Garden 2011: Mid-April Recap

Strawberries are in full bloom.  (4/13/11)


Datura (jimson weed) is coming up from roots.  It's surrounded by garlic chives shoots which have since been pulled -- for all the good that did.  Garlic chives is very invasive.  It spreads by multiplying bulbs underground and abundant seeds.  It's requires a constant effort to keep it from taking over the bed.  (4/16/11)


It's about time to remove the cloches covering the broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage, especially since the plants are trying to grow out the tops of the plastic jugs.  (4/16/11)


We've been enjoying fresh asparagus for a couple of weeks or so.  We totally replanted the asparagus bed last year.  This year's harvest is modest.  (4/16/11)


I'm beginning to mulch the broccoli bed while the plants are still protected by cloches.  (Note:  The plastic jugs have since been removed.)  (4/13/11)

It's about time to remove the wire covering our garlic before the plants grow up through the wire.  We plant garlic in the fall.  The plants come up and then go dormant over winter.  Once spring arrives, they take off growing again.  Neither deer nor rabbits eat the garlic, but we cover it with wire over winter to make certain an armadillo doesn't come through and till the bed for us.  (4/13/11)


Our potato plants are poking up through the mulch.  I cover them with a layer of fresh mulch when they do.  (4/16/11)

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Garden 2011: Mid-April Recap

Garden 2011: Broccoli and More

After transplanting the full row of broccoli, Jo watered them with a fish emulsion mixture. The dogs think fish emulsion smells like something that really needs to be rolled in. (Part #1 of transplanting broccoli into the garden is here.)

Finally Jo covered the newly transplanted veggies -- broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage -- with high-tech mini-greenhouses, otherwise known as cloches, which I photographed the following day. We're not likely to get temperatures cold enough to damage the transplants, but the cloches also help keep them from drying out and protect the tender young plants from being buffeted around in our gusty south wind. (Yes, I really do need to crank up our lawnmower and mow the aisles between garden beds.)

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the garden... While it's not necessary to make an emergency run into town for whipped cream just yet, our strawberries are blooming.

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Garden 2011: Broccoli and More

Buck in the Garden

Buck deer in our garden.

(Photo:  Marvin Smith on 12/01/09)

More deer than normal have visited our garden this fall and winter. Most are females. I've counted as many as nine does browsing in our garden area at the same time. Bucks are usually more shy and careful. They seldom emerge from the woods' edge and come into the open garden. This buck was more bold -- or foolish. Keeping deer out of the garden is something we try very hard to accomplish in spring and summer, but enjoy seeing them close to the house in late fall and winter.

What the buck really wants is a chance to sample our strawberry plants.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Buck in the Garden

Sunday, 7/15/07

Strawberry Beds: Over the past few days we've managed to get the new slab border installed on both the strawberry beds. In the photo above, the job is finished on the nearest bed only. The strawberry beds have always had wooden borders, but those had pretty much rotted away. The new border doesn't really look like much, but it should hold the dirt in the bed for a while. It also gives us a place to anchor the wire tunnels we use to help keep the critters out of the beds. Installing the slabs didn't require too much time and effort. I did have to use a Skil saw to put a more or less straight edge on one side of some of the boards, though.

Mowing: I also got the garden mowed since that photo was taken. Our recent rains have kept the grass growing and prevented me from mowing it.

Okra: We had our first fried okra of the season for supper last night. It was good, and there's plenty more on the way.

Sunday, 7/15/07

Replanting Strawberries -- Again

Ozark Beauty

The first batch of new strawberries Jo planted earlier this spring didn't do so well. About two-thirds of them died. I think we let them get too dry. So, Jo picked up some berry plants in town and we'll try again. Most of these transplants are larger than the ones that have been growing in the bed for a month. Some even have fruit that is almost ripe.

Replanting Strawberries -- Again

Helping In The Garden

	From March, 2007

Eager and reliable help in the garden is always appreciated. Bucket and Rusty are always eager to go to the garden, but their reliability is suspect.


The basic personalities and priorities in life of the two dogs come through loud and clear in these photos. Rusty is the one who craves affection and has come over to Jo for a hug. Bucket wants to eat something and thinks the plastic bag may contain something edible instead of the strawberry transplants that it actually holds. (Click on the photo of Bucket to enlarge it and you'll see that there's no doubt that eating is what she has on her mind.)

Helping In The Garden

New Strawberries Planted

On Wednesday Jo got the strawberry plants set out into the strawberry beds, then covered the beds with wire so that the new plants don't become deer food.

It's hard to believe that these scruffy little strawberries will one day produce the berries we love to eat so much.

From March, 2007

New Strawberries Planted

No Strawberries This Year

One strawberry bed done and one to go.



I seriously doubt that we get any strawberries into the freezer this year -- not unless we buy some berries from a roadside produce vendor. After several years of good production, very few of our strawberry plants made it through last summer. I don't know if it was something we did or didn't do, the extreme dryness of last summer or if it was just the plants time to go into decline -- that happens with strawberries -- but it was time to start over with some new berry plants this year.

Jo ordered the new plants and was expecting to hear something regarding their shipping date. Instead, Federal Express delivered them Tuesday. The new arrivals needed to be planted in the garden ASAP, but of course, we had not done any of the necessary bed preparation yet. The strawberry beds were full of weeds. Time to start revising our daily agenda.

Jo began working on the beds, turning the soil over with a spading fork. She looked as if she was enjoying herself so much that I just couldn't resist joining in the fun. We eventually worked out a system where I turned over the soil and she broke up the soil and removed the weeds. Later, Jo went back and raked down the beds.

Turning over those beds should have been relatively easy. The soil has been mulched and amended enough that it's fairly loose -- as compared to the rest of our soil, anyway -- and we removed the rocks when we originally build the beds. However, a nearby sweet gum tree had found the nutrient rich soil of the strawberry beds to be an excellent location for sending its roots. Everyone knows that trees and gardens really don't mix, but having a couple of trees around the perimeter adds to our enjoyment of the garden, so they will stay, although the fate of that sweet gum was debatable while I was fighting with its roots.

We got both strawberry beds turned and raked down. Wednesday Jo will haul a little manure and plant the new strawberries. We may get a few berries this year, but it will be next year before they really start producing fruit.

The worst thing about the whole project was that even after all that time and work, I didn't get to check an item off my "To Do" list. Dealing with the strawberry beds hadn't even been added to my list yet. Oh, well. It's done.

No Strawberries This Year