Thursday 24 February 2011

Apple Trees and Blueberry Bushes

It is half term and we have just returned from a trip to visit Grandma and Grandad North. It was a very relaxing trip but, even at this time of year, it feels that a weekend away has left the garden neglected. With milder temperatures the weeds are really starting to appear and the fence remains a job on the 'to do list.' The weekend before our trip north we opted to plant out some new blueberry bushes and apple trees rather than start to build the fence. Garden Boy really wants to help out with the fence but we didn't fancy allowing him out in the rain with his virus so it seemed like a good opportunity to get started with our fruit. Fruit trees and bushes need to be planted or moved over the winter when their root system lies dormant so it was the perfect time for us to put our apple trees in the bed at the bottom of the garden. They really didn't do very well last year in pots so hopefully they will happier in the ground this year with a better supply of water.

The additional blueberry bushes were bought because, like the apples, we had little success with blueberries last year. Reading through our garden books I discovered that although blueberrry bushes are self fertile they do actually grow better if there is another close by, so our lonely bush now has two smaller friends to keep it company. Even if our initial bush still fails to produce much fruit we will still have extra fruit from the additional trees so we couldn't really go wrong with this solution and Garden Girl was happy with the idea of three blueberry bushes - one each for our Little Garden Helpers apparently, so maybe Garden Dad and I will still struggle to get our share.

And now we are refreshed and full of motivation for the coming weekend. The strawberry bed needs some attention, there are some weeds to pull up and a fence for Garden Dad and Garden Boy to build. And maybe Garden Lass will finally get to have her walk in the garden.

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