The Asparagus Patch

I was going back looking for pictures of our asparagus patch and realized I'd never posted pictures of it when we put it in! It was a big deal at the time, I was kind of surprised.

Late summer 2008, I purchased old icky asparagus crowns at 50% off at a greenhouse. Some of the roots were moldy, actually. We pitched them, but overall I thought it was a good gamble and got two bundles of crowns. The downside is they weren't marked as to what type they were.

Matt dug two trenches with Kubby the Kubota, roughly 16" wide by 17' long. We tossed the bits of sod out, mixed in quite a bit of compost, lined the trenches with cedar shakes, and planted them in a row. There are 14 plants in each row.

From spring 2009

We really weren't expecting much the first year, we'd heard that it takes a few years to get much out of a new patch. So we were surprised when the patch produced like gangbusters.

Spring 2009 I cut asparagus for about 2 weeks and we got two pounds out. Only 6 months after I put them in.

Fall 2009, I top dressed the whole patch with a goodly amount of homegrown compost. Asparagus is supposed to be a heavy feeder so you need to give them as much good stuff to eat as possible.

Early spring 2010 I took all the dead fronds off.

Spring 2010. We lined the patch with weedguard and mulch, but the ground ivy went straight through it, dammit.

Another view from this spring

It looks as though this year may have already topped last year. There are a few roots that may not have made it, or maybe they're just slow (they're riding the short bus this year).

The precious darlings sprouting!

So far this year we've done 4 cuttings of approximately 8-10 ounces each, which comes to more than two pounds already. We've been cutting for not quite two weeks and will probably cut for another week. And the spears are huge! Most are 1/2 inch or more, many of them are 3/4 inch.

We prefer to roast them with a bit of salt on the grill or with salt and olive oil under the broiler. How do you like your asparagus??

A picture of emerging asparagus

Especially for Mama Pea. :)

Spring Planting

I have this habit of taking pictures of every new veggie sprout and every planting of every veggie....every year. Matt has been making fun of me for this. This year I found myself standing in front of the newly sprouted asparagus bed with my camera in my hand and I had the following conversation with myself in my head:

Repeat after me: you don't need to take pictures of the first asparagus every year.

I don't need to take pictures of the first asparagus every year.

People by now know what they look like. Every year.

People by now know what they look like. Every year.

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

These aren't the droids we're looking for.

Move along.

Move along....Move along!!!

So. Now that I have that out of the way, I can tell you that this weekend I planted kohlrabi (for the first time, too), broccoli plants, and leeks. I also rehabbed two tomato beds that I didn't get to last fall, and I tried to fix the pea beds. Too wet, a lot of them became slug food/homes and some others rotted. I have enough seed to reseed if necessary. Oh, and the asparagus is coming up.

Tomorrow I plan on planting some flowers and such in the new flower bed. I hope to get the potatoes in this week as well as the carrots/radishes.

Matt finished up the rafters in the garage on Sunday, I will have pictures of that soon.

And...it is supposed to be 90* tomorrow. Ick.

Having a Heat Wave

So, now we're back to 75*. Supposedly going to be 85* on Saturday.

I go from too cold to plant spring veggies to too warm in one week. I'm going to plant them anyway, probably this weekend.

In other news (pictures forthcoming), asparagus is starting to come up, cabbages and broccoli that overwintered seem to be doing well, and peas are planted.

Weekly Update 5 13 2009

No pictures, just words this time.

The re-tagging project is finished.

I took a half day Wednesday so I could work on the last of the new beds: got two beds done and planted nine peppers and three tomatoes. Four beds to go. I’m down to 16 tomatoes and only four peppers that need homes.

And the squash. Melons. Okra. Oh, and the sweet potato slips that haven’t even arrived yet. Sweet potatoes are going on a terrace, nine tomatoes are going in hangers, so I THINK we’ll have enough space. I think. Fingers crossed.

Broccoli has broccled, but it looks weird so I don’t know if a cold or heat wave has gotten to it or not. Lettuce (heading) is doing beautifully, some were large enough that I had to replace the milk jug cloches with row cover.

The only things I’ve been harvesting is asparagus and spinach. I picked from the new asparagus bed for 2 weeks this year because they were so huge. I’m letting them branch out now, though. Spinach I’ve been picking at a bit, the babies are growing very quickly so I hope to have an actual meal from them this week.

The wee itty bitty fringy carrot and parsnip leaves are finally making an appearance. I see little baby leaf lettuces coming up, and the radishes are growing fast.

Peanuts are planted, and I went to look at them yesterday and it looked like someone had bitten them off. I took a closer look. No, there is new growth at the top, and the ‘branches’ have taken a nose-dive for the ground, which is what threw me. It just looked so strange as most things reach for the sun. Peanut branches dive. And YES, I DO KNOW that peanuts grow underground. I have known this since I was a child, as my father is from Atlanta. My husband felt the need to explain this to me yesterday, though, which earned him a wifely glare. Ahem.

In two weeks we are going to Virginia to visit a friend, and the three of us are going to be visiting Edible Landscapes, a nursery that specializes in, you guessed it, trees and bushes that produce food. We are going to pick up a few things, we are thinking about a couple Hazelnuts (aka Filberts; you need two to pollinate) and possibly one of the varieties of Trifoliate Orange, which is hardy in our area {insert shock and awe}.

