I’ve got two blueberry beds with two bushes each. I got them both weeded out, then got one mulched and the other half-mulched. And I fought off all the sales emails and replanted *my own* shallots and garlic.
The blueberries by the driveway aren’t pictured yet. I pulled the weeds from around them and mulched with worm-studded chunks of my finest compost. Then I laid down some cut open paper feed sacks for moisture capture and temporary weed control, topped that with some straw, and spread poly mesh fence on top of it all to keep the chickens away. Then I went looking for the landscape staples, but they’re gone from all the usual hiding spots, so I ordered more. Hopefully the chickens won’t do too much damage today.
Down in the heart of the garden, I’d let strawberries run totally wild in the bed for the two small young blueberries. I ruthlessly ripped them all out and mulched the bed with dry corn leaves. More corn stalks went around the herb blob where the cottontail raised her babies this summer — she never came back to reuse the nest, so I filled the cavity with fine finished compost. The herbs are already leaping into action, and the stunted little yellow sweet pepper plant beside it is still working on growing some fruit, bless its heart.
I pulled all the strawberries, but dragging them to the compost pile seemed unnecessary when there was bare dirt in the bed next door. So I planted my garlic in that bed, layered the wilting strawberry runners on top, and called it good.
Up at the top of the garden, I had one empty bed that’s kind of hard to harvest from — perfect for shallots.
None of my alliums did well this year, but they were handicapped by beds with poor soil. The shallots weren’t big enough to eat, but there were enough to save and plant in a better bed. And I’m finishing up a multi year experiment with the garlic: two years ago I saved some bulbuls from the flowering heads you’re supposed to cut off, and this year I grew them out. Just like they’re supposed to, the tiny little clovelets from the flowering heads grew into small solid bulbs, like dwarf daffodil bulbs. Those got replanted yet again, and this year they’ll grow into proper garlic heads with multiple cloves. I’m very interested to see how big they get, and also I planted some cloves from my biggest normal garlic head for comparison.
#gardening
