GardenDesk

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Blueberries, Strawberries and Deck Building

I didn’t get enough accomplished this weekend in the garden or with my deck building project, so I took a vacation day today (Monday). It was a great day to work outside. I just have to finish this deck or I won't get to plant all of the vegetables on time! I made great progress today and my wife and I managed to create new blueberry and strawberry beds. See, If I didn't have to go to my job, I could get so much done! Have you ever found yourself saying that? Anyway,this is what my deck project looks like right now:

The idea was to finish it today (yeah right) but our new strawberry and blueberry plants couldn't wait any longer. Part of the day had to be spent creating new beds for them. This was much more fun and I got to garden with my lovely wife too. We both garden a lot, but because of our schedules, we usually work alone. We had to start from scratch with these beds.

We had to till a little and then rake the sod pieces out. Since these patches had never been gardened before, we had to add a lot of compost.

Look at the contrast between that wonderful black compost and the dull brown dirt. After raking in the compost, we added peat moss for the organic matter, to help with water retention and to lower the ph.

Blueberries need an even lower ph than strawberries, as low as 4.5. Peat alone is not enough for this so we added some organic garden sulfur.

We then planted a high bush Jersey blueberry plant and a high bush Eliot Blueberry plant. Our new strawberry variety is Cavendish. We also transplanted some of last year’s plants, but I can't remember what kind they are right now. After much work, here is the finished product:

Here's one of the Blueberry plants, followed by some of the strawberry plants:

Thinking of those sweet delicious berries just makes my mouth water. And how great it will be to enjoy them seated under the umbrella table on our new deck! But as for now, back to my real job. See you tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday!