The raspberries that I planted last year are mostly doing fine. They have started to grow out from the roots and there are 10 plants now. I need to weed so they aren’t competing as much. I wonder how much mulch the suckers can grow through… Ok one source on the internet says yes.
I picked up extra bricks to raise up Garden #1. My wife and I picked out some plants for the long section. I borrowed a friends truck and bought a ton of soil and picked up a half ton of mulch. I had to dig up the plants that I already had growing so that I could replant them at the new level. After filling up both gardens with dirt we planted and then covered with mulch.
A quick note about the mulch. There is a yard wast dump in my town that anyone can go to and take a load if they want. Mostly it’s shredded leafs but today I noticed a pile of finely chopped wood chips. The mound was about 7 feet high and not too tightly compacted. As I got into the pile I found that it had started composting and was quite hot and steamy inside. When I got it back I made sure to add a couple buckets full into my compost pile to see if that would get things moving.
Here are the before pictures:
And after:
A couple years ago I was given a fire pit with a screen. Although I haven’t used it a lot I enjoy having it. A few evenings ago my wife and I sat outside on the porch around a fire. Even though spring has arrived it was still a little cool, nice weather for a fire.
Around new years I collected used Christmas trees to use for mulch; after removing the branches I had leftover truncks. I don’t have a chain saw which makes cutting the trunks into small enough pieces very tiresome. As I get them cut I’ll burn them and add the ashes to my compost pile.
While reading up on how to grow celery I read that I should add wood ashes to the soil to increase the potassium content. I took the results of my last fire and spread it around Garden #1. In the future letting it decompose some before adding it is probably a good idea.
Today was a shopping day. I found a friend willing to let me borrow his truck and made good use of it.
First I did my shopping at Lowes:
I needed 8 bags of topsoil and 6 bags of compost. Those along with the gutters and mailbox post are just too much for my Civic. After I got it all home I didn’t have much time to do anything other than unload it and put the mailbox post in.
Next I picked up a friend and we went to pick up a half ton of white river rock. We placed it on the path as planned and it looks pretty good. I’ll edit this post with a picture tomorrow.
After the rocks we loaded up with leaves. In my town during the fall there’s a truck that goes around vacuuming up leaves for the city. They get shredded a bit then dumped into huge piles, free for whoever wants them. When I worked at Morning Glory Farm we used to take a big trailer and fill it for mulching the plants. I only had enough time to dump the leaves into the yard before returning the truck. I’ll cover the area where the raspberries are tomorrow.