The Modern Victory Garden

You may recall back in mid March that I posted about planting a bunch of "sticks and twigs" - referring of course to some bare root nursery stock of strawberries, raspberries, bush pie cherries, and potted cranberries.   With the exception of four raspberry plants, all of the various fruit and berry additions for 2009 have long ago broken dormancy and have taken off.   Six of the ten  raspberries are coming along nicely, but unfortunately I did have four of them that did not come out of dormancy and are going to have to be replaced.   I am hoping I will be able to purchase another four "Heritage" replacements from my local nursery this fall to fill in the gaps created by these non-starters.   The bush pie cherries are .... well....bushing out!... and even had a flush of flowers in late May.   Not sure if they will produce a light harvest or not this year (it's possible with these plants) but I am pleased with their vigor and I am looking forward to next year's pie cherry harvest.   The strawberries are flourishing, and the cranberries are putting on lots of new growth.   I have used some earth staples to peg some of the longer arching branches of the cranberries to the soil. This encourages rooting of these "runners" and helps develop a thick ground cover of cranberry plants.   The older bed of "Ozark Beauty" strawberries is producing steadily right now. We are picking about 1-½ cups (approximately ½ pound) about every other day. The "Tri-Star" strawberries (in the front ½ whiskey barrel planters) are loaded with fruit too, but are about two weeks behind the first group.   This works out pretty well because the harvest is more steady, and staggered out over a longer period of time.   Tonight I picked a full bowl of strawberries and some large lettuce leaves to go on our hamburgers for dinner.   The berries were quickly raided by my husband as I walked back into the house with them - so this picture shows about half of what was originally picked!                 

Two other crops that are coming on strong right now are the zucchini and the shelling peas.   We have harvested baby zucchini (both gold and green) twice now in less than one week's time.                        

The shelling pea pods are fattening up and will soon be ready for the main  harvest. The variety I am growing is "Dakota" which produces a heavy pod set pretty much all at one time so you can easily freeze or pressure can them.   I think these are going to be at their optimum size for picking right before the Fourth of July weekend.                                      

The pea patch is loaded with produce and I am really curious to see how many pounds of peas I get from the first big harvest.