#spring garden – @ahedderick on Tumblr

I've spent a week doing the absolute minimum (ok, except for the trail maintenance on Sunday) and sitting around reading a WHOLE lot. I'm sick of it and want to feel better. Or motivated. Or something. Girl. Help. I'm a slug.

I know there was an actual illness of some kind involved, but. I need to get some stuff DONE.

ahedderick

I did get myself going and get out to the garden for a couple hours. Thankfully it was neither raining nor sunny, but pleasantly overcast and cool.

The spinach, radishes, and peas are overrun with weeds, so I cleared some of that out and fed the weeds to the chickens. May have been a delicious slug or two in there, who knows. Thinned the newly-germinated carrots, that only want to grow in tight clumps. It is frustrating weeding such tiny plants with the tips of two fingers!

A row of asparagus planted last spring is up and doing well. The next row over, planted at the same time, has only one sprout up. ?? The plants I put in last week are well sprouted down at Home Farm, and much smaller here. Even though these were planted two days before those. Gardening is a perpetual mystery. I weeded in there, too, trying to be very careful not to break any delicate asparagus stalks.

English bluebells, however, LOVE it here.

#farmblr #gardenblr #gardening #greenthumb #spring garden #veggies #vegetables #weeding #asparagus

ahedderick

One of my asparagus plants from last year's planting is up w-a-y ahead of any of the others. Purple! I am putting in another row of them right beside this, and enjoying it just as much as I did last year. Not at all, yes.

There is about 4 inches/ 10 cm of decent soil, here, a layer of heavy clay under that, and tons of rocks. All the other rocks I found today were small or moderate, but this one was big, incredibly heavy, and right-smack in my way. It took close to a third of the time I spent gardening today just to deal with this one rock.

I filled the trench partway back in with the better soil, some sand, and a big load of last fall's dead leaves. If life doesn't give you sandy loam, CHEAT!

I also have three big holes dug at the lower end of the asparagus, where there is too much shade from the woodshed. I'm going to plant sweet potatoes there, and hope that the vines run toward the sun and make a nice weed-suppressing layer amongst the mature asparagus stalks. A vertical plant, a spreading, low-growing plant, we'll see if it all works out.

Wet clay. So heavy. It's only fun if you want to take a wet handful and squish up a little paleolithic-style bear figurine.

The peas, radishes, and other cool-tolerant crops are looking hopeful. This will be the first garden since my husband's retirement last fall. He's enjoying it. Will any of the peas actually make it into the house? Ha. Haha.

#farmblr #farm #gardenblr #solarpunk #eat local #gardening #spring garden #asparagus #veggies #veggie garden

ahedderick

Someone gave me two ‘crowns’ of bare-root asparagus last month, which I planted right away. They had been dug up in the fall and sitting in a basement all winter, so I had my doubts, but at least one of them is alive!

I also planted the gross-looking ones from the farm supply store, and ordered a set of 25 which should get here later this month. Definitely should have ordered them sooner. I will need to apply myself to digging holes for them.

#gardenblr #gardening #spring garden #asparagus #plants #edible plants