The spring in a few posts

Last year I finally planted strawberries after many suggestions from the non-weeders. This year, sure enought---lots of strawberrries. I think we would have had more, but I didn't put clean straw on in the spring (at least I'm guessing that's why so many rotted). Despite the losses, we had two cups of strawberries very day for a week and are still getting about one cut every other day. And that's only after one year!

Of course, I had to put netting over the raised bed. That was after the first 6-8 berries that ripened were hit by birds (I know because I saw them.) Fortunately, this is much easier than for blueberries.

Strawberries! Notice the netting.

I had tried seeing if my (incompletely grown) kale and kholrabi would overwinter. However, all of the plants bolted once the weather got nicer. So that experiment didn't work too well.

This year: I put in a 3'x3' raised bed for asparagus. Followed the directions---and, for the longest time, nothing. However, I just today saw the ninth and final plant starting to grow, so it looks like we will have asparagus in the future. Although we may have to wait another year or two.

A New Season (But Blogged Late)

Actually, I began gardening back in January when I tried planting some onion seeds. And I resolved to post to the blog...and didn't.

The onion seeds did not work nearly was well as I hoped. I got plants in only about 1/3 of the pots, and since I put several seeds in each pot, the germination rate was a lot lower than that. I'll have to reconsider this for next year.

The result: I have about 20 onions from seed and the rest---30-40---from sets, like I've done before.

On the other hand, the garlic looks great. I've planted both garlic and onions much closer than before, and this seem to be just fine (we'll see come June and July, of course).

And the kholrabi and kale I left to overwinter? They bolted before producing anything worthwhile. That's another failed experiment.

On the positive side, I put in three currant bushes and they seem to have been established. And the fig and grape survived the winter, too.

I think those are going to be bunches of grapes!