u/Latin_Knight_

Are they suppose to be that sour/tart?? 😳

I may have picked them too early out of excitement, but boy it was like licking a lemon tart... I probably picked them too early lol

So I crushed a handful and put them in my water. I normally have lemon-water for lower ph, but a few crushed honeyberries did the trick too 😅

These are my first honeyberries from these plants that I planted 3 years ago.

2 of Indigo Treat

1 Honey Bee

1 Boreal Blizzard

They had suffered a transplant to a new place which stunted their fruit bearing time to this year. I was sooo excited to see the first dark berries. I'll be keeping and eye on them and taste testing as they continue to ripen...

But... what is your experience with the taste of honeyberries??

Planted this small tree guild last year.. now being choked by weeds and encroaching grass 🤦‍♂️

Dwarf Mulberry Tree (About to wake up)

Red Clover Nitrogen fixer (Re-sprouted)

Native Lupine Nitrogen fixer (Re-sprouted)

Baby Cakes Dwarf Blackberry (Just started waking up)

3 Strawberry plants (Crowded by grass)

Rhubarb (Fully awake)

Lets do something about it...

Dug and pulled and pulled and dug and dug some some more...

This took way longer than I thought. Grass root mats were strong. 😒

Shook all the dirt and dirt ball clusters (worm castings) from all the pieces of sod I removed and put it back in the bed.

Made a simple raised bed with some extra fence boards I had laying around.

I placed the bed frame a couple of inches into the soil, added some fresh top soil, a bit of garden-tone fertilizer and soaked the entire bed for a few minutes before covering everything in pine mulch.

I'm hoping between the boards and mulch, that will keep the weeds and grass at bay.

A few weeks later, and all the plants are looking much much better now!

The strawberries are even putting out their first flowers 😁👍

Wife added some perennial flowers (   to attract pollinators and will be adding some Marigolds in the corners as well.

Now... I know this spot is small for a "tree guild" (about a 5ft x 5ft bed) but this is a "dwarf Mulberry" and "dwarf blackberry" we are talking about here.

I'm a bit more concerned about that Rhubarb getting too big but I'm sure the kids will keep that from happening 😅 

So my question to you all...

What else should we plant in this small (dwarf) spot???🤔

This spot sits on the north western side of two big spruce trees that shade it at noon but gets 6 or more hours of direct morning and early noon sun followed by dappled light in the evening.

Ph is 6.5 and we are at zone 6B in Eastern Washington state.

I spotted this little guy about 2 feet away from my young Mulberry tree

I was going to pull it thinking it was a weed... but those leaves looked familiar. Is that a baby Mulberry tree?? It couldn't be..

So I took a picture of it an asked Grok. Grok says that it is.

But how can this be... this tree has never had fruit yet! I'm expecting fruit this year, but had no fruit last year. Could it be a root runner that popped up??

Grok insists that it is not a root runner, but an actual seedling. 😳

Soooooo... either this is one heck of a coincidence?🤔

OR..

My young tree DID fruit last year.. but the birds ate all the fruit before I noticed and deposited this little guy near the tree, where it the seed popped up this spring?? 🤷‍♂️

Honestly I have no idea.. but I'm going to let it do it's thing for now and will transplant it into a pot after it gets a few more leaves on it.

What are your thoughts??

P.S....

I just found another seedling identical to this little guy a few yards away!

I have a total of 2 mysterious mulberry seedlings in my garden now 😳

Cool 😁👍

This is what is left of my Patriot Blueberry plant 😔

Squirrel came and just bit off a few branches and left... like wtf🤦‍♂️