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  • From: list@ginda.us
  • To: NAFEX <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Spring Cleanup
  • Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 23:52:51 -0400

This was the second warm weekend of the season so I spent a fair amount of time puttering in my garden. I love the garden at this time of year, because it is bursting with potential (and nothing has gone wrong, yet.) Actually, we had the coldest winter on record, and all of my marginally hardy plants seem to have died, but everything that I hoped would survive the winter did so, and even the lawn is looking cheerful. I have a couple of questions:

1) I have a few alpine strawberries that I planted last spring, or maybe the spring before that. They did really well last year, but over the winter, all the foliage died off. So this morning I went out with scissors to clean them up for the new season. I cut off the dead leaves, and they all had new green leaves emerging from the crown. But the crown seems to have grown a couple of inches higher than the ground - I have these weird strawberry cylinders sticking out of the soil. Should I do anything about them? Are they okay?

2) I planted blueberries along side some blue-mat juniper. This is how I've seen them grow on hilltops in the wild. But my blueberries are overrun with grass. On the side away from the juniper (between the blueberries and the lawn) I have extended my mulch, in the hopes of giving the blueberry plants more space, and less competition. But there is vigorous (and tall) grass between the juniper and the berry bushes, where it is hard to remove. There's not enough room to lay down newspaper (as I did on the other side) and the rabbit fence is in the way. Basically, the grass grows along the chicken-wire fence, with blueberries to one side and juniper to the other. Every year I hand-pull as much of this grass as I can, but every year it grows tall enough to shade my half-high bushes. Any suggestions? (I can e-mail a photo if anyone is interested.)

3) I was cleaning up the leaves that collect against the house over the winter. At the bottom, along the cement, I found a bunch of slimy squirmy things. Most proved to be earthworms, and I tossed them into the (nearby) currant patch. But one looked funny, and proved to be a tiny newt. Being basically a live-and-let live type, I carefully picked it up and placed it between some big rocks where leaves also collect - the closest habitat to the one I just destroyed. Then I got to wondering - what is a newts role in the garden? Do they eat my berries like slugs? Do they eat slugs? Or do they just hide under leaves and eat rotting bits of leaf where it is wet enough for them? That is, are they helpful, harmful, or neutral in my little garden?

Next week, I trim the grape and plant peas (outdoors) and tomatoes (indoors) and dream of summer.

Cheers,
Ginda Fisher
eastern Mass., zone 6





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