Working Vacation

The new blueberry field in the front yard

Steven took last week off work to finish up a few projects out in the garden. One started last summer and finally was finished last week: a new blueberry field . We had 8 blueberry bushes behind the hoop houses, between the grapes and blackberries. We decided to move the blueberries to the front yard (we never took good care of the lawn there anyway). Last summer, Steven’s dad turned the grass under, Jonas, our nephew, dug out some shrubs, Steven dug out the old irrigation system and we put it in cover crop (buckwheat)  for the rest of the year.

One of the new blueberry plants

This spring, I bought 40 new blueberry plants. We planted the last five last week and mulched it all with bark. There won’t be any blueberries on the new plants this year (I took off all the blossoms), but if we can keep the birds out, we should have a nice crop of blueberries in a few years.

One of the old blueberries, transplanted to the new field

The next project was to turn the old blueberry field into a new vegetable field. We moved the blueberries to the new field, where they seem to be doing well. (Here I am grateful for the cool spring, since we moved them later than was good for them.) I dug, divided and moved the rhubarb to a new location and Steven turned over some lawn to square up the field. Then, we did some major weeding and pulled out a few other berries. Steven tilled it all up and today I got a big pile of compost to add in. Hopefully, this weekend, we’ll get the compost in and I’ll start planting beans out there next week!

The old blueberry field in late winter

The new vegetable field