As the Spindle Turns . . .

Yes, there are still plenty more to do. But I also want to eat other things this year besides potatoes. After moving out lots of trays today, I got to repotting the soil blocks into containers. Soil blocks air prune root systems so your plants don't wrap their roots into a bundle. After all the classes I took with PASA, it looks like I'm the only one using a soil blocker around here. None of the other seedling businesses use it. It does tend to dry out faster, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Once the plant starts to get big enough, I transplant them into bigger containers. There is no transplant shock. Just pop their cube into a bigger container. Eliott Coleman developed the tool and Johnny's Seeds carries it. https://www.johnnyseeds.com/tools-supplies/seed-starting-supplies/soil-block-makers/hand-held-4-soil-blocker-7862.html#q=Soil%2Bblocker&lang=en_US&start=1
I like it. It allows me to fill up grow trays without little, wasteful, plastic pots that break but end up in a landfill.

I still use plenty of plastic, but it's reuse, not new. And I use them year after year; yogurt containers and milk containers. The meat thermometer makes a great tool to punch holes in the bottom for water drainage. Today I repotted the rest of the tomatoes and celery. Some cabbage and chard got put into the garden beds today. Since it's been the full moon, I planted root crops, like parsnips, radishes, and carrots, direct sow.




Then I pulled weeds around the roses. I raked the mess the ground hog left behind. I cleaned up the old propane bottles and stacked them neatly next to the garage. I mixed the coffee grounds into the garage garden. I found volunteer tomatoes coming up as well as carrots. There is evidence the deer came through the front yard garden. Hoof prints in mud are a dead giveaway. So I dragged the portable animal fencing to the front yard. Chrono helped me set it up. I'm running out of T-posts. Then I moved the lovage behind the valerian. They both look like skirret. I dug a hole for the apple tree. It'll be another month before the tree arrives. Do you think I could find the darn T-post pounder? I put a T-post to mark wher the apple will go. It doubles as a stake to tie the tree to for straightening or to put deer/rabbit protection around. An hour later I had a good bit of the garage cleaned up. Eventually I found the post pounder. My 3 pound sledge is in the van which is still in the shop.

With everything done, it was time to run errands. I wanted some winemaking supplies so I can bottle last year's bounty before this year's needs to ferment. More dirt for potatoes, why? I found more containers in the garage while cleaning. The car needed gas too. And the cat was out of food, well, acceptable food anyway. Chrono wasn't feeling well. She was craving limes for a sore throat. Since we hit a sale, she'll make lime curd too. So off to another store for English muffins. I think we hit three different grocery stores plus Big Lots for the soil and A & M Winemaking. I picked up yeast while I was there. If the weather holds, I should be able to make more rhubarb wine. And of course, Starbucks for more coffee grounds. Saturday is usually on the light side. I'll deal with mixing those grounds in tomorrow.

We raced a storm home in time to move all the seedlings to safe locations. I'm up to 22 trays right now. Not all are full. There were plenty of seed cubes that didn't germinate. The onions benefited from being outside in diffuse light. The dianthus benefited from going back in under direct grow lights. They like it sunny but I needed to repot the tomatoes who were also in their tray. Everybody's inside except three trays, celery, cabbage, and chard. Tonight's low in the mid-40s. I need to remember to plant dill tomorrow. The deer hate it. Should keep them away from my chard. Still so much more to do and my ankle is all swollen again. I overdid it.



A quick reference guide for how much should you plant? https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2018/03/how-much-to-plant-per-person-garden.html
Mostly, we are learning our limits as we go. 80 pounds of pumpkin was too much last year. 60 would have been better. I could have made pumpkin wine though and didn't. Never plant more than 3 eggplants unless you have friends who will help you eat it. Wish I could get onions to grow. Never enough of those or carrots. Never enough greens either. Could have used more basil. We'll see how the fruit does this year. The Asian pear bloomed nicely. The goumi too. Blueberries and currents have been slow to produce. The plum only had three blossums. The raspberries spread out. Lots of new growth. They throw suckers. Not sure if the canes need to be second year. Sure could use T-posts for them as well. Well, we'll get what we get. Stay tuned!

