Check up on the rescued plants

When we last left our heroes, the artichoke, strawberries and parsley that I saved from the weed pit that was plot 24, looked a little bit sadtown. After they had survived a week back in the ground, I did a little trimming of the dead bits. The artichoke was starting to perk up as you can see.


The parsley plant had an intense root structure and you can tell it had been growing for many moons. I trimmed back the yellowing stems and dead weight. There is some decent bright green new growth coming out of the top.

The strawberry plants are looking pretty good, and there are kind of a lot of them- 8 plants in all. They are definitely growing fruit, but the berries are all very small at this point. It seems like it's a great time of year for strawberries because I've noticed in many of the other plots that folks are getting some serious fruit production.

And for all you berry fans out there, here's a sexy closeup!

Thanks for reading, y'all!
(NOTE: This should have been posted before yesterday's post! Epic blog fail.)

Preparing that soil

The weekend after I took possession of my plot, I made a day of it. I wanted to start out with healthy soil. Even though parks staff pretty thoroughly removed the ridiculous amount of weeds that were there prior, I wanted to dig deep and give my garden the best shot possible.

I turned on the ipod shuffle, slathered on the sunscreen and got down to business. On my hands and knees, I went over every square inch and dug about 8 inches down, pulling out any roots or weeds I could find. There are tales of nutgrass infestations in the garden, which is currently dormant for winter, but I wanted to get anything that might take hold and regrow OUT of my plot!

It took me several hours, but I felt quite accomplished. I then went to replanting the plants I saved from the last owner.

The artichoke:


The strawberries:


The parsley:


They looked a little rough, but as you'll see, they would start to perk up the longer they were in stable ground with regular watering!