Spring is Bursting in the Garden

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A lot has happened in the garden. The trees are gone and there is more sunlight all around. I’ve planted 2 blackberries, 3 elderberries, 50 strawberries, 4 rosas, 2 hazels, 2 serviceberries, 1 jostaberry, 2 peashrubs, 4 muntead lavender, 8 grapes, 4 wormwoods and 1 witchhazel. I’ve put in 90% of my veggie transplants, now it’s just the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. I’ve filled three beds with potatoes. I’m also filling up the herb bed up front with interesting medicinal herbs. I’m fixing the fence around the veg garden and making trellises. I’m predicting a hot and dry summer, so I’ve also been mulching, mulching, mulching.

A lot of the new activity happens down the hill, near the street. Neighbors drive by and slow down, as they usually do (sometimes to wave, sometimes to ponder me doing my bee hive dance), but now they stop and roll down the window and chat. Many are asking why we took down the trees, and I’m sure we’ll have more enthusiasts coming by once the solar PV comes up. They ask what bushes I am planting (down here? Elderberry, jostaberry, serviceberry,witch hazel, all of which like it moist) and what mulch I’m using (first, a top dressing of compost, then a thick band of shredded leaf mulch. I like it, chatting with the neighbors about the garden, the food. I sincerely hope we can get that bottom area done this Summer.

That brings us to the still to do’s, some big, some bigger:

1. receive and plant sweet potatoes and sunchokes, for which latter I need to dig and make a raised bed. The former go into containers, which I plan to put up so the vines can trail down.
2. move and fix hoophouse, plant peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants in it.
3. dig trench for roof-runoff into pond, dig and plant pond.
4. terrace the slope path up front (too much erosion, grass seed washes away.
5. tackle front garden: raised beds with flowers, perennials, more bushes, paths with grass, central area for meeting.
6. install drip irrigation in veg garden.
7. as soon as the pile of wood is sawed up, split and stacked, the whole area called “woods” next to the driveway opens up for more bushes and dwarf fruit trees. First up: work on soil there.
8. saw up, split and stack that pile of wood.
9. solar PV installation (still waiting for the go-ahead from the state).
10. and, if there is money and energy left, get those chickens!