In other news, I have dug and separated the saffron crocus. I planted 8 a couple years ago, and I must have dug 10 times that many. Several friends and coworkers have received some and I had plenty to put about 10 different places around the house.

And finally, there may be a guest post by the Garden Ninja sometime. Possibly. Not sure, but worth mentioning.

Weekly Update 5 6 2009

I'm going to start doing a weekly update again, hopefully this will keep me on track with things that are happening around the house.

We've had nothing but rain for the past week, with another week of nothing but rain coming up. I was really hurting for something to post about here until Matt mentioned that the potatoes were up! I was so happy, I went and got a picture. The red potatoes are on the right, yukon golds on the left.

A shiny orb appeared in the sky and cast shadows through the window, I circled the resulting shadows as they appeared on the yellow fan, right.

My tomatoes are looking weird, and I'm going to move them back inside, probably to the greenhouse. I really hope they aren't diseased after all the work I put into them.

So far we've picked 1.5lb of asparagus. I'm really impressed with that number considering they are all new plants. One thing I'm planing on doing this year is keeping track of our bounty and trying to put a price tag on it. I want to figure out how much we'd have paid if we bought all this in the store, including things like jarred salsa vs. the salsa we make ourselves. I have a spreadsheet started and everything. Stay tuned!

I took this cool picture looking down the milk jug cloche I have over the heading lettuce plants. They are doing really well.

Monthly Update: 8/3/2008

Sorry it's been so long, but as you probably know thing have been up in the air for the past month. Max is doing well, we're still keeping him 'coned' because he keeps trying to rub at his eyes. I posted a picture on my other blog.

The garden grows. BOY, does it ever. The pathways I had planned out have been overgrown in a couple spots by the cherry tomatoes and the bush beans. Sun Gold cherry tomatoes are very prolific in their vines, and I have two plants (right). I'm just starting to get ripe large tomatoes, namely the Mortgage Lifter. Very tasty. Can't wait for the first Aunt Ruby's German Green to ripen, I haven't grown that in a few years.

This viney mess is a mixture of morning glories, cucumbers, and pole beans. There is also a melon vine on the ground, you can't see it. The cucumbers are very prolific, too, I like the variety (Boothby's Blonde), but I'm not sure I'll grow it again next year. Matt's mom is growing a standard variety that is much sweeter than Boothby, I may try to grow that next year. But these are soooo cute, light yellow (blonde), maybe 4 inches at the largest. Nice to take to work to munch on, you don't need to peel them.

It's funny, the overall garden seemed so large when nothing was growing yet. Now it seems so small and short on space. We want to expand it this Fall, we'll see if that actually happens. We have sooo much to do.

The asparagus beds are doing well, everything seems to have taken and maybe we'll even get some usable asparagus next spring.

I also planted the lettuce seedlings I'd had going. These varieties (Forrellenschluss and 4 Seasons) were listed alternately as being very good and very bad in hot weather in different catalogs. So far, I've found them to be doing just fine in the hot humidity that is south central Pennsylvania, so I'll probably continue to grow them.

The leaf lettuce I'm growing has bolted, which I exptected. I would have pulled it by now and added it to my compost bin, but I haven't had time due to all the other unforseen circumstances that have hit us. At one point the frilly leafed lettuce (in the background) looked very much like tall, thin Christmas trees, very pretty. I'll have to consider growing them as ornamentals sometime, because I wasn't thrilled with the taste of that variety and they were very difficult to clean.

That's it for now! Stay tuned for the beans, beets, garlic, onions, and squash update!!!

Weekly Veggie Patch Update 6/23/08

I have off all week, so I'm hoping to catch up with some of the things that are going on. We had a LOT of work done around the property on Saturday and I'll be posting pictures, you won't want to miss it.

Active week, we put up the tomato cage structures. They were heavy wire and a little big so we trimmed them. I do have little cherry tomatoes and another on the Mortgage Lifter plant. No peppers yet, but they’re getting ready to flower.

Matt started working on the fencing around the blueberry bush (what will eventually be the blueberry patch). All we needed to do is put a net over the bush to keep the birds out. He makes a split-rail fence. *sigh* Over-engineer much? Ya think?

I also got the layering cups on the blueberry bush, so hopefully in 2-3 months we’ll have 3 little blueberries to plant in our newly fenced plot.

I picked a lot of snap peas this week, maybe 5lb. They will have to be picked about every other day, but they’re not. A lot of what I picked was past prime and we’ll need to shell them, but no big deal as we’ll then have shelled petit pois to freeze as well as pods. Some of the vines must be approaching 7 feet tall! I’m not sure if I should attribute that to all the rain or the very rich lasagna garden I created.

I also harvested the kale and broccoli. The broccoli plants did something strange. I have 4 plants: two produced nice broccoli and the other two buttoned. I don’t know why that happened. I pulled the two that buttoned and put in another cucumber trellis.

The onions are all starting to bulb, some of them are getting pretty big. I’m guesstimating that I’ll be harvesting them the middle to end of July. I’m planning on leaving that bed empty for the rest of the summer, amending it with some compost and/or well-rotted manure stuff and then planting spinach in it for the fall. I’ll probably let the spinach winter over so I don’t have to plant any for the spring.

We also finished the 2nd asparagus bed and planted it. Everything came up in the first bed, so in a few years we’ll have some nice asparagus to harvest. Woo-hoo!