Dug in the potato bed this morning. It's good that I didn't wait until we were out; it will take two or three such sessions before I get to where more potatoes might lie buried. I think that the hill that's to be dug up next is one that didn't come up, but I left it because there was mustard on it.
I'm digging up and cultivating out a lot of mustard seedlings -- often as close as grass. They haven't got time to go to seed, and can't survive the winter, and I should miss enough -- in among the volunteer garlic, for example -- to provide a little fall snacking.
Observing the strip reserved for next year's potatoes, and the space occupied by perennials and volunteer garlic, I wonder whether I have enough space to plant all of the multiplier bulbs that I have stashed away. But I will have the entire potato bed, and I'm intending to plant double rows.
Perhaps I could plant triple rows. Pity I haven't got a wide-furrow attachment for the cultivator.
Dave came back from lawn mowing with the report that all my tiger lilies are brown, so I went out to see whether they were ready to pull. Very few were, but I noticed that the seeds on the garlic chives/kow choi were nearly ripe. The flowers were still beautiful, but I pulled them all up and stuffed them down the chimney of the outdoor fireplace. Didn't get a bit of root with any of them, of course.
I've half a notion to take a pair of lopping shears out and cut all the lily stalks, leaving the stumps to rot in place. I think I'll give them another week first. I'll probably remember when I'm looking for a place to dump the cat litter next Thursday.
I cultivated today. The winter-onion bulbils that I planted have come up.
The garlic bulbs that I didn't harvest have been up for some time. There is a clump of plants out of line; I must remember them the next time I make hamburder soup. I intend to plant some bulbils too, since the volunteers will be a bit crowded.
There are mustard seedlings in areas that I don't have to dig up.
I dug in the potato bed a couple of times today; knocked off for the day after unearthing four potatoes, total weight ten ounces (on the weighs-light scale). My next digging session should finish the job, and will probably produce more potatoes.
The cooking onions aren't keeping well, but there are very few left. I'm somewhat surprised that the multipliers in the crisper tray are also not keeping well; perhaps it's the humidity -- that's making them shrivel?
I must get the southern railroad tie on the east side raised up Real Soon Now, because Brent means to move the asparagus as soon as it goes dormant.
We have a truck-bed liner killing the grass beside the railroad tie, and plan to put the crowns on the surface, then bury them in hauled-in dirt. The tie beside the fireplace will close off the east side of the bed; we'll have to buy something for the north and south.
Probably no asparagus next spring, but higher ground should make it more productive in the long run. And it will be very nice to have the asparagus closer to the kitchen. Should be easier to keep ahead of the weeds when I see it more often, too.
twenty-one potatoes, total weight two pounds eleven ounces. Two very large, four small, ten diabetic, five marbles.
I scrubbed one of the marbles and ate it raw. There were at least two pea sized that I left in the dirt.
And this morning I gathered up most of the weeds that I cast aside while digging up the potato bed, and threw them on the compost heap, on top of the lily stalks.
I've been trying to collect all the marigold seed pods -- even if I don't miss any, there should be enough seeds in the soil bank for more marigolds than I want to come up in the raised herb bed.
I think the fern bed is adequately seeded, so I shucked today's harvest into the cat litter that I intended to scatter on the lily bed.
But first I needed to cut the lily stalks. This proved more strenuous than expected, so I quit when I had a larger space than needed to scatter a box of corncob dust. After that, I tugged on all the remaining stalks, which I could do without bending over, and collected quite a few more. The stalks seem to be riper on the side opposite to where I started.
I also cut down a tree that the loppers could just barely handle; I had to brace one handle against my leg and pull on the other with both hands. It looks like a walnut, but doesn't smell like one. The wood smells familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. Hickory, perhaps. Whatever it is, I can't leave it right next to a utility pole.
The redbud tree could be left under wires, but I'm going to get it after I cut the lily stalks around it next week. It has been annoying that that tree, which is cut down at intervals, has been healthier than the one we've been cosseting. But this summer, the planted redbud appears to have gotten a root into good soil -- we'd planted it exactly where the ash was struck by lightning, which was a mistake. It was also a mistake, in my opinion, to buy an alien tree rather than going out into the bike trails and digging up a wild one. And the USPS tour of the midwest with its roots bare didn't do it any good either.
What a difference a week makes! Last Thursday removing the stalks was strenuous because I had to bend over to use the lopping shears. This Thursday it was strenous because I had to bend over to pick them up off the ground. For a time, I thought that removing young trees would be my only use for the lopping shears, but four stalks proved stubborn.
Removing that beautifully-healthy redbud tree smarted a bit. Also called for bracing one handle of the lopping shears and using both hands on the other.
