Getting Ready for the New Strawberry Season

Last year I planted the first set of June bearing strawberry plants and since it was the first year I wasn't going to get anything from my plants.  Today I removed all the straw from the plants and found that all of them had survived the harsh winter.  Now that they have survived there is a good chance that this season they will begin to produce the fruit and berries that I am looking forward to consume.  Some weeding was done today as well and wanted to just loosen the soil for some air circulation to the roots.

Most of my plants indoors have been getting enough sun to grow, but not enough for successful flower production.  I decided to place most of them outside especially my alyssum, dill, tomatoes, and rhubarb.  They need as much sun as possible and by putting them outside I am also getting them used to the weather and preparing to harden them off.  This is the process of getting them acclimated to the elements that they will find outside once I place them in the garden for good.

Here is my rhubarb plant that I purchased this season.  I have two of them, but this one was the first to get some leaves and the other is getting leaves, but a little bit slower than this one. I plan to put them in the ground once the roots start pushing through the peat pot.  Right now there is just one root that happened to show itself through the pot recently.

The Weather is Beginning to Heat Up

Now that spring weather is starting to appear and trees are beggining to show signs of budding along with grass starting to grow it is time to work in the garden.  My plants are still in containers from starting them inside and they will be placed outside to get used to the weather.  This is just something that the plants need to go through in order to be placed in the garden without getting a shock to their system.

Now that my plants are outside and it is warm enough to work with the soil and is beginning to dry I thought yesterday was a perfect time to work on my blueberries.  I didn't do much except for weeding them and removing many leaves that had collect during the fall months.  It was mostly maple leaves and trees around the area that happen to get collected here.

As you can see from the picture below of all the fall debris that had collect along with some grass that was beginning to grow as well.  I got rid of all of it in order to give them a good head start to the summer season.

Along with warmer weather comes transplanting of some plants mainly my spinach which has been growing quite well.  It is still too early to till the entire garden as well as placing any other plants in the soil so I will just focus on spinach for the time being.  Later on I will be working on my other plants.

They are beginning to grow their second set of leaves and the roots have almost reached the bottom and this is how you know when it is time to place them in the soil.