I took a vacation day on Wednesday because I was in dire need of a "me" day. And it so happened the sun was shining with temperatures in the 60's. In other words--perfect to work on the raised garden beds. My camera batteries were charging, so I don't have any before pictures. But trust me they would have been horrible. Everything was a hot mess.
Here is my after. You can see the rhubarb (far left) is out of control, which is indicative of the entire garden prior to clean up. Each one of those piles of debris were from the beds. All 6 were overrun with weeds. And creep crawly spiders (shudders). I did my spider freak out dance a few times. ugh
The good news is I initially thought there was only 1 strawberry plant that survived the marauding deer last year. As I dug through all the weeds, I actually had 11! Some are rather puny and spindly but hopefully they will bulk up. I have 12 new strawberry plants and 10 bare roots plants. I am going to need a bigger strawberry bed!
All 3 blackberry bushes survived. I have 2 Apache thornless blackberries on either side of a Navaho thornless blackberry. The Navaho is far more vigorous in its growth than the Apache's. I need a better (stronger) trellis. On the to do list!
My bamboo teepee trellis can no longer weather the elements. So it will be disassembled and added to the burn pile. See where it is currently placed? That was a raised bed but the wood frame fell apart. We scavenged the pieces which were usable, to repair some of the remaining beds and the soil was redistributed as well. This weekend we are purchasing some composite material or composite kits, soil mix and materials for the deer fencing..
I had an unwelcome overnight visitor. Or group of visitors. #@$% rabbits have already made the strawberries their buffet! GAH!!!
So I rigged up a barrier for now. It isn't very attractive but hopefully it does the job intended.
I scored some pretty good deals at Tractor Supply on Wednesday. Bare root roses, normally $6.99 for $0.99 (more about these later), a 10 pack of bare root strawberries for $1.79 and bareroot thornless boysenberries for $2.29 each. WOOT!
Anyone else find some good deals? Or are dealing with keeping wildlife out of your gardens?
Anyone else find some good deals? Or are dealing with keeping wildlife out of your gardens?
