The plants are about busting out of their towers! One thing I'll do differently next time: either find one big piece of cardboard for the liner, or duct-tape (or otherwise attach) the cardboard pieces together before filling. As you can see, the pieces are shifting. I topped out the compost fill at around 18 to 24 inches high. No wonder the leaves and flowers look so lush...
For a bit of perspective, here's Bandit with Billy-Bob and a couple of the ladies...
The strawberries survived the slapdash planting they received (and the above average heat we've been having), and are putting out flowers. Maybe - just maybe - I'll have some June berries!
In other events around the farm, we've planted another apple, two pear, two nectarine, another peach, two cherry, and two almond trees. Left to go: two more cherries, two white mulberries, two elderberry bushes, and two pomegranates. I've also a bunch of blackberry canes (a wonderful trade with Joy, for goose & duck eggs) and grape vines awaiting their support structure to be built (*ahem*). Oh, and some good old-fashioned rugosa roses, for their vitamin-C packed seed hips.
There has been some non-food planting going on as well. I've given up trying to get healthy blackberries and grapes to grow in the southwest-facing garden beds in front of the house. The garden beds abut a three-foot high concrete foundation (the house is on the side of a hill), and it gets too danged hot in the Summer. I'll leave the current scraggly vines and canes in place for now, but in the meantime have planted another variegated privet (to match the mature one on the other side of the steps), two "Sangria" esperanzas, and will put in some "Dallas Red" lantana flowers under the esperanzas - all perennials, and all adapted or native to this area. On the northwest side of the house, the Japanese barberry bushes just couldn't cut the combination of Winter's bite and the constant nagging at their roots by the chickens, so I've planted a couple of Texas Sage bushes in their place to match the single Texas Sage in the same garden bed. The dang thing is bullet-proof - geese, dogs or chickens, nothing bothers it.
Whew!
You sound just as buried as we are here. You need a multi-purpose arbor! Grapes planted on the corners... patio set planted underneath the dad-gum thing! LOL
ReplyDelete@WeldrBrat: hoping to put a ground-level deck on the back of the house and do that very thing you suggest! :-D
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's been crazy busy around here. Back to working full-time at the garden center for the season, while also trying to get everything planted and arranged before it gets too hot.
Where did you get your elderberries? I'd like to try growing some.
ReplyDelete@HCH: I purchased them from the Raintree catalog. They're not the native elderberries, but am hoping they'll do okay. In the meantime, I'm still looking for a place that sells native elderberries & mulberries...
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