berries berries everywhere!

that's the hope at least.

green strawberries

lookin' good, right?  waiting on pins and needles for these little ones to ripen. this will be the first year to harvest them.  last year i was a big meanie and plucked each sweet white flower.  actually it was to help the roots get established, but that didn't give solace to the strawberry cravings.

our blueberry and raspberry plants arrived late last week and we wasted no time getting those babies in the ground over the weekend.  the plan i drew up last year for our potager included lining two sides of the perimeter with these berry bushes.  with the financial cost and time needed to prep the plot, build and fill the boxes, put down the gravel, put up a fence, etc. etc. etc. . . are you getting exhausted just thinking of all of that? . . . we put off the bushes until this year.  

box o' bushes

the box is bigger than the girl!

blueberries!!!

hey blueberry buddies. i know we just met but i love you already.

raspberry roots

these raspberry roots were made for planting, so let's get going.

sifting compost

jesse sifting out black gold from the compost pile.

acidifying the soil

we amended the soil with peat moss, organic sulfate, and homemade compost for these acid loving plants

um, he loves peat moss

luca kept sticking his arms shoulder-deep in the peat moss because "it felt good and squishy."

planting the raspberries

finally! (i was a little impatient)

little helper

this little helper-stein is strong like her mama.

balancing blueberry boy

the balancing blueberry boy (aka planting supervisor)
three varieties x two of each kind = six bushes of yumminess

raspberry row

twelve little raspberry bushes sticks all in a row.

thirsty work

thirsty work

five days later

and here are the tiny buds sprouting only five days after planting. so exciting!

this year, both luca and gia chose plants to care for in the potager.  the berries, of course, made both lists.  luca will tend the blueberries, gia has the strawberries and they are splitting the raspberries.  good thing we already have one established blueberry bush for luca, because there will be no harvesting this year from the babies.  they need to grow big and strong first.

i will share updates as we have them from the hart berry patch.

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i am linking up to kim's party over at the inadvertent farmer. go check out what others are doing in the kinderGARDENS challenge.

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7 comments:

faith buss said...

Looks like fun! I want to try strawberries this year. Better hurry and get them in the ground! :)

Sue said...

You will not regret a moment or a cent spent in starting raspberries. Whenever I'm enjoying a raspberry, I am reminded of God's grace after having read a definition of grace years ago by Frederick Buechner-
"Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth."

Peeper said...

So fun!! The promise of berries! Looks great and will be so fun to watch them start to produce fruit!! Yum!

I have to wonder if you will start to make fruit jams? I hope so ;-)

kelly said...

mmmmm berries, yum yum,

Jenny said...

Your garden looks lovely. One of my daughters planted a bed of strawberries this year. I think the plants are maybe a year or two old because we bought them with strawberries already on them, but they look a little stragley compared to your full plants. I don't know that we have the will power to pick off all blooms and liitle berries though?

Erin said...

Came over from Kim's contest to see what you are up to - Your gardens are gorgeous! Can't wait to see the kinderGardens project develop!

Anonymous said...

That looks like so much fun!! I wish I could start a garden. Too bad I don't have a backyard. :)

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