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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The end of the asparagus dream...

... or only the beginning?

Last weekend I finished the asparagus moving project I started a month ago. I'd been simultaneously dreading and looking forward to it. Basically the only information I found about planting asparagus talked about planting new crowns, not transplanting almost three year old plants. I decided to just treat them like I would any other perennial and cross my fingers.

When I last showed the new asparagus bed, it looked like this:


I was actually surprised at what it looked like when I removed the tarp.


I thought the grass would've broken down more. There were even some little weeds growing.


I turned over the sod somewhat,


threw in the six bags of manure I had on hand,


and had to call it a day at that point. Sunday morning I went to the garden center and bought twelve more bags of manure and compost, and filled it up.


One by one, I dug the asparagus plants out of the garden and carried them to the new bed, worrying the whole time. After planting them, I gave them haircuts.


The bed is four by eight, so the plants have a lot more room. After planting, I mulched them with a mixture of straw and grass clippings.


I've been watering them daily, and I'll add more mulch before winter.

I won't really know until next spring if this was a big mistake or a brilliant move. One thing gardening teaches you is patience.

Monday, September 22, 2014

I have no idea




I was home for lunch one day and I saw this cardinal in a tomato plant. He was tugging on something. My first thought was that he had found a horn worm, and I ran for the camera, but he flew away before I could get it. A few minutes later, however, he came back and starting tugging again.


This time, it really looked like he was pulling on one of the leaves. He eventually managed to pull it off and flew away. Not before giving me a grumpy look, however.


I'm not sure what he had to be mad about. I'm the one whose tomato plant was being torn apart. I wonder what he wanted with a tomato leaf.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Cover crops

I've known since starting the garden that fertility would be a challenge, especially since I don't have any animals to give me manure. That's why I was very excited when I found small packets of cover crop seeds at a local garden center. The packets were a mix of oats and peas with enough seeds to cover 50 square feet.

A few weeks ago, I scattered the seeds in the empty areas of the garden. The instructions said that they barely needed covering, so I just raked the dirt over them a little bit.

They did sprout and are growing, but from the very spotty coverage, I suspect that the birds snacked on some seeds while dust bathing.

peas
oats
I had decided that I wasn't going to plant any radishes this year, after last year's dog problem, but after seeing the peas and oats sprout, I changed my mind and threw some radish seeds in some other empty areas of the garden. Here they are growing where the potatoes were.


I also threw some seeds in the worst parts of the yard again. I'm pretty late with them this year, so they might not get big enough to do much, but we'll see. At least I know that dogs think they are delicious underground popsicles, so I won't be surprised to see Scout digging up the yard this winter.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Ugh

In addition to another week of rain, the temperatures have become, shall we say, unseasonably cool.


This is not tomato weather. On a positive note, my peppers seem to be thriving, and I picked several large ones this week. Also, this morning's temperature is the lowest we should be for awhile. I'm still holding out hope that I'll be canning tomatoes this fall.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014