halfjapanese hamburger (HH)

The first blossoms have appeared in our strawberry patch. I counted them this morning: We have 57 mother and daughter plants now. I believe we had only 39 last summer, 3 rows of 13. I cut the umbilical cord between the plants when I weeded the bed a few weeks ago. I read later that cutting it produces larger berries while leaving it attached produces more berries. I wish I had known that before. I prefer the intense flavor of the smaller strawberries. It’s something I’ll have to remember for next year. I can’t wait for the harvest, though. I’ve already started collecting strawberry recipes in anticipation.

Haven’t found the inspiration to write. I’ll just photoblog for a little while until I get past the block.

We had our first chilly day yesterday with a high of 61° F after several weeks of late summer afternoons in the mild mid-70s. Small piles of dried leaves in burnt sienna and caramel paper brown have been raked and collected next to their parent trees. And somehow I am happy there is finally a lightening up in the load of work in the garden. This morning, it only took me 25 minutes to water the garden, as opposed to those hotter midsummer days when thirsty plants drank 45-60 minutes per day.

With intermediate September rains, God waters the lawn for me on days when I just don’t feel like doing it. God doesn’t weed, though. So, today, I’ve picked the raspberry bushes as my weeding and pruning project.

Updated December 6, 2008.

I can’t get the Tears for Fears song out of my head…

We took advantage of the break in rain to work in the garden. There are large bald spots where Annette, the previous tennant, had dug up her rose bushes and torn down her greenhouse. I couldn’t decide what we should plant there instead, so the easiest thing to do was to just grow some grass. I figured if we started today, we’d have 34 days left for something to sprout there in that empty space before everyone arrives for the wedding party.

For the one rosebush she didn’t take, we enlarged the mulching area to create a circle, lined it with rocks we found, and laid down a layer of topsoil and then mulch. This should make it a little easier to control weeds and to mow the grass in this area.

For the spot where the greenhouse used to be, we had a sudden creative moment and used old cement bricks to create a heart. We sowed grass seeds outside the heart and plan to put red or pink flowers inside the heart.

As I’m learning to garden, I’m also learning German gardening terms:

der Torf - peat
der Rindenmulch - bark mulch
die Pflanzenerde - topsoil

_{Updated July 10, 2008.}