Monday, May 17, 2010

Yesterday, garden. Today, more garden. + sunscreen.

Oops, a little pink last night. It's been too many months since I needed to slather on the SPF.

One of the benefits of *ahem* not paying attention at Little League is that you sometimes learn something. Last year, I had very few strawberries. Nobody did, due to crapola weather, buuutttt, it prompted me to cock an ear when I heard a couple of parents discussing their own berries. It seems that one is expected to replace strawberry plants every 3 years. Really?! Who knew? Not me, that's for darn sure. It seems that after 3 years, the mother plants are exhausted, and if you (me) haven't been real attentive about removing the energy sucking runners, mama's done. Since I started this bed 2 years ago, and many of the plants were the aforementioned runners from the old bed, they are at mama status and will soon need to be replaced. I'm instituting a 3 year rotation of the 3 rows - row one after this season, row two next year, poor overworked row three the following, then lather, rinse, repeat. I should have continuously fruiting plants in various stages of exhaustion at all times. And if I'm careful, I can use the runners from row 2 to replant row 1, from 3 to replant 2, and then 1 to replant 3. Genius! *famous last words

So yesterday I got the strawberries all weeded, and they're covered with blossoms. I'll give the bees a few more days, then pull on some row covers to keep the robins off. Today, I'll empty the tumble composter and dig it into the bed that will soon be planted with beans, onions, peppers and tomatoes. I'm going all low-tech this year, combining the simple space maximization of square foot gardening with bug deterrent companion planting. Marigolds with the tomatoes, red onions with peppers, yellow onions with the green beans.

Also on the docket, a trip to the gym, a couple loads of laundry, and I swear, a half hour at the sewing machine.

All this, of course, is contingent on the phone not ringing in the next 20 minutes with a "can you work?!" panic call. Fingers crossed.

2 comments:

Wilma Lee said...

I love strawberries but have never grown them. Might have to try it next year. We did plant blueberries and blackberries and last spring and are hoping to get a few this year.

Vicky aka Stichr said...

i am going to try strawberries in a hanging pot, probably next year, so that would be easy to swap out the tired ones...right???

WV is "phoolh"---fool-la? lol