We Planted the Currant Bushes

What a weekend it has been! I spent almost the whole day at the gym helping at the Open House on Saturday. We did exercise demos every half hour, by the time I left at 2:45 I had almost no voice and was pooped.

I had warned Jim when we ordered the currant bushes, they would arrive at the most inconvenient time and need to be planted ASAP. True to my prediction, they arrived in Thursday evening's mail. Because of their untimely arrival, I barely got to change my clothes after my time at the gym before we loaded the whole family into the car for a quick overnight trip to the north to plant the currants. What seems like a great idea at one moment sometimes seems like an idiot's idea the next!

Thanks goodness for the time change, we really needed that extra hour Sunday morning. I had put a potato scramble in the slow cooker Saturday evening before bed to make the morning go smoother. We also had a ton of leftover apple pancakes, which I popped into the oven before I got in the shower Sunday morning. In less than 30 minutes we had a hot breakfast, rounded out with orange juice and coffee (thanks to Jim for getting the coffee brewing!)

While at breakfasts we made our plan of attack for planting the bushes. We had to be on the road by 1:30 at the latest or risk missing a family birthday party at my parents' house. Since the family birthday party was my own, we really couldn't be late. We broke the task of planting into parts. I marked the holes, Jim dug the holes, the boys brought over the bare root bushes to the holes, I planted the bushes, Leen followed with a small layer of worm castings, Tash and the boys filled the holes with water, and Jim covered the holes with a final layer of mulch. In less than two hours, we had planted 20 currant bushes!

We closed up and were on the road by 1:30 on the nose. My only complaint is that the bushes are not guaranteed for fall planting but that must have been in really tiny print because I never saw it on the website. Grrrr!! Despite this, I'm hopeful, most everything I read suggested fall planting to be a better choice for currants than spring planting. I'll let you know.