The Joys of Spring Gardening

Today was a gorgeous garden day. We planted our second Prime Jan blackberry purchased from Gardens Alive. There was a little mix up with our order and we ended up getting two so they just let us keep it. Good thing too because we planted the first one but then had several surprise frosts in succession right afterward. Number two had beautiful roots and will hopefully do well. The prime Jan is neat because it has been bred to bear fruit on first year canes.
 

 

Our rhubarb is in its second year and already looks stronger than last year. We did not harvest any shoots the first year to allow the plant time to establish a strong root system. Although we may have to move it this fall because it is growing so much it is getting too close to the end of the bed. Plus it is so close to our garden fence which gets covered in a wall of spearmint (from the neighbor's plot) that at the height of the summer the rhubarb doesn't get enough airflow.  We started with two crowns last year but they got so crowded that the they got the rust and we lost one and the other was in jeopardy for a while. You wouldn't know that now.

We also harvested some of our forgotten produce. These leeks that had been in the garden since last summer. The roots were enormous and we finally had to use a shovel to get them out. These were very neglegted plants. I put the seeds in the ground and never thinned or hilled them. They've gone through a whole winter and frost supposedly makes them taste sweeter but we might have had frost overkill. We'll see how they taste.