This morning I walked through the yard, and as I made my way out the door, I saw my blackberry canes sitting on the shelf- desperately needing to be planted.  I heaved a big ole sigh and then headed out, to survey and find a good spot for them to go.  My original intention for them is not ready, so I needed to come up with a plan ?”B”, and after a careful going over, chose my spot, and began the arduous process of ripping out weeds and working in some composted manure.

When I went to get the blackberries though, I found that 4 of my really, really sad tomato plants were actually still sporting green leaves.  It only took me a second to decide to go ahead and plant them and see if anything came of them.  I already had the dirt ready, nothing else to put in the dirt, and if the tomatoes die, it’s no big deal, as the ones in the gardens proper are thriving incredibly.

So today I planted six blackberry canes and then four tomato plants.  The pathetic plants I buried in the soil were my Pink Grapefruit, Green Zebra, Reisentraube and a Valiant.  The pathetic ones I’d put in the other gardens perked up and came to life, so we’ll see how these do.  The Pink Grapefruit has started looking worse since I put it in, but time will tell.  I also fertilized and gave that side of the yard a healthy watering.

As long as I was digging in the dirt, I also took the time to prep the corn patch.  The kids have been asking and asking if we could plant corn.  I told them that if Andy could get another bed built in time, we would plant corn.  Well, the bed’s been mostly finished for a few weeks now, but I haven’t had any time to do anything about it.  It still isn’t totally finished, but I went ahead anyway and got it ready.  First I had to remove weeds and roots, and then I worked in four bags of topsoil and one of composted manure.  Once my dirt was all mixed up, I planted three varieties of quick-growing sweet corn, and also nine pie pumpkin seeds.  I’m really not sure if we’ll have enough time for any of those, but I planted these specific sweet corns because they said they were quick growing.  Hopefully Andy can actually finish assembling the bed now that it’s planted.

So, how about some pictures!

This is another picture of the right side of my backyard.  This is the herb garden The red you see at the back of the picture are my old bar stools with pots on them.  One pot has parsley, the second pot I planted with Buttercup Squash today.

Here’s some new herbs- you can see the very edge of the tall onions to the right.  Then I have added Rosemary, Summer Savory, French Tarragon, and another Parsley plant.  The biggest plant towards the middle there is the parsley.  To the left of him I have three of my scrawny sick tomato plants- which you cannot see in this photo.

And here we have the left side of the bar stools.  There is another tomato plant which you can’t see.  The plant in the ground there is my rhubarb, and then between the rhubarb and that lattice panel I’ve planted the blackberry canes.  Today I also planted a row of Scarlet Runner Beans in front of the lattice.  It would be fun if those took off- they make very pretty flowers.

Here’s the new Corn Patch.  Once everything is said and done, there will be four of these small beds along the back of the yard.  Each of the kids will get one to plant next year, and then two of them I plan to use as cold frames.

And then here’s a last picture to kind of give you an idea of where the new Corn Patch sits in relation to the rest of the gardens, and my garden shed.

There will be more pictures to come soon! I discovered that I have some asparagus fronds peeking out from the asparagus patch, the gardens are full of sprouts and my plants are thriving beautifully.  I fertlized everything today and gave it all a good soaking, and I’m already dreaming of my first taste of fresh greens from the garden.