Asparagus and Spider Condos

I am so excited to harvest our three year old asparagus patch. For those that do not know; asparagus is planted in late fall / early winter with the first shoots appearing the next spring. Conventional wisdom says you should not harvest asparagus the first two springs to allow the crowns to get well established. I have been very patient with our asparagus patch the last two springs (okay, I ate one or two shoots) but this year, asparagus is on the menu. Our asparagus patch should produce every spring for the next 20 years or so. I plan on putting in two more beds this fall.

History lesson:

Asparagus is pictured in an ancient Egyptian stone carving from 3000 BC as an offering to the gods. The Romans would harvest it in the spring and carry it high into the alps to freeze it. They would keep it there until the feast of Epicurus. Asparagus is known to some as "sparrow-grass". It is a good companion plant for tomatoes. I am going to plant a tomato in the middle of my asparagus bed this year and see if they do well together. 

The peas I planted in early march are finally coming up. I am not having a good germination rate. I believe this is due to a very bad cold snap we had after I planted. I love peas, so I hope I get a good harvest this spring.

This plant is so hardy. I put a spade shovel in the middle of it early this spring and harvested about half of the roots. It doesn't care at all. Russian Comfrey belongs in everyone's garden. It is a dynamic accumulator, bringing hard to reach nutrients to the surface and into your compost. It can also be used as a shredded mulch or side dressing. 

I planted a few thousand white clover seeds a couple weeks ago. They are coming up all over an area where I killed the grass off. I hope they spread everywhere.

Seeking roommate, preferably a fly or other soft bodied insect to share a one bedroom condo with sunroof and large attached deck. Situated in a small community of early spring flowers. Praying mantis need not apply. 

Projects And Stuff

I heard the tree frogs last night; I don't think they will be quiet anytime soon. With the days longer and the temps mild, I plan on getting a lot of early plants in the ground and finishing / starting some projects around the homestead. 

So I still need to finish the dog house. I have the insulation in and I have sealed it in with silicone. Next step is to put the interior walls on and build the detachable roof. Once I get this built we will be going pound shopping for a few good pups.

Sometimes you have to take a step back and enjoy the little things. Friends, tree swings and alcohol. =)

Our ferocious house guardian Err. He is enjoying a brief moment of freedom playing on the leaf pile. 

Here is the garden, mostly prepped for the spring planting. I can't wait for some fresh garden veggies. We are trying some new varieties this year. We only started 40 or so tomato plants this year!

Dara planted this bed a couple weeks ago. She planted Peas and radishes. We will harvest them and plant other things in succession as the gardening season progresses. 

I have a couple projects going on here. I got this 3 tub concrete sink for free on Craigslist. I plan on building a concrete counter with the sink incorporated next to the garage. This will be a game cleaning station for rabbits, fish, squirrel etc... I want to put some rain barrels on the back of the garage and plumb them into the sink. 

The glass structure in the back is a greenhouse that used to be attached to a house. I plan on building a small greenhouse in the garden this year. I should be able to keep growing greens and other veggies longer into the fall once I set this up. 

Grab your boots, some water, walk out our front door and you can be here in 20 minutes. This area of Caesar Creek is beautiful. We went on a night hike here this weekend, and then came back the next day. We made a good decision buying a house in this area. We are very lucky to have such a wonderful stretch of forest in our front yard. 

Waiting for Spring

Rain, snow, ice, sun, snow, sun, rain, sun. This is a day in the life of an Ohio resident. My yard has been completely water-logged, then dry, then frozen all in one week. I planted one hundred and fifty peas a couple weeks ago when the ground was perfect and the temps were mild. I am glad the peas knew better than me and did not germinate. Three days after I planted them they were under two inches of snow. I heard the spring peepers, so that is my excuse. =) 

So while spring and winter fight it out, we are moving forward with the garden preps. Below is an update on the plants we started indoors a few weeks ago.

