The Volunteer Army

I spent a long morning weeding the garden on Saturday and could not believe the number of "volunteers" we had popping up. I told Nikki that in a few years we may not have to plant any seeds in the garden, that it will just self-populate with the remnants of gardens past.

Volunteers, for those unfamiliar, are plants that just appear in the garden because of earlier vegetables that went to seed or that were forgotten underground in previous seasons.Varieties that have shown themselves so far include onions, tomatoes, squash, radishes, beets, and potatoes. For the most part I have just let them grow, the only exception being the tomato seedlings as there were dozens of them.

It's starting to look like we might actally get a couple pints of strawberries this year, after many failed attempts. The plants are vigorous and spreading and have a lot of still-green berries on them. I put up some short wire fencing to try and keep the rabbits out, but the birds still have free access. Someone will get strawberries, anyway, I'm hoping it's me.

I managed to build a field stone border around Nikki's "Cottage Garden" yesterday without destroying my back, so that was good news. It looks nice with the flowers and rocks, much better than the weed patch it was a couple of weeks ago

Not much else going on, we are definitely managing to stay busy even without any farm animals. Nikki got started yesterday on getting the pool ready for summer, maybe we'll be able to use it by July if it ever gets warm around here. Cheers!