We have been in a drought for weeks now. The grass is dry and the land is parched. It’s not a usual season. Thankfully we have a deep well that hits an aquifer. We have had to be judicious with our watering and make some decisions to end some growing early. Well, the lack of rain made it for us. We just decided to move up the garden take down.
I have been putting my berries to bed. (strawberries, currants, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries) I have a really great system where I rake up all the pine needles from this enormous pine tree out back and use them to blanket my berries. The pine needles are better than any mulch I could buy. I round them out at the base of my plant. I do make sure we don’t have hot days ahead and if we do, I pull the pine needle mulch away from the stems. Once cold weather sets in, I make sure the plants are bundled up and wait for Spring.
Here’s the big pine and one of my berry bushes that is getting ready for cooler nights. The green larger leaves with the pine needles is comfrey. I add it to my compost as it has all kinds of mineral rich benefits.