I've just a few days to figure out where to put all my potatoes. They are all eyes now, almost no potato left. I've a whole box of fingerling seed potatoes, another of blue potatoes, and Red Cloud to find homes for. Some I put in sand which is supposed to prevent early sprouting, but not so well. There may even be German butterballs somewhere but they don't grow well here. I may skip them altogether. The company is out of grow bags for the season. I used my 30 for the Red Norlands. I worry that the grow bags are too small. Every cracked bottom bucket I have, went into planting the Austrian Crescent potatoes. I have them in the secret garden. Must be 12 buckets now, just lining the fenceline. (The bottoms crack when they are left outside all winter.) I need to shim the containers because of the slope in the secret garden. Some of the Red Norlands are already up, despite the 35° F temperature this morning. One more day of cold temperatures then comes a hot, not warm, front. Almost 80° predicted for Thursday. This crazy weather is seriously messing with food production. I have an Asian pear in full bloom. Just hope I don't lose the whole crop. I also need pollinators who have been scarce with all the new round-up spraying subdivisions going in.



I watched Doug and Stacy (YouTube) on beekeeping. I would love to try to lure a wild hive. Dr. Leo has a Russian style horizontal hive. I think he sells the building plans. I even have a place for it next to the garage, in between rose bushes. Sigh. Not this year. I have three more years on my austerity plan. The credit cards must go!

I already started transplanting the tomatoes from their 2" soil blocks into bigger pots indoors. I am hoping the workload lessens once I can get the seedlings outside, hardening off. Taking trays of plants in and out each day is annoying. I have up to 18 trays but only 6 are cold hardy enough to go in/out right now. (chard, cabbage, onions) I'm keeping them inside today for this cold snap, but none like the dry heat of the furnace. I see why people have greenhouses to start off plants in. For now, I will be putting them out on Tuesday for good. I have row covers for late frosts. Celery and Tomatoes are the next in/out trays. I've 40 celery plants. The celery germination rate was so high! Pretty easy to grow too, wonder why more people don't grow these?

Next up is to plant pumpkins, cucumbers and melons. Also more radishes, lettuce, turnips, parsnips, carrots, arugula, and beets.

The new honeyberry ships on April 21st. I will be focusing on the NW quad of the mandala garden. A blueberry needs to be moved about a foot. It didn't do well this last winter, too exposed. The hellabore needs to move to make room for the new honeyberry. Also there is a walnut under the birdbath that must go! Permies.com had a nice discussion on honeyberries or hascaps as they call them. Originally from Siberia, many species are being developed for different climates. I have the Japanese ones, both late blooming, designed for warmer climates, Blue Pagoda and Hokkaido(TM). The University of Saskatchewan developed a cold hardy, super sweet variety called Aurora. https://permies.com/t/87194/berry/Haskap-Honeyberries Why honeyberries? Similar to blueberries, growing taller and not as fussy about pH, they are simply, brain nutrition. Growing both allows me to cope with climate change a little better too. By picking/eating your own various types of fruit, as ripe as possible, your body benefits from a compound call salvestrol (sp?) which kills cancer cells. So another reason to grow your own. Fruits shipped long distance do not have this compound. Studies on Salvestrol are being done in Japan. More info http://www.salvestrol.ca/index.asp

I like this recipe : Soak them in schnapps and add sugar Maybe some lemon rind (avoid the white pith as it's very bitter) or cinnamon or cloves if you enjoy those. Keep them soaked for a month or two, in my experience they don't need a lot of time. And then let it sit another couple of months after filtering. Same as any other liqueur really. It's a good idea to add sugar in steps and taste as you go, otherwise you might end up with a taste like Gummi-Bär.

I was saddened to hear that by Bayer buying Monsanto, round-up is being marketed around the EU now, in Ireland especially. European bees are what we in America call honeybees. And their days are numbered due to corporate greed. So tragic because it was preventable. Please don't spray your dandelions! I pray that the neighbor's house isn't sold to someone who just wants a green lawn. She's having work done which may mean changes soon.

Back to work.







And the pictures go on and on.

Trying out the new old computer (new to me but a discard from a friend who upgraded). There is no way to scroll down to the bottom of the page, although it does feel good to use a full keyboard again. For those of you who learned to type on a typewriter, you know what I mean. I like using all ten fingers. With a little help, I learned a keyboard shortcut to scroll down. Function and Arrow key. Apple laptop keyboards don't have a page down button.

