Yesterday was sunshine and warmth here in Maine (flip flops on everyone). G and I carried the summer deck chairs down from the attic. Sat in them for a little while and then moved on to whatever chores we had on our lists. G cut back my ill-mannered raspberry canes to 4 inches. Heritage variety makes two sets of berries. One in July and one in September. If we cut back to 4 inches in Spring--I get no July berries and a whole lot of September berries. I vote for "whole lot of" in September every time.
Today G will cut and remove the wild blackberry canes and leave the domestic canes. So less blood letting when I pick berries. Usually, my ankles. Some day--in the far distant Future, I may get enough berries for a pie. But now, I settle for eating them as I pick them or just enough for one serving of yogurt and blackberries.
I will be doing the pruning of the blueberry bushes myself. I have four good ones and one iffy one. I get plenty of berries in a good season. I use them in my smoothies and a wonderful blueberry sour cream cake which I make as often as I can. The new (last year) peach trees have now flowered yet. Neither has the Queen of Plums formerly known as Stanley.
I have already cut fresh chives from my little mounds of chives to use on baked potatoes. Later these little mounds will be quite large and covered in lavender chive blossoms.
The garden looks fine. I worked hard just before Winter to get it all neat and evenly covered in chopped leaves. Doing the prep work in October makes April and May so much easier in the garden.And we are already a full 30 days behind with such a long cold Winter. It may not even be Time for tomatoes going into the ground until early July. 2 to 3 weeks later than usual. I have hoops and will use them to warm things up.
Well, I am off to the library. To return books. Find another book for G to read. Another two. He is doing so much better now that we stopped watching the news. Before, he couldn't concentrate on anything but "worrying". Anxiety and panic almost. Much less of that now with only newspaper news. Hoping you have a good day today--Doing something outdoors for an hour?
I can't tell you how much I loved reading about someone who no longer watches the news! I have avoided it for years, more and more, as it takes away from my own experience and peace of mind.
ReplyDeleteI would love to grow berries again someday. I once lived in a cabin in Texas which was surrounded by dewberries. I would go pick them in the mornings. My dog loved eating them off the brambles and would peel his lips back to avoid the thorns.