Time for Serious Garden Clean Up

The bluebirds are darting in and out of the nesting boxes, looking very serious and business-like. I think the home inspection stage is over and it's time for nest building. I love to watch them from the kitchen windows in the morning.  They fly to the peach tree and perch on the topmost branch, waiting, swaying in the morning breezes.  Then they swoop away and return minutes later with pine needles.  I see the females standing on top of the fence posts by the vegetable gardens, and the males darting about too. Every bird is into the serious business of creating a secure nest for the babies to come, and making a house a home - even if it's a bluebird house!

The vegetables are all ordered, for good or for ill.  Seeds are purchased and waiting.  I walked Shadow through the raised bed garden last night and made notes on what needs to get done.  I'm already feeling a little overwhelmed but I need to remember that a little done every day adds up to a lot.

• The strawberry bed needs to be weeded and the plants separated.  I've got daughter plants too close to the mother plants, and a giant area of die-off in the bed.  That's actually good news because now I  have room to transplant those daughters!  Strawberries reproduce with runners, placing so-called 'daughter' plants at the end of the runners. The mother plants, the older plants, die away after a time. If you don't separate them out the beds get too crowded the they don't produce as much fruit. I've also got the weed from hell taking over another corner of the bed.  Where do these weeds come from? How come they are tougher than my vegetables?  
• We've got one of the untreated wood sides of the raised bed warped, split, and threatening to spill compost everywhere.  I need help from hubby to fix that one before I can get the onions and garlic into that bed!
• We still have dead chard plants, a few straggly cabbages, good looking turnips and carrots out there that need to be removed, composted or stored before the new plants can be added.

When I have a bit more time, I'll share with you the varieties I've chosen for the vegetable garden and why I chose what I did.  Gotta run now, and I have Master Gardener class tonight.   Class is going well and I am learning a lot more about other aspects of gardening that I don't normally tackle, so I'll have plenty to share with everyone in the weeks to come!