Last season I put raised garden beds in my yard, one for strawberries and two for herbs. The strawberry bed is 4'x4'x11', this was a little bonus because originally I ordered a 2'x4' bed for the strawberries, but when my order arrived there seemed to be a lot of 4' lengths. I had ordered a 2'x2' and a 2'x4' and as I sorted out the order, I was sort of pep-talking myself, alright Melissa, you can figure this out...because there were only two, 2' lengths and the rest were 4'. I just kept thinking, there's got to be a way...finally I called the company I ordered from, www.naturalyards.com, the kind folks at Naturalyards got it all sorted out. They expedited the shipping on my order and I had the rest of my raised beds in no time flat! Plus as a truly unexpected bonus they told me to keep the extra 4'x4' bed!!! I highly recommend them, not just because of the excellent customer service, but because their product is wonderful! The beds look so nice and are so easy to put together and are very affordable.
I checked on my strawberries, guess what! Even here in our cold winters they're still green under the mulch! The only thing I really did was swap off the straw a couple-three weeks ago when it got completely soggy with all the rain and replace it with fresh. I could see the plants peeking through all that wet straw and I was worried that if/when it froze again my plants would be vulnerable. Plus all that wet can lead to rot, so fresh straw dressing for the raised beds it is. Not to worry, the old straw went to the composter. In fact, when I scooted out to take pictures today, the under-straw was a little damp on the bottom, since it was so nice and warm today, I flipped the mulch, so the slightly wet stuff could dry off. I don't know if this is overkill, but those plants are my little friendy-friends, I want to do well by them. I am trying to decide if my petite yard can hold one more (2'x4') raised bed and still have room for the mosaic fountain I am planning to make out of the giant planter my Dad salvaged years ago from somewhere ( I believe it came from our local shopping mall, see if it looks familiar to you locals)...the great thing about the raised beds, if I need to I can rearrange them.
The variety of strawberries I planted last year are called, Mara Des Bois. I ordered them from www.whiteflowerfarm.com. The berries are as delicious as the plants are beautiful and when they say it, "throws vigorous runners" they weren't kidding! I pretty much had my strawberry bed filled the first season! I feel so bad cutting off all those babies...and just throwing them away. I was excited to see that they now have the variety I have been searching for, Fraises Des Bois, I'm definitely going to order some of those. I love White Flower Farm, I also ordered some pink lilly of the valley from them last year, I'll be watching for them to come back and hopefully spread!
Happy, "getting ready to garden" everybody!!! I would love to hear about your favorite plants or garden additions, send me an email if it's too big to post as a comment!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa
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