Gooseberries, Cranberries. April 25, 2010

.

Doesn't the herb bed look ready for the season now!





And we got this mound of earth that came from the French drain smoothed over a bank, so that will look nicer. I hope to make this area an addition garden bed, once the greenhouse is complete.





I didn't take any before photos of the gooseberries, but they had quite a bit of old dead wood. We have done relatively little to them since planting, so they needed some work.





The American Highbush Cranberries are something I wish I'd never planted. They were advertised as being edible, but the birds won't even eat these berries. They are a nice ornamental, but we certainly did not need a row of five of them in the crop area. One died and we removed it a couple of years ago. The rest seem to get a lot of dead wood and are not very attractive lately.





Since they probably need a good thinning, we decided to take out everything but last years new growth.

This was easier said than done. The trunks grow very closely and trying to get any sort of cutting implement in there to saw with was next to impossible, and quite a frustrating experience.

We were really grateful for the wind which was gusting heartily, cooling us off and blowing away any sort of annoying bugs.





Two done, two more to go.





We didn't finish, it was just too much to get done.




We got most of it done, and they look a lot better. The most horrible part of the whole experience is admitting just HOW we did it. We could not get the saws in there. We finally resorted to drilling tons of holes in the places we could get to, and then trying to break the trunks off where we'd weakened them. Some we could not even do that to, and the trunks are still there, filled with holes.

I hope that by fall they will be dead enough to break off.

Wishing our chain saw worked...

~Faith

.