Welcome to the plant zoo

There are a few corridors at work that have wonderfully large windows overlooking lush gardens with flowers, shrubs and trees. I was walking through one of them today and discovered new signs, stuck on the windows, just in front of each type of plant. AND, they have QR codes if someone wanted to learn more about what they saw. Here's what it looks like walking past the plants and signs. Neat idea and nice use of mobile technology.

Chickens discover gooseberries

This weekend I harvested gooseberries and learned several things.

1. One variety has thorns, one has less. The thorny bush is scheduled for departure this autumn. I have visions of using layering to propagate a living edible hedge around my community garden that may have holes big enough for ground squirrels and rabbits, but may deter deer!
   This variety seemed to produce slightly smaller berries, many more berries and ripened before variety #2.
2. The other variety is not quite thornless but awfully close, had larger, fewer berries and ripened later than it's thorny cousin. I hope to again use layering to propagate a few more of these and add them to the front yard. It wasn't nearly as painful harvesting this variety.

Gooseberries ripen and then fall off the bush as easily as mulberries do. This means there were a lot on the ground. I scooped up many of them and fed them to the chickens. The girls seemed to love them!