It's been a long day, one in a series of many. I went to bed at 2 am and got up at 10 am. I got dressed and headed downstairs. Hubby sleeps in because he spends the night getting up to go to the bathroom a lot. It's nice and quiet, working without interruption. I feed the cat. She doesn't fuss much. She is somewhat feral, and doesn't make any noise. Usually I start the day out in the kitchen with dishes. They have to be done during daylight because there is no functioning sink light. When I finally have bowls and spoons clean, I get cereal and milk with tea. Today I did a lot more work. I collected all the dirty clothes and found out which pile all my missing blue jeans got buried in. With a load of laundry washing, I decided I would sweep the living room carpet before hanging the clothes on the rack over the furnace. I found the broom with the stiff bristles and had a good half hour cardio workout, sweeping all the dirt out of the living room carpet and onto the wooden dining floor, about 12 x 24 feet of carpet, before scooping it up in the dust pan. I do this every couple of days. Happy with the results, I brought up all the clean, wet clothing and hung them on the two Yankee clotheslines over the furnace registers.

Grow lights get turned on and seedlings get water from the spray bottle. Onions are not looking healthy. I have four varieties. None are doing stellar. I am going to let them dry out a bit. Maybe I overwatered? The soil blocker onions are still okay. Just the bigger transplants are not flourishing. Maybe I should try a disinfectant in the water like sage or camomile. The leeks look fine. There are no bugs in the living room. Fungus gnats have been a scourge in years past. Home Depot called. My potting soil arrived. Organic soil is hard to come by. I ordered online and had it delivered to the store. I will need it when I transplant the celery into bigger pots. The tomatoes are looking good. Three basil so far out of eight. I still want to plant St. John's wort for its natural dye. I also have Lime Basil to plant. I am absolutely out of space. I only have six spots under grow lights. The rest are stacked like cord wood in front of the south-facing front window. It's too cold and unstable to put anything outside yet. I should find the clip fan and start getting them used to wind.

Looking at the radar, I decided since we had just hit new moon, to get some planting done before it started raining again. I put a small amount of radishes in two different beds. Then I went down to the basement to cut 10.5" circles out of old cardboard boxes. I got three done today. The box cutter wasn't the best tool to use. I use cardboard for the grow bags to stiffen the bottoms before adding dirt. Three more bags planted today. I'm up to 23 grow bags of early Red Norlands. Seven more to go. Looks like the other potatoes in the basement want to get planted now as well. Lots of long, scraggly growth greeted me when I opened their boxes. I had planned on 50 grow bags but could only afford 30. I have four broken-bottom kitty litter buckets and four older, smaller grow bags left from last year. I'll have to make due but I won't get as good a yield. I have several more varieties of potatoes to plant. The rest shouldn't go out until after April 30th. I have French fingerlings, Austrian Crescents, German Butterballs, Blue potatoes, and Red Cloud (late variety). I have lots of French fingerlings to plant but not much of the others. Space remains an issue. Grow bags were the best solution I could come up with.

I do an awful lot of running up and down stairs every day. By now, hubby was up and it was time for me to empty his bedside commode. Two nights ago, he managed to fall and smash his bucket. He falls a lot. Another wonderful side effect of his medication, loss of control of his limbs. The bucket appears to be accordianed but not leaking. So far so good. I got some knitting time in while watching another health program on Eastern medicine, stopping every once in a while to take notes. Then time to make lunch. There were leftovers today, pumpkin soup. All the store onions want to be growing at this point. The onion is too strong in the soup. It burns going down. Yogurt helps. So onions are off the playlist for a while.

Then on to errands. There were library books to return, Chrono had orders to ship, I had potting soil to pick up and Chrono needed fabric for her next batch of patches. A small amount of groceries were also necessary. Two more days of meals anyway. We are dependent on orders and patrons in order to buy food. Large shopping excursions are impossible. If orders come in, that amount can be used for groceries, but no more than that. Some weeks, the grocery budget is $30 and other weeks, $80. If we had an actual income I could easily spend $200 to feed three adults and a cat, plus TP and laundry soap. We are totally dependent on our customers. That is the way small business works.

I missed the food pantry pickup earlier this week. Donations were down. The "My Next Door Neighbor" app posted that they ran out of food this week. They were soliciting for canned food donations. I guess I'm glad I didn't go. Nothing worse than wasting gas and two hours standing in line for rotten onions. It'll be 45 days before my radishes are ready, 60 days on lettuce. Rhubarb and asparagus will be ready in 2 to 4 weeks. This is the hungriest time of the year. But there is always pumpkin. Although I think at this point, that's running low too.

