Forever, I didn't meant to steal your thread! I wanted to show you how I do it. I can take the old mulch in the spring and put it around the blueberry, then add compost. Any extra goes to the raspberries. If you have yours in rows, leave a few feet between rows, and move the mulch there. With the pine needles so thin i can also just add the mulch over the pine needles and add fresh ones on top. I do that with the raspberries. Thanks for the comments on the beds. I really love well landscaped gardens, I'm not that good, and also I don't have much money to spend on the garden. I work with what i have. Also making edible gardens pretty is a hard task! I need some border material for my trees, but my wife is so mad at me for spending so much money, she won't let me buy anymore material this year. Forever, check link out for growing tips for strawberries, it's an excellent site! Here is another photo of the rasied beds. This fall between the 4x4 beds, I'm going to extend the bed between the 4x4 out 1 foot and add beneficial flowers there. I have 3 areas I can do this. All plants in these beds were planted this spring btw. Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Strawberries

Fall is the correct time to plant garlic in the south. It comes up and grows through the winter and is ready to harvest in late spring to early summer. I planted mine 3 weeks ago and I would guess that 2/3 of it is up now. After getting the soil prepped, I laid 2 x 4 lumber on the soil where the rows would be and mulched the entire bed. Then I pulled up the lumber and planted the garlic in the blank spaces. Naturally, the pine straw kind of "dripped" over the row areas, but the garlic seems to be coming up just fine. Chances are that your freeze tonight will not harm your garlic whether you mulch or don't. They are only calling for 30 here.... If you are concerned, though, I think the easiest thing to do would to be just to throw some row cover or even a sheet over the plants for the next two nights. It's not supposed to be freezing for at least another week after that.

There are a lot of systems. I follow one outlined by Norse nurseries, you can read it on thier website. Usually for JUne bearers,the new plants are spaced around 12", all blossoms cut the first year, and all runners allowed to root until mid summer. This fills in the rows. Late runners are removed if you have the time as they are unlikely to take and crop the next year. After the crop, the plants are cut back to the crowns and fertilized.This is called "rejuvenation" and seems very severe when you do it. AT the same time you thin the rows back and weed them out (because you can see everything with the leaves gone. If you don't thin them out they will get so thick as to stunt each other. I aim for a mix of ages to be left behind but want a plant every 4-6" when done.

I used some wood chips around mine and not even over them last year and they grew back fine.My area is also probably a little colder than yours. The white stuff could be a beneficial mycelium,that brings nutrients to the plants. Brady