The orchard and berry patch are nearing completion.
On Saturday, we dug the blueberries next door. Tom planted these bushes nearly twenty years ago, first covering the ground with a layer of landscape fabric, a bit of earth, and then another layer of landscape fabric. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it made things difficult for us. In the intervening decades, nature moved several inches of soil onto the landscape fabric, and, of course, this soil has become the home of grass and weeds.
It took us nearly an hour to dig the first plant, and we considered giving up, buying our plants from a garden center. I'm glad we persevered, though, because once we found the correct technique, each plant only took twenty or thirty minutes to pry loose. In reality, blueberries are nearly as easy to dig as rhododendrons.
On Sunday afternoon, I planted the four mature blueberries along with two young blueberries I grew in containers this year. Following advice from Rhonda, our Master Gardener friend, I built mounds in which to plant the blueberries. By this I mean that for each plant, I set the root-ball on top of the newly-tilled ground. Then I shoveled soil onto and around the root-ball, creating a large mound which I compacted with my shovel when I'd finished. (I did something similar for the caneberries; Rhonda thought I could have been more severe.)
Mac and Pam had us over for breakfast Sunday morning. Afterward, Pam gave me a bag full of strawberry plants. (This is fun because these are descendants of plants that I had given her from our house in Canby; I'm getting my own strawberries back!) After planting the blueberry bushes, I planted the strawberry plants, stringing them around the walkway from the garage, up to the flagpole. I still had plants left, so I ringed them around the caneberries.
All that remains is to transplant four grapes from next door, after which we'll have the following food-producing plants on the property:
- One ancient English walnut (currently dropping its fruit — we gather the nuts and set them out to dry).
- Two filberts (from which we receive no fruit; the squirrels eat it all).
- One oak (from which Kris has been harvesting the acorns, though it's unlikely we'll use them except to feed the squirrels).
- Three newly-planted fruit trees: an apple, a pear, and a prune.
- Six caneberries: two blackberries, a boysenberry, a marionberry, and two raspberries.
- Four grapes: a Concord, an Interlaken, and two other seedless varieties yet to be determined.
- Six blueberry plants: four high-bush of various cultivars, and two low-bush Toro.
- Approximately seventy-five strawberry plants of three different varieties (fifteen were here already, eighteen came from Jeremy's parents (and are Hood), and the rest came from Pam via our old garden).
When I had finished with my berry chores, the neighbor across the street invited me to pick grapes. He has a line of Concords along his north fence, and they're delicious. (They seem a little over-ripe, though I'm no expert. The bunches of fruit tumble to the ground at the slightest provocation, and the part of the grape just below the skin is somewhat mealy.)
I talked with the neighbor, John, and his son, John Jr. They told me about Alaska (John spends every summer plying the waters around Sitka and Ketchikan aboard his boat, which contrary to my earlier belief is not a sailboat), about teaching (John taught shop, John Jr. taught phys-ed), and about the neighborhood.
John recently had surgery on his right hand. It wasn't a major surgery, but it's enough to have knocked him for a loop. He is exhausted, though he found the strength to stand outside in his bathrobe (and an indescribable hat), eating grapes while John Jr. and I worked. John Jr. had climbed onto the roof of the house, loppers in hand, and was pruning the grape vine that every year grows from the base of the patio, up the supports, onto the roof, and, eventually, to the power lines.
John Jr. told me bits of our house's history. He used to mow the lawn for Jack and Georgia, the old couple who lived here before us. John Jr. remembers picking up chestnuts and roasting them. (Apparently there was once a gorgeous old chestnut tree that dominated the yard.) He explained that the front flower beds used to be much smaller, much more contained; it was only as Jack and Georgia aged that the beds spread and became unruly. When he was in fifth grade, it was Jack who got John Jr. to jog. Jack ran/walked five miles every morning: five laps around the block. (John seemed to imply that this was an Important Event. He became a phys-ed teacher, so maybe it really was.) He remembers coming into our house shortly before Georgia died. She was on morphine, and disoriented. She woke when he came in, her eyes cloudy, but she recognized him: "It's little Johnny Little," she said, and then she fell asleep again. Jack began to weep.
When we had finished in the yard, Kris and I came inside to wash up. We stood at the large kitchen window and looked out on the yard. For once there were no cats in sight.
There were, however, scores of birds. Three bluejays flitted between the dogwoods (now bright with fall color), the young apple (its limbs bowing beneath the mass of the birds), the feeder, and the bird bath. One jay spent several minutes in the bath, dunking his head, shaking his wings, dousing himself. When he'd finished, another jay took his place. When this jay finished, a smaller bird — a finch? — took her turn.
For a brief time this weekend, another squirrel auditioned to replace Walnut. He was cute, yes, but he wasn't nearly as vocal. And he seemed overly concerned with burying nuts. That's just going to get him killed. We hope another Walnut comes along.
That sounds like a very productive weekend.
We sent most of the weekend in the ‘back yard’ also. On one side of our house the grass never grows, we think because of too much shade. So we are putting in a rock garden. We spent the whole weekend leveling the dirt, capping off some sprinklers, turning some sprinklers to part of the drip system, laying weed cloth, setting up a border around the tree and planting plants in the pots that will be along the wall. The stepping-stones and rocks will be delivered on Tuesday.
If we really like the look, we will expand the look to the rest of the ‘back yard’. There is so little grass area anyway, that it seems like a waste to water grass that we never use.