Major push on the beds this week. The lovely weather let us accomplish a lot. Beds are taking shape and woody plants have started going in. Looking at the next project, I’m diving into aquaponics with both feet.
What’s Blooming
First Daffodil of Spring 
Forsythia Wide Open 
Towers of Golden Flowers
What’s Happening in the garden
The weather has been lovely and my bare root plants have arrived from Prairie Moon and Gurneys.
Food Forest
The hybrid berries for the food forest arrived this week. We coarsely laid out the beds and Dave edged them. Then he put up a short wire fence to keep the dogs out of them. Laika can fit through the fence if she wants, but they should keep Goose from killing the plants. We put the hazelnuts in the ground along the wall. 2 each of Miniature Cherries, Bush Cherries, Miniature Blueberries, and Bush Blueberries were put in. We spread cardboard along the ground to try and start smothering weeds, but it’s difficult to get mulch right now.
Prairie Bed
The big push this week was removing landscape fabric and rubber mulch. First, I trimmed all the grasses down for spring, then began scraping. This filled my garden cart several times over with mulch from the bed. I wasn’t 100% successful at getting all of it, but I definitely lifted over 95%. Lastly, the landscape fabric came up exposing the soil.
I needed to plant a large number of bare-root plants. Several Varieties of Blazing Star corms were planted through the bed. It was surprisingly difficult to tell top from bottom with the corms so I hope I planted them correctly. A dozen prairie smoke were planted along the edge of the sunny side of the bed. Behind the Zebra Miscanthus, I added common sedge in the shade.
Front Forest Bed
The landscape fabric and mulch can stay for now. I planted a dozen wild ginger plants in the front of the bed and scattered columbine throughout the bed.
Rhubarb Bed
Prepping the rhubarb bed was the highest priority project for the weekend. Prior owners of the house inadvertently planted this bed with a pair of sadistic plants that need killing before I can use the bed for Rhubarb. Mint had gone invasive and overwhelmed the entire bed. Over the mint, an aggressive bubble gum pink climbing rose sprawled it’s vampiric canes aggressively over the entrance to the garage damaging many shirts and shorts every summer. First, I pruned the rose down to the ground. I couldn’t figure out how to get the root mass itself out, But I pruned it level to the ground. Then I cleaned up the bed and covered the entire thing with cardboard. Over the cardboard, I layered the rubber mulch I’d reclaimed from the prairie bed heavily.
Aquaponics Kick-Off
Bluegill Fingerlings, these weren’t very uniformly sized 
Fingerlings came well packaged in a styrofoam box. 
Golden Shiners, a highly adaptable minnow 
Sponge filters in a bare tank for the fish
In my normal fashion of trying to do things in the wrong order. I’m intentionally adding urgency to this project by ordering fish first. I’ll set them up in some old aquariums in the basement while I figure out the proper system. So here we go, bluegill and golden shiners have arrived from Florida.