Honestly, there hasn’t been much gardening this June, as I’ve been out of town or busy.  But I do what I can and the garden grows whether I’m home or not.

The best project that I’ve completed, thanks to Leon’s purchase of 5 yards of bark, is that I’ve put down landscape cloth and completely barked the orchard garden:

I really loved this garden before and love it even more now.  Here are some of the fruits and berries I’ve been harvesting:

Some of my favorite berries–these are tayberries.  They ripen first, along with the Wild Treasure blackberries.  They have a mild flavor and the plant is wonderfully healthy and prolific.

 My Glacier sweet cherry, which is on a very dwarf rootstock, dropped so many cherries in June (called “June drop”, this is supposedly normal) that I feared none would be left.  However, ended up with some beautiful cherries and they tasted great.

 Here are some goumis.  I haven’t figured out how to use all  of these, but I eat them fresh (large pit) and they have a nice, tart flavor.  The shrub is hardy and productive.

These blackberries are ripening fast in the warm weather.  This is Apache and it has vigorous canes and hundreds of berries.

Aronia berries are not yet ripe, but they are coming along.  This is a lovely little shrub that is growing leaps and bounds–should give me twice as many berries next year.  I love the berries in smoothies and eaten fresh.

Here are some black raspberries–a native rubus with delightful berries.  The canes loop over and root in the fall, so I get several new plants to share with friends every year.  The berries are beautiful and delicious.