My Garden Fever

I have committed to myself, and now to all of you who read this, that this month of February, 2012, I will spend time working in my garden/yard every single day.  Today is the 4th and i have been successful thus far.
We have decided that our front yard garden space needs a renovation. This is what is currently looks like.

our front yard garden

We are planning on building actual garden boxes so as to really utilize the space better, be able to have more rows of things, a bit more organized and strategic.  I ordered some seeds from a local seed company and have been utilizing a few online sites as well as this book I picked up a last spring to help me learn and plan how to really be fruitful at this (pun intended).

my strawberry patch

So my first big project was the wild crazy raspberries that have been taking over half of our backyard.  In October i pulled out a bunch, dug up the roots, and transplanted a small patch of strawberries plants that my mom sent me from her garden.  I mulched them with some sawdust our landlord had laying around (he lives on the property with us) and some leaves I picked up over the course of a few bike rides around town since we only have evergreen trees by our house. There are still a few green leaves poking their little way through the mulch so I have a pretty good feeling about those little hardy plants.  I'll uncover them at the end of the month, weather permitting, and we'll find out for sure how they are doing.

crazy overgrown raspberries

On Sunday, even though it was still technically January and my month of gardening had not yet begun, my younger sister came over and, dressed in our matching rain gear, we set to work digging, trimming, and trellising the rest of the raspberries.  It was a pretty wet day as most days here can be, but when you live in Oregon and want to do anything outside, you have be willing to either get wet or never get anything done. And we were determined to get some much needed outdoor time. I was also determined by the memories of all the raspberries we had the past summer but were unable to reach because the plants were so thick and bountiful.  This year would be different.

I'm muddy all over

We worked in the rain for about an hour and half together.  My sister spent time trimming back the crazy plants.  I spent my time with a shovel.  In the top right corner of the above picture you can vaguely see a green metal pole structure. I decided that was going to be the trellis for the raspberries. But it was next to them inside of around them and each pole was held into the ground by a good two feet of cement.  So i set to work digging and digging around those poles.  It took awhile, but i eventually freed them from the ground and with the help of my dear sister, we were able to lug them to their new home of encircling the raspberries where they will soon help to support the bountiful bushes.  Needless to say, we got a little muddy, but it was well worth it.

trimmed and trellised

click here for great raspberry tending tips