As the Garden Grows

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The Garden is Thriving

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Yes I’m still neglecting my garden, but it truly is thriving despite the lack of care. I’ve been so ill the last few days I haven’t been able to do much more than look out the window at all the buds developing on the roses and other flowers.

Luckily I’m married. My husband has been watering the garden every few days, and other than the pruning that I so desperately need to do on half my roses, the watering seems to be all that needs to be done.

Everything is covered in buds or is blooming. Two of my clematis, well two that I’ve noticed so far, possibly there’s more, are blooming! I ate my first homegrown strawberry of the season a little while ago too.

We’re expecting rain later today, and tomorrow. Possibly thunderstorms. I’m sure the garden will be overgrown soon if I don’t get out there and start trimming.






Raspberries

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Did I tell you that I grow raspberries?

Fresh Raspberries Now doesn’t that look yummy?

The raspberry bushes are one of the few plants left in the yard by the original owners. I’ve changed pretty much everything else. Well, there wasn’t much to begin with, but I knew during that first summer, as I picked a colander full of raspberries almost each day, that the most of the bushes would be staying.

Originally, there had been perhaps more than 50 raspberry bushes in the back right hand corner of the yard. Lovely for the fruity benefits, but not so great when I decided to landscape during the spring of 2002 in order to begin my lovely rose garden. I only left about 15 plants when I created what is now my raised garden beds. In the years since, the plants have started to multiply, and I think there are likely 25 bushes out there.

Growing Raspberries:

Would you like to grow your own raspberries in your yard? Here’s how.

Nothing caps a summer evening better than a raspberry smoothie, or a bowl of fresh raspberries and cream. Ripe berries sprinkled on cereal in the morning is always nice too. Because of their delicious uses and ease of growing, the perennial raspberry ought to be in every garden.

The most commonly grown raspberry is the red, but the purple and black type make interesting variations on the raspberry theme. All can be grown in most zones and they are self fertile. To make the most of your raspberry patch check with your local nursery or county extension to make sure that the variety that you want to buy will thrive in your area.

Planting:

Moisture and plenty of rich organic matter in the soil are essentials. When deciding on a location, look for a spot that gets some protection from the blustery cold winds of winter. To improve the soils ability to retain moisture, work in plenty of well rotted manure or sphagnum peat moss.

Set the bushes in the ground as soon as you bring them home from the nursery. If roots appear dried out, soak them in water for an hour or two before planting. Red raspberries can be planted two or three inches deeper than at the nursery. black and purple varieties should be planted at the same depth. Space plants three feet apart and rows five to eight feet apart. (Needless to say my plants are much closer together than that in my tiny backyard.)

Raspberry bushes My raspberry plants are sheltered behind my neighbors garage. In this photo you can see them beginning at the Japanese Maple with the row going back towards another neighbors house.

Care and Feeding:

After the canes have been set out, cut back central canes to a height of six inches, then mulch to conserve moisture.

When plants are dormant in early spring remove weak and spindly canes. Then remove any suckers that have grown up between the rows. If properly pruned raspberry canes are self supporting. Cut back your black raspberry varieties to 18 to 24 inches; purple and red varieties to 30 to 36 inches. the amount and the quality of the fruit will be greatly improved if lateral branches are trimmed back to at least four to six buds.

In the Autumn remove all old, spent canes and destroy them.

Insects and Diseases:

Raspberries are hardly immune from disease and insect attack, but problems will be few if you practice good garden hygiene. Purchase only healthy disease resistant plants from a trust worthy nursery or garden center.

Make sure that old canes are removed and destroyed so insect larvae and fungus spores don’t overwinter. If a plant appears doomed because of disease, remove it immediately so that the other plants don’t become affected.

Now that you know how to grow your own raspberries I think I’ll go fix myself a small bowl of raspberries. Mmmmm delicious.

No longer Neglected

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My poor garden, it hasn’t been getting the level of care that I normally give it this year. I’ve been so ill that I’ve been barely getting outside to work in the garden with the exception of watering it a couple of times a week. Thankfully it’s been raining often enough that I don’t have to be out there everyday watering.

Yesterday afternoon and evening I made an effort towards getting the garden under control again. All of the plants are growing beautifully with little help from me. The roses have been blooming their pretty little heads off, the Holyhocks are beginning to bloom and so on. However, without my assistance some of the plants were leaning on to others, crowding them out and making the garden look more than a little bit sloppy.

I spent several hours yesterday putting some stakes around floppy plants, tying them up with garden tape and just straightening them out. It looks amazing!

Today I plan to distribute the contents of my compost pile around all the plants and add some coffee grounds that we picked up from a local coffee shop to a new batch of compost. Then I’m going to put some red cedar mulch on all my flower beds. I’m a bit late in doing this but they say that if you have problems with slugs, and I do, you shouldn’t mulch until at least mid-June, and you should turn the soil a few times prior to that to keep kill the slug eggs. Better late than never. It looks so nice when the mulch is fresh. I’ll take some pictures.

My arms are, of course, a mess again after tangling with several rose bushes. Oh well, they’ve all been tamed now so they won’t get me as badly for the rest of the year.

Later, I’m going to make some alfalfa tea for my garden. No, the garden and I aren’t going to sit and relax over a hot cup of steaming herbal tea. Uh huh, this is a special organic fertilizer that I make several times each year, let it ferment, and then pour it on my garden when all the neighbors are asleep since it smells so god awful bad! Really, it smells so nasty but works so well. I put it on my garden at least 5 times last summer and I think that’s why I have giant roses, abundant blooms and a more than slightly over grown garden this year.

I’ll write up the alfalfa tea recipe later and make a post about it’s magical work.

In other news – As you know this site is still in it’s infancy. If you actually been reading this post I’d like some suggestions as to what you might like to see me write about.

I’m thinking about make a weekly or perhaps if I’m really ambitious a daily feature in which I write about a particular plant’s profile. The write ups would include photos of the plant, hardiness and care data, when it usually blooms if it blooms and planting advice.

Would you like to see plant profiles on this site? If you would, give me some suggestions as to what plants you want me to begin talking about. See my Whats Growing page for an idea of the kind of plants I’m familiar with.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is Green Thumb Sunday. If you’d like to participate by posting a garden, plant or nature photo on your site tomorrow let me know and I’ll send you the bl0groll code and add you to the roll.

Ok, got to get back to the garden. Hey isn’t that a song? LOL

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