Mole-proofed beds with new paths

Today, we finished the mole proofing project. All told, we dug out eight existing raised beds, installed hardware cloth, and then refilled the beds. We also built two new beds, installing the hardware cloth up front this time. Take that moles!

Just as we finished up the mole project, we started another project. Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment. When we built the raised beds, we did so over a grassy area. Well, the grass around the beds has been driving me nuts so I decided today that I would put down thick landscaping fabric and crushed rock around the beds. We’ll work on this one on and off over the next few months. It’s about as much fun as the mole-proofing project. 😉

In the pic above, you can see the bed with the bean towers. This bed was my failed asparagus bed. Since we had to dig it out anyway, I removed the few crowns that were left and planted them in another part of the yard where they might be able to naturalize. They might just die. I’m going to need to start over with asparagus anyway (maybe next year) and at least this way the few good crowns have a shot at doing something. In this bed, I planted two varieties of celery (Utah and a red variety) and day neutral onion sets. I bought a small batch of these at the Territorial Seed Store when we were traveling through Oregon.

You can also see that the beds have been freshly mulched. We’re continuing with our fall clean up (yes, sadly late I know) and raked a bunch of Big Leaf Maple leaves today. Derek raked most of the leaves and then ran them through our mulcher. We then spread them out on the raised beds to act as a mulch. As they break down, they will serve as a good soil amendment.

Shiro plum in full bloom

The Shiro plum is the first of our fruit trees to bloom each year. And every year (so far) it provides a huge crop of plums. It is the easiest fruit tree I have. On Friday, we had some nice sun in the afternoon and the bees were out pollinating the tree. I hope we’ll have a good crop again this year.

How is your spring gardening coming along?

Sandy