strawberry bed

The weather is finally getting warm enough that I can start the work on my yard.  While I was at the store, I found some strawberry roots for sale for a good price, so I bought some.  Now I just need a place to put them.  I already have one strawberry plant that I uprooted and brought with me when we moved to this house.  It has been living happily in a pot through the winter.  (it even gave us a few strawberries!)  But I want a happy strawberry patch.  I have this spot in my backyard: 

 I'm not sure what the previous owners were thinking when they created this spot.  It's next to my patio.  The black iron thing you see is a doorway trellis.  Like, the kind of thing you would see at the entrance to a garden party.  I don't know why they put it right there.  You can't even walk through it at that angle.  Anyway, so I decided that would be a good place for a raised strawberry bed. 

I'm not going to pretend this was easy.  We really had to put in some grunt work to get that trellis thingy out of the way.  And the overgrown bushes and gravel were no picnic either.  But after a couple hours of work, this is what we've got now:

It's flat. 

This is my plan:  Since strawberries can be a little persnickety, I'm going to make a raised bed so that I can control the soil better.  I am going to haunt craigslist for some more cinder blocks or some bricks that I can stack up in a square about three feet high.  Then I'm going to fill it with garden soil (I mean the bags of garden soil from the store), compost, and manure.  I'm also hoping that building it up a little higher will keep the rabbits out. 

Cross your fingers for some strawberry jam this fall!

Fighter

Last week when I planted all my seedlings in their little indoor greenhouse box, I was careful to plant and then label everything in groups so that I would recognize them when they sprouted. 

Every morning when I check on my little garden, I am happy to see the ones that have decided to make an appearance.  I think just about everything I've planted has sprouted.  Except my peppers.  I'm still waiting on those.  I'm trying not to worry since it takes about 2 weeks for them to germinate, but...come on, guys!  Everyone else is already sprouted!  Out of bed, sleepy heads!

Today, I had to do one of the jobs I HATE to do.  I had to thin the seedlings.  In case you're not sure what that is:  I plant several seeds in each pellet to ensure that at least one will grow.  Sometimes nothing grows.  And other times, everything grows.  I have enough pellets that if I just got one plant from each, I would have enough in my garden.  Sometimes 4 or 5 seedlings sprout in one little pellet.  I have to pull out the smaller ones and let just one grow so it's not competing for soil nutrients or sunlight.  It is better for the garden in the long run, but I still hate to do it.  I feel bad pulling out this happy little plant that has only ever done everything I've wanted it to do.  Ugh. 

This year, I tried to approach it more like American Idol.  The short ones just didn't make the final cut.  If I pretend I'm just sending them back home to their families, then it's not so hard.  Luckily, (or unfortunately, you decide) my kids hate thinning day, too.  They usually swoop in and take up some of the discarded seedlings (as many as they can manage) and plant them in anything they can find.  (incidentally, we had a watermelon plant one year that grew up ONTO the front porch [people had to step over it to get into my house] because my daughter "rescued" it as a seedling and planted it there.  Good times)  So 5 tomato plants and 3 cucumber plants were rescued today.  The rest were "sent home." 

Enter Fighter.  

This is Fighter.  He's a cabbage plant. (Yes, I named him.  What's it to you?) I didn't plant Fighter.  I accidentally dropped him in the the tray while I was planting his brothers and sisters.  He fell near the pellet that was growing dill.  He sprouted and put in roots at the bottom of the pellet, and I didn't realize my mistake until he was two inches tall.  It made me happy to see Fighter growing.  He's a reminder to me that nature finds a way.  He makes me think all kinds of courageous thoughts about pushing through adversity and thriving against all odds. 

So today, thinning day, when I had a thumb and forefinger around FIghter's stem, ready to detach him from the dill pellet and toss him in the reject pile, I just couldn't do it.  I couldn't bring myself to deny life to this little living thing that fought so hard to live against all odds.

 I gave him his own pellet instead.  And welcomed him to the team.  I'm not even sorry.  I don't have room for one more cabbage in my garden, but I have a feeling I'll make room for him somewhere.  I can't wait to watch this one grow!