Happiness is Berries and Empty Beds

We picked about a pound of blackberries off the vines Thursday.  We can't expect much more; the gardener cut the plants back again last year, despite being asked not to.  The bed is a mess, so we may pull everything, amend the bed, plant pumpkins, and then put in new berry vines with trellis support next spring.

The boys loved picking berries.  It took only 15 minutes, but it was fun, and after I washed them (the boys and the berries) the boys devoured the whole bowl.  Oh wait, we estimated how many there were and counted them first (124).

Wednesday Papa pulled the mother of all tomato plants, our Early Girl from 2007.  It was actually putting our fruit like crazy, but since we had never trimmed it we had bug problems and accessibility issues.

I got out there and pulled all of the tomatillo volunteers, then spent an hour and a half pulling grass from half of an 8 X 2 bed.  Carefully, slowly, trying not to break the runners.  I'm sure I'll be weeding that bed regularly now.  So much for 5 year weed cloth.

Once the beds were empty I added compost to bring them back to 6".  We're set now for our next planting.  Oh, and did I say the beds were empty?  Empty of plants, perhaps, but teaming with pill bugs and worms.  It is so cool to realize how alive the soil is.

The plan is to put in a low key herb garden with additional plants/flowers to attract butterflies and bees.  We're late to start any summer crops as the seedlings wouldn't survive the heat.  I'm going to see what we can put in the lettuce bed once it fully harvested (next week).  We'll bide our time until we can plant chard and other cool weather crops.