Spring so far.

Spring is here and I have been absolutely slammed trying to get the yard ready for show, finish school responsibilities and I leave in exactly two weeks for the Army Warrior Transition Course for six weeks leaving my yard in the capable hands of my ten year old son Quinton.

My progress has been good.  I have added another 320 square foot of garden space by adding another level of terraces matching the western beds. Shona and I prepped the beds and she has now planted most everything veggie wise for the upcoming season.  We are going heavy on the green beans this year hoping to be able to can at least sixty quarts to last the winter.  I added some new trellises on the fence for the pole beans.  I custom made these from 1200 lb stainless steel cable coated in 200 mil black nylon.  This is the same stuff I use for my espalier and it works really nice as it is very gentle on the plants and very durable.  I added two more bench storage seats and two large planter boxes that hold a yard of material apiece.  These I filled 50/50 with Happy Life Garden's ultimate planter mix which contains the leftover mulch materials from the Budwieser plant with half peat moss so that I could plant my two brand new Patriot Blueberry shrubs. These will hopefully provide a good amount of fruit next year.

I have added a guomi berry, two autumn olives, twenty thimble berries, twenty salmon berries, and a high-bush cranberry seedling.  I additionally have added a few rubarb plants gifted to me by Jason (thank you Jason). He also gave me some of his raspberry plants to add some genetic diversity to the measly four cultivars that I already had.  I planted some Jerusaelem artichoke and two yellowhorn trees. I believe that these will be nice for the food as well as the flowers when they mature and get established.

On the western shady side of my house I have added a few new experiments.  I planted some bunchberry - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunchberry  
These should prove to be very cool if they survive.  I also planted wintergreen, and an orange spice creeping thyme which smells fantastic.  


I dove into some mycoculture and have made about twenty mushroom logs including some pearl oyster and lion's mane.  I have placed these next to the royal ferns which I am hoping will get big enough that eventually I will be able to harvest fiddle-heads.  


Finally I have added a clump of sunset glow bamboo under a drain spout on the west side of the house.  I would love to see this get big.  I like bamboo shoots and the canes would be very useful in making trellises later.  


Up next: iron trellis for the Kiwi. more benches, and pictures for the blog.  What a couple of weeks.......hah.