A Jamba Juice is embedded in our grocery store, and today I got a most excellent large haul of vegetable pulp. The clerk thought I was insane but I can deal with that. After supper (kale and roasted garlic and tomatoes), I finally spread new mulch on the easement, did not add stakes or s because Home Despot had none, and called that done. Until gravel. I weed-whacked the backyard and combed all the bindweed smooth with a rake. In not quite four square feet, I spread the vegetable pulp, covered that with a thorough if thin layer of sunflower seed husks, and layered pine needles over all. In the next square I'll use coffee grounds. Even if the layers turn to sticky mush, no more, if they act as a weed suppressant that will make me happy.
Today the harvest began in as much earnest as I expect it will muster. Since Friday I've plucked a couple-three berries from the canes per day. Today I nearly filled the bottom of a cereal bowl with perfect red raspberries. Enough to make a teaspoon of jam.
Also the cherries are about a week to ten days from being ready. Maybe more, but not much more.
RDC thought the vegetable garden was doing better this year with its infusion of compost; I had wondered whether the lesser sun has made the tomatoes grow more slowly. The yellow squash is on its own now; the cucumbers are sticking it out; no sunflower seed sprouted; maybe three of the several spinach seeds are now a plant; I see no carrots; four bean plants are growing. I planted most of those seeds too late, and all of them got snowed on almost immediately and I also abandoned them for a week without watering. Three of the squash plants I seeded under the cherry tree are up. Thanks to the squirrels, there's not a plum left on the tree; the nectarine put out few blossoms this year and has a correspondingly low number of fruit; the pear has many many many baby pears, perhaps enough to survive the rodent onslaught.
Every year it's an experiment.