New Bed, New Berries

When we bought our house,

it came with a (mint-infested) raised bed out back under the bay window.

I appreciated the free garden plot,

but the wood was starting to fall apart in places . . .

. . . so we recently built a new bed in its place, and lasagna-mulched the plot

with things like chicken shavings, fallen leaves from the woods,

and of course, part of the free mulch mountain in our front yard.

Now that we're safely past our area's last spring frost date,

I bought some tomatoes and zucchini plants from a nearby farm,

and we'll see how they do in our upgraded bed.

As soon as I finished planting veggies out back,

I turned my attention to the overgrown "berry patch" out front.

Some of the raspberry plants our piano teacher gave us

have soldiered along through drought and deluge,

but are in danger of being overrun by things like this Choke Weed 

(I don't know its real name; I just know it's a royal pain to remove).

I spent hours this week yanking out weeds

(which the chickens are now happily composting for us) . . .

. . . then I planted another blueberry bush by the raspberries . . .

. . . and put a couple honeyberry bushes next to our house.

I've been meaning to yank out our hydrangeas for a while,

and I figured I might as well replace them with something

that makes tasty fruit.

Honeyberries produce best if you plant more than one variety,

and after a bit of research on Ye Olde Internet,

I settled on "Aurora" and "Blue Banana,"

which reportedly grow well together and have great flavor.

Honeyberry fruit tastes like a combination of blueberry and blackberry,

and one of our bushes actually came with a little berry on it,

so I can personally attest that their sweet-tart fruit is very good.

Hopefully we can get them established this spring,

and enjoy some yummy fruit in a year or two.