Someone sent me an invitation to pick just one crop and try to grow as much of it as we would use in a year. That to me is wrong on a lot of levels. If you put all your eggs in one basket, you may end up with nothing. Last year many people had no tomatoes because of the weather. We are having issues with Sulfur Dioxide leaks at the steel mill. The mill was fined ten times last year for air quality violations. It does affect some of the crops as do the critters- ground hogs, squirrels, rabbits, skunks, deer and raccoons. So by planting diversity, at least I have something in the cupboard at the end of the year. I have no way to know what it will be, but at least there will be something. I understand it was supposed to be a homesteading exercise. My land is too small to play such games. Polyculture will yield much more abundance than any mono-crop. I didn't have a single cabbage moth on my collard greens last year because they were mixed in with so many other plants. One even survived last winter in tact! Sorry, I don't play Russian roulette with my food supply. Also if we only had just one food, we'd get so sick of eating it because it would be the only thing to eat. So how would you even plan for a year's supply? Can you imagine 365 days of nothing except canned tomatoes to eat?

Meanwhile, the push to get all the business computer data re-entered into a new system is almost complete. One more day of tasks to finish. On Monday we have our appointment with the accountant. That will be a major milestone met. Fingers crossed that we don't have to pay. The well is dry. The van needs repairs too. I have no events until the Asheville Viking Festival. I have so much work to do for that as well. No rest for the weary.

This year's list of what we're planting isn't too much different than last years. I did pick up a few different seeds though. Since we had too many pumpkins last year, I'll cut back a bit. The goal is still to grow half our own food, about 2200 pounds. I will be lucky to hit 500 lbs. Until I terrace the backyard with cinderblock and improve the soil enough, I can't see us meeting that goal. I wrote out a business plan of all the things I'd need to reach that goal. It was expensive and extensive. It's not like you can just throw some seed in the ground. Our ground has so much clay, it's better suited for building houses or making pottery.

To meet that lofty goal of 2200 pounds, I need to add two more garden bed tiers, extend all exsisting tiers across the whole back yard, trellis, fence, add an apricot tree and another goumi, some goji berry vines, more ligonberries, a late producing blueberry, and two persimmons or hazelnuts. The current soil won't support that. I need more indoor grow lighting, shelving, garden tools, mulch, a wheelbarrow, a chipper-shredder, etc.

The plum tree may produce fruit this year. What kind and how tasty remains to be seen. I will be growing plants that don't require pollination all in one bed and using a row cover to keep critters out. I have been harping about the tall mulberry tree shading everything out. I may have to do something about that finally. So 2 new beds; the cinderblock garden replaces the bookcase and the new fire ring garden, plus 30 grow bags.

This year's plan:
Early Red Norland potatoes (30)
Assorted Onions, struggling
One pound Potato onions
American Flag Leeks (9)
Garlic, both hardneck and softneck
2 Ligonberries
12 rhubarb plants
12 sweet potato slips
2 red currant bushes
2 black currant bushes
3 blueberries- one dying
1 gooseberry
2 honey bushes- being moved
Small quantity of strawberry plants (deer ate the crowns last year)
Potted alpine strawberries
Mulberry Tree
1 Asian Pear
1 plum
New apple tree - be awhile before it produces
New Quince tree- be awhile before it produces
Cherry trees, not sure how many years before fruiting
black raspberries
Red raspberries
2 elderberries
1 tiny Aronia, transplanting to a new location
1 Goumi, which the birds love
potatoes, red cloud and french fingerling being the most prolific
Purple beans
Foot long beans
Scarlet runner beans
Black beans for drying
Purple Cherokee tomatoes
Black plum tomatoes
Sunray tomatoes
Amish paste tomatoes
Roma tomatoes
basil
marigolds
bachelor buttons
Celery (45)
Anise hyssop
Lemon balm
Lemon verbena
Yarrow
lettuce
Mizuna
Turnips
Beets
Carrots
Parsnips
Honey nut squash
Butternut squash
Long Island Cheese Pumpkin
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Zucchini
Lovage
Valerian
Skirret
Parsnips
Peas
Cabbage
Kohlrabi
Burgundy Amaranth
Nasturtiums
Borage
Calendula
Garlic chives
Chives
Watermelon
Red sorrel
Swiss Chard
Malabar Spinach
Claytonia
Mache
Minutina, Stella Erba

A lot of variety but not a lot of a single crop. Check out this article for the reason why - we typically depend on only 17 foods in the average amrican diet, https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/50-foods-save-world.html?utm_content=bufferd78b2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Crop failure- Ground Cherries

Meet my new aquisition, the Fire Ring garden. I have it under the dogwood tree this year. I filled it with compost, leaves, coffee grounds, etc. It may take a year to get the right composition. I put potato onions in around the rim. I hope to add Swiss Chard among other things to fill in the space later. It will be a partial shade bed.



