Tangled Sedum

I put in a small rock garden last year using a variety of sedums that I had purchased the previous year (sometimes it takes me a while to find homes for all the plants I collect). I guess I planted them too close together because they have now formed a tangled mess. Not only are the different sedums intertwining, but there are tons of weeks everywhere. Hopefully I can find time to deal with this part of the garden soon. Since this area is being converted into my fruit garden, maybe I'll just relocate them completely!

What's in my compost bin: Chicken Poo

I recently tore down both of my compost bins. I was really disappointed by how little usable compost was in each of them. The unusable stuff (stuff that hadn't fully composted yet) has been added to the new piles (kind of like a starter culture for cheese or sour dough bread). I'm excited to be getting wonderful fertilizer from my chickens. I've read a lot about using chicken manure in the garden and it sounds like I'll have to be fairly careful with it so I don't burn any plants (i.e. make sure it's well composted before putting it into the garden).

Yep, that's chicken poop...and yes, I'm very excited about it.

Blogger Issues

Let's hope blogger gets back to normal soon. I had several weeks of rough drafts and other post ideas saved up that are now missing!

Wild Black Raspberries

I have a few canes of wild black raspberry growing near my long-term compost pile. I've gotten some pretty good yields of of these plants the last two years considering I don't pay much attention to them.

This year I did pamper them a bit by clearing the brush and small trees from the area. Hopefully they'll get a bit more sun this year and produce even more fruit than before.

I was really excited to find wild black raspberries growing on my property!

These bluish-red canes are super easy to spot when walking in the woods (or even driving in a car). I've become a bit of a master at spotting wild raspberries while hiking.

If you are ever walking through the woods and spot a bramble patch, it's easy to distinguish between blackberries and raspberries (although I can't tell the difference between red and black raspberries by foliage alone). Use this mnemonic device: Blackberries stems are Blocky, while Raspberry stems are Round.

Are you a wild-berry hunter?

Current Garden Layout (subject to change)

I've added quite a few new beds to my garden compared to the last layout I posted back in January. I'm hoping that with the additional square footage, I'll finally be able to observe some of the correct plant spacings instead of cramming everything together.

Beds highlighted in yellow are already completely planted.

My Raspberry Patch

I got five raspberry plants from another grad student a couple years ago. The first year I got a few berries. The second year the plants were completely engulfed by weeds to the point where I couldn't even see the plants and forgot about them. This year (year three) I've made the effort to weed (and eventually mulch) the area.  Hopefully these will make a nice contribution to my fruit garden. Since last year, the plants have sent out runners and now there are baby plants everywhere! Hopefully they aren't too crowded and will still produce well. I plan on potting up some of the babies to give to friends.

Unexpected baby raspberry plant

Swarms of baby raspberry plants in a (relatively) weed free bed.

One of the few plants with second-year growth that didn't get mowed down by bunnies. I'm still a little confused about whether these raspberries will fruit on first-year or second-year wood, so I'm not going to do any pruning. I've also forgotten what varieties these canes are...and the fruiting is different in different varieties.

Show Yourselves!

My lettuce, arugula, radish, and mizuna seeds have finally poked out of the soil. I think the delay must have been due to a combination of unusually cool temps and crusted-over soil.

Luckily these volunteer cilantro seedlings had no trouble germinating.

These lettuce seedlings, on the other hand, were very slow to get going. If you can believe it, I planted these almost a month ago! It took almost two weeks before I saw any sign of germination.

This self-sown arugula will also help add to my early spring salads (assuming it isn't technically summer by the time these things grow big enough)