I was given four raspberry and/or blackberry plants last week and wanted to get them into the ground this weekend.  The area I cleared out was next to my apartment; it’s pretty small but gets direct sunlight after noon so I figured I can grow a few things there.  The leaves were piled almost a foot high so I figured once I removed those there wouldn’t be much else to do.  I was wrong.  On Saturday I took six bags of leaves and two bags of sticks to the yard and waste depot and it still looked like a mess.  A big section of what I was cleaning up looked like it was where someone just dumped any weeds, branches, and lawn waste they had.  Luckily my mom came in on Sunday to help out.  Once we finally got the dry leaves sticks out of there she churned it up a bit and it turned out to be really nice, loose soil.  I found a couple friends in the garden too!

Left: Fuzzy caterpillar!  Right: Big worm, about 1 foot when stretched out.

We worked most of the afternoon on Sunday (minus a quick lunch of Kahlua battered french toast and pomegranate iced tea from Sneakers) and filled up four more bags.  I had a hard time removing the baby trees that had started growing along the fence.  Also, there was a grapevine that had sent shoots out all over the ground.  Most of the space seems to be over run with roots.  We did our best along the fence and planted the four raspberry/backberry plants.  There also was already a raspberry plant growing further down the garden.  It had formed an arch and rerooted itself so I cut the arch in half and moved one of the plants down with the other four.  We found a bunch of rocks while digging and used them to create a boarder around the raspberries so I wouldn’t walk on them.  Below are the before and after shots.

Left: Before clearing up.  Right: After two days of hard work.

Tomorrow I plan on transplanting the Cyrsanthemums and Violas and moving them outside.  When we walked to sneakers we saw other Violas surviving outdoors so I think they should be OK in the cold frame.  On another note the first Wood Hyacinth has bloomed!