Planted Japanese Black Trifele

Yesterday evening I planted Japanese Black Trifele in our “koi pond”. We purchased that plant before TomatoMania and it was spending too much time in the pot – so I planted it.

The ground underneath the “koi pond” mulch looked fabulous. Damp, but not too wet. The pine needle mulch is helping a lot.

Which brings up another point. In 2007 I took dirt out of this area and put the excavated dirt by the telephone pole in the back yard. We then made a raised bed out of this area (The unfilled hole in the front yard is how the “koi pond” moniker started). Great! We had a raised bed...except nothing grew. Anything planted there struggled or died.

My wife placed some of this ponderosa pine needles in this area during the winter. Now things grow there, and grow well!

We laid out this mulch most liberally in the “koi pond”. Based on our results in the original raised bed, we could have another killer year in this area and elsewhere.