Category Archives: garden

Staging for the daily cauldron of fruit.

It’s on my list but I still haven’t replaced my trail cam so if I can’t see what’s going on out there — maybe nothing is going on out there.

Wrong.

Sadly, the deer have returned. I don’t know how many or for how long but I definitely could tell that my poor little Asian plum tree served as major snack material. There were pieces of tree on the ground. There were deep divots from those cloven hooves. No turds though!

I can see where someone snacked on the apple tree, as well, but the apple tree is more established (relatively) and the damage didn’t look as bad.

I don’t care if they eat roses like some people. Eat the roses! The rosemary is giant — try that. There’s some green weedy stuff that might be delicious if they would just try it. I guess I should be careful what I wish for. Now I know they at least one of them is still alive and roving about the neighborhood.

This weekend I picked beets that I slow roasted with shallots. Delicious! I also picked peas. The peas are insane. I’ve never had such healthy plants so I planted them way too close together. It’s a mass of pea plants and a chore to poke around in there and try to find all the peas.

We had risotto with fresh peas that came out pretty good but I need to refine my technique. I am hoping to make some pasta with fresh peas and I already threw some in the freezer.

The berries are coming on but still manageable. I’ve never had so many of the everbearing before and some healthy looking red raspberries are starting now, too.

The brand new strawberries that looked like little dirty roots when they arrived are already making strawberries. To be honest, they aren’t that flavorful and have a slightly spongy texture, but it’s still early. Some sunshine and I bet these are terrific.

This is my berry patch. It was so dense last summer that berry picking felt dangerous. My arms always had scratches on them.

I discovered something called thornless berries and immediately ordered 2 plants. At some point, early spring?, I severely whacked back the berry patch. I cut lots of canes and I dug up lots of canes. I wish I’d take an picture but the patch looked so sad and bare.

I’m very greedy about my garden and hate discouraging anything but I wanted room for the new berries and I figured I could live one year with a light crop.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.

It’s like the berries were never happier. Look at this. It is a mass of forming berries.

And look how long the patch is. I checked on my two new plants and they are hanging in there, poor little babies amongst these tall, established vines. I expect to be begging my neighbors to take berries, too. What an amazing problem to have.

Two years ago I started pruning my blueberries as well. They love it, too. I think there’s a lesson to be learned.

Berries never go to waste. We eat a ton. We freeze a ton. Last year I made a lot of jam but we don’t eat it fast enough so not sure jam will save us this year. We’ll share these, too.

(Somehow I wrote the blog for New Orleans Last Day and never posted it. Oops!! That’s why there are going to be a couple posts close together.)

The garden is bursting at the seams. I’ve always wanted a magical backyard and I feel like I am starting to achieve that.

These are the peas. I felt like I was really holding back and just planting a reasonable amount. But everything came up and came up hearty and that is a pea bush. You can’t really see but there are some lettuce plants in between because it seemed like there was extra room in there.

The raised beds are magic.

Here’s some more lettuce. Lettuce is another crop that I felt I really held back and only planted a few seeds. I’m so accustomed to pitiful returns that this whole thing has been quite educational.

I am still giving away lettuce and making new friends wherever I can. There’s a neighborhood association meeting next week and I’m bringing lettuce.

I have 4 tomatoes in the raised beds and I look forward to complaining about too many tomatoes.

Apples! Last year the deer visited during apple blossom time and filled their adorable bellies with all my future apples.

I haven’t see a trace of the deer in quite some time and worry for their health and well being.

But, I am also happy for my yard. Now there are so many apples that the whole tree is going to collapse. I need to keep an eye on them and thin them out when the time comes. I also need some help propping it up.

Honey pears! I love how they grow upside down at first. The pear tree is still pretty scrawny and there are only few pears, maybe 8, but I am still going to keep a close eye on it. Last year we had only 2 or 3 and they were small pears but we enjoyed every little bite.

This is a project that has lived in my head as an idea for many years and I would do a little bit here and a little bit there to prep but never took it seriously until last year I bought the raised beds.

Here is the dirt delivery. It’s a lot but not quite as scary as what I imagined.

I had only set up two raised beds and sort-of decided to sell the other two. But the minimum dirt order was so big, I started assembling the other two.

As I described when I got them they come in 12 pieces, each specially shrink wrapped in a kind of taped/plastic film and plus 60 (?) fasteners? It takes a couple of hours to put one together.

There is a lot going on right now. My weekdays are wall-to-wall and exhausting. My weekend days are differently wall-to-wall and busy. I was picking away at getting that last bed put together.

We enlisted help to get the dirt moved from the front to the back. If I did it by myself I wouldn’t be done until the end of the summer. Bob texted me on Friday morning that they were on their way.

I put my work clothes on and ran out to get that last one finished and ready.

Remember last year when I raked leaves and filled the beds? We transferred some of those leaves to the new beds and then spread the dirt on.

Look how pretty they look! Plus there was leftover dirt. I put a healthy layer on my berry patch (not pictured) and planted a couple of new berries I bought.

The rest is under a tarp for when I have time to deal with it later. I also planted a number of strawberry plants that I bought last year and just arrived.

Today I have a little time and hope to get a few more seeds in the ground. I love being outside in the dirt but it’s hard to balance with all the other things I have going on.

We had a couple of unseasonably warm weather this weekend and I jumped on the opportunity to get some work done in the yard. I came *this* close to asking colleague if I could grab the rototiller before he went on vacation and then I thought: It’s February. Don’t be ridiculous. Now I wish I did.

This is the current scene out there.

I cleaned up a bunch of old debris that’s been sitting there all winter. I put some of the bird feeders away.

Out front I cleaned up the roses.

I also went to the garden store to talk about getting some soil for my raised beds.

The minimum for delivery is a huge amount. I had talked myself out of putting up the other two raised beds but now that I have a mountain of soil being delivered I really need to get those set up. I’m also borrowing some wheelbarrows and we’ve recruited some helpers to get the soil moved to the backyard.

More photos when we’re on that project.