So in watching videoes on planting the potato onions, I discovered how I should have tackled the hillside. I just don't have enough cinderblock. I need 16 for each step. I am short about 48 blocks. For reference, blocks are 8" x 8" x 16". Also potato onions should be planted 10" apart. This year I will be falling short of my goals because of lack of resources. I didn't get enough grow bags for potatoes. I don't have enough organic potting soil, still haven't replaced my spade, no wheelbarrow or pitchfork. My seedlings fell short on germination too. With re-doing the front yard into a food forest, I will be short garden space for annuals. Sigh.



I planted all the potato onions today. The biggest went into the garage garden, some into the raspberry bed, a few around the plum, a couple by the gooseberry, and as previously mentioned, the fire ring. Early Red Norland Potatoes, I planted 10 out of 30 into grow bags. The rest will have to wait for planting. I am cutting cardboard to stiffen the grow bags. That takes time. Moving cinderblocks is hard work. I tinkered with my layout a little. I am trying to straighten the curved garage walkway. Raspberries overgrew the path. Go figure. So I am encouraging them to grow on the lower side. I leveled a portion, removed wooden branches, and added cinderblocks. When I picked up coffee grounds, I filled in the gaps. It's still very curved but not as bad. Heavy gloves and trimming thorn bushes comes next.



Tonight I am soaking peas for planting along the front fence. I picked up a mammoth snow pea from the food co-op. I also am planting scallions inside in pots as well as eggplant. I bought seed starting mix. Yeah, NO! They always get a start-up organic company and manage to package mulch as seed starter. Not the same thing! I have three bags of ground up wood shavings that wouldn't support life last year. I will use it as mulch this year but I need a good organic soil. I'm going to call my Home Depot to see if they are carrying this Vermont Organic: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vermont-Organics-Reclamation-Soil-25-Qt-Oragnic-Growers-Potting-Soil-OGPM1CF/204894858 Ace has one from Northrup King. It's nice but a small bag runs $9. It doesn't come in a bigger size. I might have to check out Big Lots. Sometimes they have large bags. I need it for repotting my 45 celery seedlings and 25 Swiss Chard. Eventually, there will also be tomatoes, squash and cukes to transplant. I need at least 60 quarts. The potatoes used a lot of my worm castings, compost pile, and old plant soil. I feel frustrated not having what I need. Well, Rome wasn't built in a day. It was very nice today. Sunny and Mid 60's.

Tree update: My dwarf Liberty apple will ship the week of May 28th. I also ordered a Quince. Sweet potatoes will ship in June. I am getting six Orleans and six Burgundy potatoes. With more and more evidence that GMOs and Round-Up ready crops are really bad for your health, I am buying organic. https://www.mainepotatolady.com/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=101

I did not order the Elliott late producing Blueberry nor more ligonberries or gooseberries. My plan also calls for an additional Goumi berry and 2 Persimmons. My stretch goal was Goji berry vines. Since the new trees cost so much, the bushes got put on hold. Trees take so long to establish that the apple and quince took priority. Late in the week, I will tackle layout of the front yard food forest.

I rather like Luke's saying from the MI Gardener, "Grow Big or go home!" This year I have more seedlings started than ever before. The onions and leeks take forever to grow so I am starting in February. Here's this year's seed:


Although I bought a bunch of new grow light bulbs, I managed to short out two of them. Yes, I'm a klutz. So, I find myself a little short on light. The two trays in darkness were just planted so I am giving them a little time before I find a work around. One tray of each of the above seeds plus one tray of celery and one of the Alpine Strawberries. So far, I have red onions and American Flag Leeks. The Alpines may have a few tiny green dots which could grow into plants. These will take a while. About half the leeks sprouted. The rest, I am still waiting on. I hope they are just long germinators.





