Still sprouting Mung Beans indoors all the  time. 

In the Rhubarb.

My largest rhubarb plant in the patch. The rhubarb is absolutely thriving this year, it must like the weather. 

We normally have fiddleheads for Mother's Day, however this year (like everything else) they were late. I just picked these last week and heading out for more today. 

First Asparagus Feed.

We just had our first feed of asparagus here. I have over a hundred plants planted in two separate asparagus beds, one in the main garden and one behind my house on the south facing side. I have only four plants that are five years old and then about ten that are four years old and the remainder are either three or two years old. We're only able to take as much asparagus as we want from the five and four year old plants leaving any younger completely alone. There's some debate in the gardening world over asparagus started from seed and whether it can be harvested the third or fourth year of it's growing career. With the varying ages of our plants, we've only harvested from the plants when they reach four years of age and this has worked well. It used to be that one could only obtain asparagus seed that would yield both male and female plants until recently when all male Jersey Giant, a popular variety to buy as roots, became available. 

Having planted our very first (the five year old plants) from roots, I decided the best way for me to grow as much asparagus as I could would be from seed. Every year I started new asparagus seeds, except last year, as my asparagus beds grew in more ways then one.

I could never grow enough. It's completely invaluable to us this time of year. Aside from my cold frames, which I'm still battling a pest in, we have nothing else growing and rely heavily on the first emerging perennial fruits and vegetables.  Rhubarb, chives and asparagus along with some foraged fiddleheads, nettles and dandelions can keep us out of the grocery store when it's meal making time.  I'm hoping some day to have enough to freeze large amounts of although, I won't be upset if we end up eating it all fresh before we get a chance to freeze any. Last but certainly not least, breaking off spears of asparagus and then immediately preparing them will guarantee the best asparagus you've ever tasted. I used to like grocery store asparagus, back in the day I guess, until I tried our own. There is truly no comparison. 

How asparagus grows. I usually dress the bed before the spears emerge, this year with everything being late and wet we just got one of our annual loads of black gold (sheep manure) so I'll be more side dressing these plants. If you let some of the spears continue to grow, you'll likely be rewarded with some late asparagus into the summer months. 

One of our asparagus beds. 

Here's an article from Mother Earth News to get you started growing your own asparagus. 

All About Growing Asparagus- Mother Earth News

Kale Feed

Feed of Kale from the cold frame for Wordless Wednesday. 

It's Time!

Finally, my garden soil is dry enough to work, as this has been a late year.  Normally we cook fiddleheads to share with everyone for Mother's Day and I give my mother and my boyfriend's mother a bouquet of daffodils. I also usually give each mother a petunia in a planter that needs to be moved indoors if frost threatens even though that rarely needs to happen. Not this year! That's Ok, we'll just have to adjust. I'm not in any huge rush to plant the garden this year. Where some people can get away with working their soil when it's a little wet, it proves to be very detrimental here. With our soil improving every year, yet still behaving much like clay, working the soil when it's too wet results in compacted soil underneath with a muddy layer on top. The garden would dry out decently on a warm, dry day and I would think I'd be able to work it the next day, until it rained (probably a lot) keeping me from any cultivation. 

Yesterday was dry enough to get my new Hoss Wheel Hoe in there and I took advantage, working the soil until dark and then some. The wheel hoe works like a dream. We've given up completely on deep tillage, instead favoring shallow cultivation and with the cultivation tines and plows we have for the wheel hoe, I'm floored at how simple the cultivation is going to be. This will allow me to plant the majority of the garden myself without having to get relief from my boyfriend to help me hoe up rows. The plows on the wheel hoe do that for us. I concentrated on going over the same area, over and over, to improve the depth of cultivated soil for my early potatoes. 

I'll be writing a more detailed blog post on the Hoss Wheel Hoe in the future, stay tuned for that! 

Another reason I'm not rushing to get the garden in before the soil is ideal is because I have a lot of crops planted already by the one and only, Mother Nature. See, I let a lot of crops go to seed last year to collect the seeds for this year. No matter how careful you are when harvesting the seeds, inevitably there's going to be some that fall to the ground and self seed. I have a lot of seeds that fell to the ground and germinated as soon as the weather was perfect to do so. Various lettuces, kale, bok choy, mustard greens, broccoli raab, radishes, arugula and mache, have all self seeded and germinated awhile ago, staying small due to the cold weather, which will provide us with lots of early spring crops. I also planted most of these crops in various spots around the house and gardens, I always fill my flower beds with lettuce. These crops combined with all the cold frame crops, asparagus, chives, rhubarb and strawberries will give us a good jump on the growing season. 

The cold frames are doing great, except for the first time ever, I'm having major problems with a pest. I had luscious crops of spinach, romaine and arugula eaten down to nothing three times now. The pest ate my first crops of all these, avoiding bok choy, kale, kohlrabi, tatsoi and mustard greens for some reason as they were spared, which I then replanted. Just as they started to amount to something, they were nipped off again and then again. I have lots of the apparently less desirable greens although not one of the spinach, lettuce or arugula plants were spared. I suspected it was slugs and set out beer traps that never caught anything, now I'm leaning towards mouse, mole or vole. I wish I could put my cat in the cold frame for the night to remedy things. I've replanted these crops again, even though it's getting kind of late for the spinach. I always have the worst luck with spinach, of course a pest had to ruin what was going to be a great crop of early spring spinach.  

Using the wheel hoe to cultivate soil for planting. 

The Crocus Show

The crocuses are just finishing up and although the weather was less than kind to them, as it seems to be every year, they still put on a lovely show.  Crocuses are one of my favorite bulbs sine they're so carefree and their blooms signal that although spring may not really be here, it's not that far away, 

I love how the purple snow crocus in the back often look fake in pictures, they're just so vibrant. 

See? 

Sunny golden crocuses in another bed. 

At the very end, still pretty although drooping over. 

Under the Fishbowl.

My fishbowl cloche worked extremely well. I planted a few odd peas I had saved from my sugar snap pea vines last year, as well as a couple kale seeds....I think, it's possible that it may be arugula or another green. Sometimes I plant so many things I forget what I planted where,  although for the most part I remember. I should label things as I plant them, make things easy and eliminate the guess work. How humdrum and boring that would be. What's life without some surprises, excitement and spontaneity?  Besides I can identify almost everything once the true leaves emerge.  

I have to make sure I remove the fishbowl if the weather is too warm, as it will quickly intensify the heat and kill my cool loving crops.  Thankfully, not really, it's been quite cool around here and heat hasn't been an issue for the cold frames or cloches. Fingers crossed it soon will be!