Which reminds me -- and this could be a good AG column -- that one should be careful, when securing a bike, that no part of the cable is low enough that a thief could brace one handle of his bolt cutters on the ground and step on the other.
It was, and I posted it on rec.bikes.misc Saturday night. Now I'm out of topics again.
I must remember to rake the leaves off the garden and push the cultivator around one more time.
Haven't yet.
Today I picked all the ripe marigold pods I could find (plus a few of doubtful ripeness, which I did not tear up), put them into the cat's litterbox, and spread the corncob powder and excrement on the lily bed -- mostly on the iris.
I raked leaves off the garden, but decided not to Culta-Eze.
Harvested marigold pods, put in litterbox, spread litterbox on lily bed. I've decided to save mulching the fern bed for days when I don't want to walk out to the lily bed.
There's mustard on the west part of the compost-heap reservation. I must remember to eat some.
The ground has been covered with snow for two days.
The garlic chives have been producing for weeks, and I've used up the first clump of winter onions I dug. I must dig more soon.
The winter onions are either huge clumps or clumps that are just getting started. I planted some bulbils last fall, and I re-planted several small clumps of the onions in the huge clump that I dug. They couldn't be separated very small without tearing the roots off, so I'll probably re-dig some after we've eaten the three or four huge clumps.
I could be using chives, but don't think of it. I should cut the thyme down to the ground before it starts growing. (exit, stage out)
Too late. I brought some of the green twigs in and put them into a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
I cut down the lavendar while I was at it. It wasn't too late for that.
(exit to examine winter savory in front flower bed)
I see no sign that it survived the winter. It wintered beautifully when it was in an exposed location in the raised bed. Some of the twigs aren't brittle.
The new asparagus crowns have arrived, but it is still too cold to plant them. Dave took the bed liner off the bed and spaded up what was under it. I should go out and turn a few spades of sod, but it's cold out there.
We plan to pick the old bed mercilessly, then bury it.
I turned over at least half a dozen sods in the proposed asparagus bed. Then Dave raked all the sods to one end of the bed and ran the Culta- Eze, but neither of us feels like loading the sods into the wheelbarrow and dumping them on the compost heap.
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In the evening, I mentioned to Dave that I could move the railroad tie sideways but not lengthways. He hitched up the lawn mower and dragged it into place, then dug some more. This thing is starting to look like an asparagus bed.
I peeked under the bed liner that Dave had thrown into the garden when he started work on the asparagus bed a while back. It was lying on the giant garlic, so I folded it back. The giant garlic hasn't been up very long.
I raked the leaves out of the herb bed, and pulled some of the sod up by the roots.
The rhubarb is up and looking good. Not too many weeks before I can make some hot-and-sour soup. I wonder whether a pinch of superphosphate would help or hurt.
I chopped a parsley sprig into my breakfast.
Maybe I was a bit hasty in uncovering the rhubarb. The snow in the air this morning isn't falling, but there is some of yesterday's snow in the tracks of the bedroom door and in the hole Dave plans to fill with gravel. (That's as close to going outside as I care to come today.)
Nothing is wilting, but one can't see frost damage until the plant thaws.
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It was sunny in the afternoon, so after supper I grabbed a rake and went out to take the debris off the dirt at the west end of the compost heap. There was more sod and less dirt than I expected. It was so cold that I came back in after raking about enough sod to fill a shovel onto the heap.
Definitely too cold to plant asparagus. I hope it doesn't die in the shop; they shipped it a month too early.
We planted the asparagus, two rows of five crowns. Some had tiny spears already; I left those sticking out. I plan to start filling the bed with dirt after I can see where the crowns are.
I raked the rest of the debris, well most of it, off the garden and ran the five-tine hoe around the whole thing. It's in good enough shape that I'll use the slicing hoe next time.
I dug up two winter-onion scallions from the compost heap and three garlic scallions that were between rows. I plan to harvest another of the oversized clumps of winter onion the next time I make meat loaf. Probably re-plant only one or two.
It's hard to tell because they are grown together, but I think there are three overgrown clumps yet to harvest.
We raked most of the leaves out of the azalea bed, and Dave chopped them up with the lawn mower and blew them over to the park.
We hauled a sprinkler can of water from the creek. There are a lot of cypress knees that I hadn't noticed before along the bank, and more coming up on the bank.
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Dave bought a shrub rake while I was napping, and we cleaned out the azalea bed. We also planted the asparagus -- the instructions said to put the crowns six inches below the soil surface, so I decided to plant them level, then haul dirt in as they grow.