If I won the lottery, I'd hang out at the hardware store. I need a spade, wheelbarrow, more trellis, a cow panel or two, fire rings, T-posts, lights, PVC and Douglas Fir for cold frames. This limited budget is holding me back. But it is what it is. So today I worked with what I have. For comparison, last year I had potatoes in the bookcase garden.



This year, I converted it into a 2' wide by 12' long bed. It was so hard to cut the grass around the bookcase. The bookcase detiorated but some of the boards will give me another year. So as to stretch my limited supply of cinderblock, this is what I did:







Peas will be going along the upper edge where the trellis is. The rest will have carrots, parsnips, onions, and leeks. The whole bed, except the peas, will get covered in a fine mesh of tule fabric as none of these things need pollination. This should keep out the rabbits and other critters. (Wasps too). I have to remember to plan around the ground wasps. I never know where they will turn up. I do need them for pollination of other plants. Last year they were in the raspberries. I need to move the clothesline next. My plan for world domination through gardening depends on it. There is a lot of work involved in being an evil overlord.

While rearranging the seedlings, I blew a bulb. The metal reflector shield was loose and touched the electrical portion of the bulb. It didn't blow the circuit breaker or electrocute me but I will be thinking about a different system for next year. That was a twenty dollar bulb. Ouch!

Potting soil is on order. I qualified for free shipping so yay! Hubby's sister gave him an Amazon gift card. He didn't know what to use it on so I ordered a spigot for the rain barrel. I also ordered a connector hose for between the two barrels. I still need a second spigot and the attachment to the rain sprout. Here are some helpful videos on setting up a rain barrel - the Alberta Gardener https://youtu.be/K8D6leyW47U
And installing a RainPal Rain Barrel Spigot https://youtu.be/tln2u7LnBg0

Today I will be shipping out my harddrive to a friend in hopes of getting data off it. Then on to money management and planning. I will be working all weekend. Toodles!

I like free classes. I'm on my way to Grow Pittsburgh to take a class on maximizing production. It's being run by PASA, PA Sustainable Agriculture. https://pasafarming.org/event/crop-planning-for-better-production-panel-discussion-craft/

I have my list of plants I plan to grow, notebook, and a pencil. I have containers and bags to visit the Co-op when I'm done. Definitely need groceries. I emptied the coffee grounds into the garden. Chrono will have to pick up tonight's grounds. Now, I'm just waiting for noodles to boil so I have some food in my system.



I planted today's tray of seedlings, King Richard Leeks, 44 in total. I am out of dirt and light bulbs now. I still need to plant a tray of Utah yellow onions. Then on to celery and swiss chard. I called work. I am entitled to 2 hours of pay for the day the store sent me home. They didn't carry the product I was suppose to give out samples of. I'll get that pay next week. Should be about $20. Not enough but a start. It's going to be a tight squeeze because property tax is due. I hate to eat and run, but I will update this blog on the class tonight.

Stayed under the covers this morning and did some research. Ipads are handy things. So I wrote down all the fruit trees I looked at. I put down their footprints as well. Got rid of any that were fussy or out of my zone. If climate change means more extremes like today, I need plants that can handle both hot and cold temperatures. I also need a tree on the south west corner of my house that will offer shade in the summer and sun in the winter. We are technically in Zone 6. Trees grown for regions/zones 5-8 are preferred.



I gathered all my info, grabbed a pencil and eraser and drafted a new plan. The beauty is that I already have several of these plants but they are in areas where they are not thriving due to lack of sun. By moving them into the sun with soil that has been worked and improved, they should do much better, assuming they survive the week. I have them arranged by height so the tallest plants are in the back. Another part of the placement accounts for existing perennials in that section. Trees and bushes take a while to establish. So nothing should be shaded out. I've lovage, valerian, savory, thyme, and asparagus to think about. Here's the current plan:



It requires the purchase of two new plants, a dwarf apple tree and a quince tree. It should be much more affordable this way, filling in the space nicely. A second path will be in between the quince/aronia and the honeyberries (not marked) for picking. Judging by the honeyberries, they are just sticks, despite being two years old. Same goes for the aronia. It will give me time to dig out the new paths, which will also be swales, filled with sawdust. Looking forward to implementing this new plan. The only big question is what apple to get? Do I want one that I harvest and can or one that stays firm and stores well? Decisions, decisions. More research for another day.