Happy Saturday!

A couple of 2026 firsts this week.

First, my old-fashioned reel mower finally came and I mowed the grass for the first time. I always dread the first mow of each year because it takes a long time to get the old gas mower started. I would be standing there for 20 or 30 minutes pulling the string, trying to start the thing when it will only take 10 minutes to mow the lawn. I remember last year, I was over half-way through a 1-hour long podcast before the mower would start.

With the reel mower, there’s no engine needed to start, meaning I don’t have to pull any strings until my right arm is sore. I got the grass mowed in the same amount of time with minimal clean up afterwards. I wonder why I didn’t switch sooner. Now, I just need to get rid of the old junk of a gas mower to open up the room in my shed for more garden stuff.

The other first is that I harvested and ate the first strawberry of 2026 from the garden and no, it was not from this strawberry bed. It was from a strawberry tower in the front garden. The berry was small but sweet. I hope my berry harvest this year will make up for the lack of fruit harvest.

Did I mention? The freeze from last weekend wiped out not only my plum and cherry trees but it wiped out the fruits from nearby orchards as well. Watching the news, farmers were devastated by the loss of crops. All it took was around 2 hours of temperatures falling below 30-degrees-Fahrenheit.

I’m hoping my apple tree wasn’t impacted since its blossoms still look okay. Thankfully, my berry bushes don’t tend to flower so early, so there’s still hope for them. You may not notice but this strawberry bed was impacted, too, though not by this freeze since it was covered. It was impacted by a previous freeze at the start of April. Many of the blossoms turned black and would never turn to fruit.

It may not look it but I think this bed has been very productive so far this year. This is a 6-by-4 foot raised bed in the back garden. I set this bed up in the fall of 2022, hugelkultur-style. The bottom third was filled with garden debris like all the tomato plants I grew that year and then, it was top soil in the middle third before topping with a good soil. It was amazing to see how fast the soil sunk that first year.

Over the years, I kept adding soil and never stopped growing in it and I feel like the soil has gotten so healthy and productive that I’ve hardly fed or watered his bed this year. Most of the plants in this bed have been harvested at least once so far. Some, like the mustard greens have probably been cut back 3 times already. It’s why it looks a little empty. I’ll be putting more stuff in there next week once the weather calms down a little.

The broccoli was harvested a few days ago. Yes, the head is a little small but this isn’t broccoli in a conventional sense. I’ve given up trying to grow heading broccoli. This year, I’m growing all sprouting broccolis because I would rather have repeating meals of broccoli than waiting for a big broccoli head for just one meal. As I wrote this post, I did a search on this variety of broccoli and it turned out it’s a broccolini. It’s so tender and nutty, that it’s becoming my favorite.

I appreciate you stopping by and reading about my garden. Thank you to Natalie for hosting WeekendCoffeeShare. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.