The top row is mostly tomatoes. They are doing well. We are still having some germinate, but even if no more came up, our germination rate would be good. 

Here is a close up of some tomatoes. I really like these smaller bins. It makes moving and rearranging the plants so much easier.

I recently had to raise the lights up. These tomatoes are growing fast. Smells like summer every time I touch one.  

This is an experiment. I collected hundreds of Allium seeds at the end of last summer. I broadcast seeded these two bins with the collected seeds, a mix of leeks, red onion and green onion. I also had a bunch of Brassica seeds in the bottom of a bag and decided to throw them in as well. 

I am not sure what is growing, could be broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage. The plan is to pull them out soon and transplant them into peat pots to plant in the garden as soon as possible. The soil is very sandy, the mix is 1/3 compost 1/3 sand 1/3 peat moss. Once the Brassica's are out I will let the onions grow to "set" size and transplant them into the garden.

Here are some cabbages. As soon as these go in the ground I plan on planting more from seed directly in the garden. We eat a lot of cabbage so, in my opinion, you can't grow enough.

This bin is full of odds and ends. There is Walking stick kale, tobacco for pesticide, cabbages, broccoli, salt bush and some volunteer Curcubit that didn't germinate last year but did this year. These soil cubes are left over from last year.  

This bin has various flowers like cosmos and zinnia. You can tell these are left over soil cubes from last year due to the moss growing on them. 

The full set-up. I am so excited to get back in the garden. Every year we have done a better job and learned many new things. We will have garlic this year and we can harvest our three year old asparagus patch. Can't wait!

The harvest recap

Hi everyone!!! So much has happened we haven't been able to post in a while. First of all,
as most everyone knows now, we are engaged (post to come on the ring)!! Yay! Second,
we have been installing our own wood floor (post to come) which is taking quite a long
time. Third, Patrick is officially a volunteer fireman, w00t! And lastly— whew—we are now
on the Paleo diet which means learning to cook lots of interesting meals (hopefully
some posts to come on that as well).

So on to the post. I realize we showed lots of pics of the garden and the work but not a lot of what we got out of it. So here's a few harvest pics from July to now and the unveiling of the potato box.

Sorry for the poor picture. Going clockwise from the bottom that's
Kale, Swiss Chard, Amaranth and Lambs Quarter. There was
enough Amaranth and Lambs Quarter to make 2 weeks worth of

dinners but we wasted most of it... you get tired of eating the same
thing (plus the Amaranth was slightly bitter) but at least we know
we COULD go that long without buying food.

Best watermelon I've ever eaten.

Dragon carrots. Still have some of these in the garden.

This was a good week. We still have lots of leeks in the yard
and we just finished off what peppers we had harvested. There
were a few bags full of them. Wasn't that interested in the ground
cherries. Need to figure out what to do with them next year.

Let me know if you have a suggestion!

The Potato Box!!! We ran out of straw early though and didn't
get more. You can see it looks low.

This looks promising though...

Wha...?

FAIL

Me thinks this is a seed potato.

You don't eat potatoes on
Paleo anyway... sometimes things just work out.

Trellising

Patrick built trellises for the squash that we can mow
under but they will give slightly once the weight of the fruit is on them.

Zucchini.

One of the cosmos in the back bed was destroyed in a recent storm.
So far We've lost 2 sunflowers (from a prancing deer),
one squash at transplant and this. Pretty good so far.
I probably shouldn't have written any of that... I probably just
cursed my garden... ummm... knock on wood?

Mmmmm, peas! It's too hot for these now but omg, so delicious.
I miss them already :(

A trellis for this itty-bitty tomato.

And then a trellis for the real tomatoes

Here's the whole garden, well the whole raised bed garden and
everything we've trellised. In the pots are the lemon and orange
trees we moved off the deck and then we planted a lot of lettuce. It may
need to move inside. I thought it would be ok still but it's getting bitter.