Garden update

I've just uploaded a bunch of garden pics to my flickr account. I'm very happy with the garden this year -- it's not perfect, but I'm actually managing to keep up with the weeding, despite a a really nasty case of poison ivy last month that had me ultimately taking Prednizone (which kicks butt on the rash, I have to say).

I lost a tree to fire blight over the winter, so there's a bit of a hole in the garden where that goes. I also got a late start putting in the veggies this year, so am only now getting beans and a few cherry tomatoes, and haven't gotten any cucumbers yet.

Other problems: we have bunnies. Oh, do we have bunnies. I see them even in broad daylight. I wound up putting frames and bird netting over my blueberry/strawberry bed to keep them from getting all the berries after I went out to pick the first ripe strawberries of the season and found that the bunnies had taken one bite out of every ripe berry. Very wasteful critters. I have half-built a netting cage over the tomato bed because I've had birds eat my tomatoes in past years for their water content, but am hoping that a bird bath might mitigate that problem. If not, I'll finish netting over the tomato bed.

I'm considering putting another bed or two beside the garage and planting more strawberries/blueberries. We've been getting a steady trickle of berries since early June, and it's lovely.

We also got four bowls full of currants from the currant bed (which you can see behind the air conditioner, above). I've frozen most of them to be used later -- maybe with some quinces, once those are ripe, since I may actually get a few this year. I took a small bowl down to visit my sis and made compote for our pancakes, which was yummy.