the new bed

it's been such a busy past couple weeks, luckily the weather has been decent. i finally got to finish the bed along the back fence with the ontario natives, some blueberries and blackberries, wild ginger, sunflowers and a few other things. the sunflowers are the ones i started from seed, so it will be exciting if they take off.. they will be the biggest things i have ever successfully started from seed. i have a [mostly] green thumb but when it comes to starting seeds i usually don't have much luck unless it's directly in the ground.

 [more freecycled garden ties]

another seedling that i am quite proud of is my scarlet runner. four years in a row i have tried sticking these things in the ground, starting them in deep containers, planting them along fences, and nothing... finally this year [while i was away actually] one of the beans in the cups sprouted! it was quick to take off so i had to get it into the ground right away.

when i first dropped it into the ground a day or two ago, it had it's two huge first leaves, and a little something was starting to come out the top. now it has three more leaves and it's starting to spread out. i planted it in front of what used to be a tree, and is now a couple foot tall log sticking out of the ground. it will give the beans something to grow up, maybe creating a bush, and giving the vines a way to reach the fence.

the blackberries seem to be happy in their new home, the plant has really bushed out, and it's starting to fruit! usually in the first year fruiting perennials don't produce much if any edible fruit, but we'll see.

one thing that i was worried about was the rhubarb. i had planted it a couple weeks ago and it didn't do much, except lose a couple of leaves and look really unhappy. this shocked me because usually rhubarb is so easy! i asked the woman at the farmers' market what was up with it, and she said it should be fine if it's still alive, just give it a couple more weeks to take. sure enough a few days later it started to perk up and produce a couple new leaves! that's it for now, i'll post later today about the benefits of polycultures. toodles!