And More Strawberries

  

This is where I left off yesterday.  All of the existing plants had their plastic rings removed.  The rings went to new spots and were filled with soil and new plants.

This is step one of doing this.  Scrap down through the mulch to bare ground.  Pull all the weeds.  Then put the rings in place.  These are made from the center sections of juice jugs and soda bottles.

Then fill with soil.  I'm using potting soil from various pots where the plants were planted out or just didn't survive to be planted.  Potting soil costs money so I'll keep cleaning out pots until there is not more.  And then I will buy more.

Todays pots also gifted me with an electric blue skink, a DeKay's brown snake, and part of an ant hill.  Nice things to see, well, except for the ants.

This is those same areas after I finished mulching between the rings, planting in the rings, and making sure they all got well watered.  Tomorrow I will be filling in some of the front gap.  And I'm debating whether I'm going to deepen this garden bed by a foot or so and add a row of strawberry plants in front of the blueberry bushes and mints.

I did get the first elderberry in the ground today.  You can see the bare bit of green if you look really close.  It's where the pot was yesterday, down in the bottom right corner of the photo.  Yeah, I'm not the greatest photographer. I've come to the conclusion that it's probably a good thing that I'm working both these projects at once.  It is taking the mattock to get through the rocks and old roots, and my body can only handle so much of that type of abuse.

And this is another of the sections that I completed over the last few weeks.  Those are two yaupon holly bushes and a beauty berry.  They are looking a bit better now that the weather pattern is cooling and there is more natural watering.  That nandina in the back is currently being killed so that the roots won't sprout back up again.  It is way too close to the house for me to dig and pull with a tow chain.  And unfortunately, a lot of the original plantings of them were that close to the house. I'll be glad when the last of them are replaced.

Anyways, time to go do some more schoolwork and earn some money. So I hope you have a good day.