• I moved some herbs from the greenhouse outside. The basil especially wasn’t thrilled with the move.

• The sage in the garden is flowering beautifully.

• Bees are loving our pink escallonia.

• I completed a hodge podge of items to create a cement area in front of our coops. So excited! Hopefully this will cut down on the mud during the rainy season and icy, slippery mud in the winter.

• I’m not a huge rhododendron fan, but I love the purple color of a small plant we have.

• The bottom left photo is an attempt by birds to make a mud nest. They also tried in a couple similar locations with no luck. They finally moved on and found a flat spot to build their home.

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From a pathetic strawberry patch to a glorious heather haven…

Once upon a time I had a dream that this area would be our strawberry patch.

We planted the first strawberries here a few years ago. They got off to a slow start because the deer kept eating them. The following 2 years we did get a few red berries, but the deer & chickens got to most of them before we did. The deer kept the plants trimmed down so they barely produced runners & our strawberry patch never grew. Last year, for some silly reason, I decided to add lots of new strawberry plants. I planted a variety of types. The chickens weren’t allowed to free range as much as they had in previous years, so I thought the strawberries would do better. Nope. This year you would never know I planted so many plants just last year.

So, I’m giving up on this being our strawberry patch. I dug up the few plants that survived and will plant them in a fenced area.

There are easier methods to clearing this weedy area, but I chose the back breaking method of digging, raking & hoeing. I dug out the largest weeds. Then used the stirrup hoe to slice off the rest of the weeds.

Then I raked the clumps into a pile.

Then dug & hoed again.

And raked again.

Until finally it looked like this.

Amazingly as I was digging, hoeing & raking this area was much larger than it appears in this photo.

The pile of weeds & dirt was huge. I gave some to the chickens & the rest went in the compost pile.

By the time I started planting the heather it was dark. But, I planted them anyway. I was pleasantly surprised when I got up in the morning & saw I did an alright job planting in the dark.

To bark dust all our flowerbeds is an enormous task that I am not ready to take on. But, we did get a truck full of bark dust to lay in the new Heather Haven. I’m hoping this will keep at least some of the weeds from coming back.

I love it. Ok, I love the image I have in my head of the heather spreading & filling the entire area with its purple goodness.

A pretty spring showing. I’m curious to see what it will look like throughout the rest of the year.

Bees & hummingbirds are lovin’ the heather, too.

It was a lot of work, but hopefully will be worth it. The deer don’t seem to bother our other heather plants, so I’m hopeful that they won’t bother these ones either.

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