as of a few days ago i didn't even think i was going
to get around to expanding the first strawberry patch,
but as it turned out the past few days weather was
about perfect for scraping, digging and the forecast
for rain tonight, tomorrow, etc. gives the transplants
some extra settling in moisture.

which is good because the hoses are now packed
away for the season...

the first part of the task involved moving the
merry-go-round aside as it was partially in the
way. it's a small metal round base with five
very small bikes attached to a central stalk
(and they are hinged so they can even be folded
up if needed, but i'm not sure why). the pedals
have long rotted away. the handlebars are also
getting a bit rusted and are now being worked on
to decorate them and keep them from getting
worse -- eventually Ma will paint it, however
this is an aside from where i was a moment ago...

having moved the merry-go-round then the next
step is to scrape the crushed limestone away
from the area and to take up the covering (in
this case old chunks of carpeting). scraping
the limestone up usually ends up leaving a pile
of limestone/dirt/sand leftover which is some-
times worth rinsing out and other times is too
much bother and so gets buried down deep as
fill. in this case the burying down deep option
was a good one as the area is low and can flood
at times for a bit.

digging down to examine the soil is the other
reason to see what's underneath. the area is
low enough that it isn't uncommon to hit springs
when digging, but i wasn't going down that deep.
the top layer of soil was the usual clay with
some sand down about a foot and then we hit the
lighter colored clay and sand mix. that's the
boundary i stop at as it's unlikely any garden
plants are putting roots down that deep. and in
went the crushed limestone and dirt mix.

on top of that goes a deep layer of any
organic stuff i can find (leaves, stuff chopped
up or raked up off the gardens that are done for
the season, cut down and chopped thorn bush,
etc.) this helps add more height and is a long
term source of worm food, but mostly it goes
in there for the height it adds. some friends
brought by seven bags of leaves the other day,
all those got used up, today they brought me
two dozen more bags of leaves. gonna have to
bury those someplace... good exercise, at least
when i don't break my shovel handle, we'll see
how the glue job holds up next time i have to
use it...

then the soil gets put back up on top along
with a nice topcoat of soil mixed with partially
rotted wood chips and the strawberries get
transplanted to give the whole patch some new
residents.

had to haul some water to give them a drink
and expect a good percentage of the plants to
have to struggle because i was not fine tuning
each plant. what plants don't make it become
mulch or worm food for those around them, i'm not
in a spot where i'm short of plants (doesn't
hurt to thin out the first strawberry patch at
all). about all i'll do now is see how it
looks after some rains settle things down and
then sprinkle a few pine needles over the plants
when it gets colder.

i figure by next spring i'll lose a foot of
the height as the leaves and organic materials
get compacted from the soil and rains, then
over the next few years i'll lose another half
foot and then the patch will be ok for a few
more years until i have to add some more organic
stuff to it and to stir things up and thin out
some plants again.

and here i thought it was going to be a quiet
week...


songbird