger, the other smaller. Next year, we’ll add another plot that’s the same size as the larger one, but for now, we figured we should start with something manageable.

So far, Brooke has planted peas and carrots, with radishes yet to go in this weekend. We didn’t have much luck with peas up in Iowa, but we’re hopeful that planting them a bit earlier will make a difference.

Ultimately, we’ll put corn, green beans, soup beans, tomatoes, and peppers in the ground between the two plots currently dug out. A third plot will go in next year, but more on that in a bit…

Brooke also set up the cold frame we picked up at an end-of-the-season sale in Iowa, this time with lettuce and spinach. We tried putting herbs in it in St. Louis, but didn’t find much success. I think we got a little lettuce out of it, but probably not much beyond the paltry salad or two. Based on our current trajectory, I think we’re off to a better start…

As I said, we’ve got two plots going right now: one larger, one smaller. The larger one will be replicated next year, giving us two of the same size. The smaller one, however, will live on its lonesome, and in its twin’s place, we’ll put in some bushes. That is, we already have put in some bushes, but more will likely grace that location in the future. Currently, raspberries and blackberries are already in, some of which we may already harvest by the end of this year, yet we suspect it won’t be until at least next year when we start getting enough to write home about. Ultimately, we’ll probably put some hops there and maybe some other bushes. Brooke also has some blueberry bushes to put in, but we haven’t decided if they’ll go in this plot, or if we’ll put them somewhere else.

We haven’t picked them up yet, but we’re also planning on putting some fruit trees closer to the road, at the far side of the first image posted above. Cherries, apples, and quince are currently on the docket, though we may add another (pears?). I’d never heard of quince until last year, but apparently they’re a fruit you wouldn’t necessarily want to take a bite out of, yet they have high concentrations of pectin, meaning that you could add quince to your preserves to somewhat naturally produce jellies and jams, among other things. Seems interesting, at least, and they should do fine in our climate.

Other than that, I’m all for adding more garden space. The more the merrier.

Less space for me to mow…