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The berry garden is recovering

After mulching the berry garden with a thick layer of leaves the blueberries are doing a lot better. The berry garden needed a good weeding and we added a layer of woodchips as well.

I am so happy seeing the blueberry plants looking healthy again. Last year they looked so terrible that I was afraid they all would die. This early spring we divided a full trailer load of leaves over the berry garden and we started watering the blueberries on a regular base as soon as it became warmer and dryer. This effort has paid of and the blueberries are thriving. There leaves have a healthy green colour and they are making new twigs, even shooting new twigs from the roots which need to penetrate the thick mulch layer first.

A white blueberry shoot in leave mulch — **New Blueberry shoot**

We even have been able to snack on a few very tasty blueberries already.

We also planted our currants here last fall and the black currants where ready to harvest.

A black currant twig with ripe black currants

I harvested about 1,5 kg of black currants, which went into the freezer for later processing. I usually collect all of the berries I can get first (currants, raspberries and blackberries) and then juice them all together. We use this juice in yoghurt or I make jelly out of it.

The white currant somehow does not want to ripen. They look good, but still taste so sour, so we will wait a little more before harvesting.

The couch grass keeps growing through, so we weeded thoroughly and added a layer of woodchips again, since the leaf mulch is decomposing and getting thinner.

I am hoping on becoming another trailer of leaves this winter to add a new thinner layer and to expand the berry garden. I want to relocate the raspberries, since they are doing miserable and need to be planted in good, nutrient rich soil, which holds moisture better. I also want to plant a row of strawberries, since they do not do well in the bad soil in our garden 2 and I would love to harvest some decent strawberries, but that is work for the fall.

Harvesting our garlic

Growing elephant garlic for the first time and planting tomatoes after the garlic

I have been fascinated by elephant garlic for a few years now, but was not willing to pay so much money for a bulb to start growing them. I ordered seeds that elephant garlic form around there bulb, but these where a total flop. Last fall I was so happy to find elephant garlic bulbs on sale for a reasonal price. I bought one that turned out to have only 4 cloves. I planted all 4 along with the other garlic I always plant (from home grown garlic cloves) last fall.

This spring I did my best weeding the garden bed, but I have trouble to bring myself pulling out all of the beautiful flowers, so end of spring the garlic was a little hard to find as you can see in this picture.

A garlic garden bed overgrown with flowers — **The elephant garlic is in the back**

I always find it hard to determine when the garlic is ready, but after seeing several leaves turning brown I decided to harvest and that was good. A few garlic’s where hard to find underneath all of the flowers and also because they dried in completely already, but the harvest was ok. These are 2 different varieties and the elephant garlic is on the first picture above.

2 metal bowls with freshly harvested garlic

I think I should put a lot more manure/ compost with the garlic I will plant this fall. I hope on bigger garlic, but the garlic this year is already a lot better than it has been the last few years. Another thing is to select the best and biggest garlic cloves to replant this fall, instead of using these in the kitchen. In the past I did this the wrong way around, because I hate cleaning all of those very tiny garlic cloves I had been planting these. Also I need to plant a lot more garlic, since this garlic will not last us very long.

The elephant garlic also made a lot of seeds at the garlic bulbs. When I ordered the seeds online there was a manual as to how to plant them, the way how was a little surprising to me and it turned out to be a total fail. This time I will simply plant all of the seeds as I do with the cloves, well maybe just not as deep as the cloves, this fall in the same garden bed.

While harvesting the garlic, we also pulled out all off the faded flowers and planted some very sad looking tomato seedlings. I planted the variety Primabella and hope they will recover and grow; apparently the potting soil was not good for pre-growing seedlings.

Very small tomato plant in a garden bed with the nametag

Raising 9 roosters to clear soil for gardening

Chickens are used in food forest building to clear soil and fertilize the soil before planting new trees and shrubs, so I thought I can also use them to clear land for gardening. Did it work?

Well, I hate to say that for us it did not. Maybe the roosters are still too young, maybe roosters do not scratch as well as chickens, but to extend our berry garden the clearing that these roosters did is not enough. As you can see on the picture the patch in front of the chicken run is where they where and cleared the ground, but grass started growing again immediately, so this is not good enough to extend our berry garden on.

A patch of cleared pasture, with the chicken run in the back, where the grass is growing trough

As a last resort of trying to get rid of the couch grass, we are now trying out covering the ground with a silage tarp. I am not sure how long this would have to stay on. The sun burns extremely here so, on the black tarp, I hope that the heat will help killing the weeds, especially the rhizome grass. I would like to plant raspberries and strawberries in the fall.