The Country Garden Showcase- Week 8

Welcome Friends

Thank you for stopping by

   Can you believe it has already been two months since we started hopping in and out of eachother's gardens???  Wow!  This mild winter has been passing so fast.  It's hard to imagine where the time has gone.

Jerry and Oliver

   This weekend has been another exciting and productive one for me.  Our week was BUSY indoors too.  My husband has been the best help.  Nothing gets done over here without him.  


~Thank you Jerry~  


   Together, we finished many of the tasks on my February Garden Plan Checklist; so we added a few more chores.  I am hoping to get ahead of spring... with a new BERRY PATCH!  I am so excited I could scream.  I LOVE berries.  

new tasks:

   Old Towne Nursery just got in bare root berry canes so we got a few.  The plants/roots all looked great in barrels, so it was hard to choose, but I came back home with a few "Indian Summer" red raspberries 

they're adapted to our heavy clay soil and will give a crop in May and again in September.  

   I also got a Willamette June bearing red raspberry so I can see if there is a measurable difference in harvests.  

   I don't know about you, but I love boysenberries.  They're a California cross between blackberry, english raspberry, and loganberry.  They're simply delicious and they can, freeze, and bake well.   Knott's Berry Farm down in Buena Park made them famous, you can read their story HERE.  

   When I saw that our little nursery had boysenberries, I had to grab some.  While on my little binge, I also couldn't pass up two blueberry bushes.  I hear that the more blueberry plants and varieties, the better for pollination   We'll see.  

   We have heavy clay soil with high pH.  That's why I planted my veggie garden in raised beds.  

   I am converting a terraced landscape (formerly covered by pine trees, coastal redwoods, and their litter) into my berry garden.  They will not be in raised boxes, so after amending the beds 50/50 with some organic compost, I am going to add a small fraction of organic elemental sulfur product to bring the pH down to about 6.0 for the raspberries.  I will add more for the blueberries, they like a pH around 5.5.  I may plant the blueberries in barrels and then sink them in the ground...

   Jerry is working on berry fences similar to the one on the left that we found at finegardening.com.  Basically, I need 4x4 posts at the end of the rows.  He will spring tighten 11 gauge wire at 12" intervals for cane support.  I am not sure yet whether or not I want "Ts" on top to separate the canes.  I do not plan to let my vines grow as dense as those in the picture here.  I plan to thin regularly, but we'll see.  I may get greedy and change my mind.  

   Jerry hopes to have it done tomorrow so I can get those berries planted before the next storm.  I will have it all planted before next week's post so I can share pics then.  Here's a list of the plants we're working on right now: raspberry, boysenberry, blackberry and bush blueberries.  Here's how my monthly list is shaking out so far:

February Garden Plan: 

mix up compost for in ground garden beds, lay it into beds ~ DONE

finish compost mix in the last raised beds ~ DONE

sow a row per/crop each week of winter veggies ~ DONE for the week
start seedlings for a few veggies indoors- this project begins 2/25

put up hoop house over the winter veggie bed, once seeded- not until seeding is complete

What have YOU been up to in your garden this week??? Please do share.