Sorting the strawberries

Well it’s a good thing you don’t measure the worth of you day by the output on the ground.   If I pace it out, I calculate I have sorted three and a half metres of the strawberry bed. Hurrah.   But there are at least seven to go.

This has been a big project I have been ruminating on for a while. The strawberry bed just wasn’t working. It’s a large space in the vegetable bed and once the fruit is over there’s not a lot happening.

The idea came to me when I was weeding it last month.   Some verbena bonariensis plants had self seeded in the soil (and on the fabric in one instance).   They looked a whole lot better than the ones in the hedge nearby.   And I realised that the wall really does protect the plants in winter.

You can hear endless comments about protecting some slightly tender plants by placing them near a south facing wall.   And here was the proof.   So why not have a mad season of sowing of those seeds and get a good crop in here. It will definitely make the bed more interesting. And give a bit of vertical colour in a rather low and flat space.

All I needed to do first was pick out every one of the river stones, put them into buckets, carefully lift up the weedproof fabric, taking care not to yank out the strawberries.   Then go and chip wood and branches and place it as a thick mulch.

It is the mulching bit that takes time. Down on the lower terraces I spotted my quarry: lots and lots of small saplings and branches from the chestnut and cherry trees.   Green wood is good for the mulch as you can get some good funghi going and feeding the soil.   But I have to mix it up a bit. Dead sticks all over the forest floor and whippy snippy saplings.

It was a good thing I was down on this part of the path: there are  a lot of chestnut saplings in the way.   They root fantastically well, and are sprouting all over the wrong place.   Some I could pull up, but I will need to come back here shortly and dig up the ones that are growing in the wrong place.   Something else to add to my April To Do list.

After a few hours of secateur and lopper work I had enough sticks to fill a large tarpaulin and haul back up to the house. Drudgery, but the weather was perfect for this sort of thing: warm and sunny and birdsong all about.

I have managed enough mulch to get almost there: I think I will be a metre short if I get round to finishing the whole bed.   Rain is predicted tomorrow and due to last a few days, so I may have to find indoor activities instead.