I ran the Culta-Eze around the garden; it's clean enough that I'll use the slicing hoe next time -- probably as soon as the soil drains after tomorrow's rain -- or just before the rain, depending on when I wake up. I paused cultivaton to harvest three misplaced garlic scallions.
I dashed out to Culta-Eze before the rain, then checked Weather Underground, which now says that I had until sunset. It also says that Monday will be a perfect day for hanging out wash.
I'd hoped that the exposed sprout would start turning green, but there's been no change in the asparagus bed. Except that I found a sprig of overlooked sod.
I'm planning to make meat loaf this afternoon, which will mean digging up a clump of winter onions.
I found two stems of asparagus on the north side of the house, then went to the old bed and found one stem, not as well developed.
Time to start freezing asparagus.
Yesterday I rode my bike to Open Air Nursery and Greenhouses, today I laid four seed potatoes on the east side of the garden, sprinkled them with superphosphate, piled dirt from the corner beside the compost heap on them, and filled out the row with yellow onion sets, triple row staggered, sprinkled with superphosphate.
Then I filled the westernmost row, where last year's potatoes were, with multipliers, triple row staggered, one handful of superphosphate. The leftover bulbs I put in a single row between the garlic and the winter onions and sprinkled with 12-12-12. A handful was too much for such a short row, so I sprinkled the left-overs on garlic and, I think, a couple of winter onions.
I mostly filled one of the pint baskets with particularly fat multipliers, as a hedge against failure. I didn't think of it until after I'd planted both the pint baskets, and the bulbs in the quart basket were much smaller. All seemed to have come through the winter well, wrapped in paper in the cupboard against the inside wall of the garage. I didn't see any shriveled-up bulbs even though some of them were tiny. Nor were there noticeably more layers of skin on them than there had been when they were stored away.
So I put the pint of hedge into two paper bags and put it back into the cupboard. I line each basket with a folded paper towel, and press another folded towel into it as a lid.
There are now three sprouts in the new asparagus bed. I piled another trowel of dirt around each one after the planting was done.
There isn't a lot of space left in the garden. I told Dave that he could have the northeast corner for one of his cucumber vines, and I would pick scallions from that end of the multiplier row.
The winter onions are still producing. I'm going to have to make something that calls for lots of chopped onions to use up what I've already picked, so I can harvest those that came up in the old asparagus bed.
The winter savory did make it through the winter. I just took a pair of scissors out and cut off most of the twigs that didn't. It could spare some green twigs for seasoning, if I ever cooked.
The strawberries are in bloom. The deer have been eating the leaves.
I put two small stalks of rhubarb into hot-and- sour soup on May the fifth. Today I cut out a flowering stalk. The leaves are large and I should make some more soup -- or rhubarb lemonade.
I made rhubarb tea out of the flowering stalk. Quite tasty even after it got cold.
It isn't dry enough yet, but I pushed the cultivator around the garden anyway, carefully avoiding Dave's two cucumber sprouts. Also hauled two wheelbarrows of dirt to the east side of the asparagus bed. It's going to take a lot of wheelbarrows to fill the bed.
Eight of the ten asparagus plants are up, and four of them are branching. The one that had a sprout on it when I planted them is still doing nothing, but the stump of the sprout is green, so there might be a tiny trickle of energy making it down to the root.
I looked at the eighth sprout quite a long time before I saw it; it's lucky that I sat on the railroad tie to think about it. This led me to inspecting the remaining two sites from all angles.
The onion sets I bought at Open Air are up. No sign of the multipliers that were planted the same day, but those multipliers didn't get to be a century-old clone by jumping the gun.
At least one of the strawberry flowers has set fruit. I didn't look closely at the Joe Rickets berries. The deer have been nibbling at that patch, and at the plants that escaped into the thyme bed below it, but show no interest in the Big R strawberries in the herb bed around the south raised bed.
I see what I think are marigold seedlings in the south raised bed. Much too close together; once I'm sure what they are, I'll move some into the fern bed.
The multipliers that got superphosphate are up; still no sign of those that got 12-12-12.
The 12-12-12 are up, but not all of them. I need to throw dirt on some of the superphosphate onions.
Time to move the marigold seedlings, but probably not today.
I culta-ezed the garden and selected parts of the asparagus bed. The eight asparagus that are up are doing well. Even the root that had exhausted itself by sprouting before I planted it has sent up a thin little stalk. Time to haul more dirt.
There are potato leaves on two of the hills, and a volunteer in the onion row. It's close to the end, so I can harvest scallions around it and hill it up.
Most of the winter onions have scapes. I've harvested some of them to use in cooking. I should pick them all, since there are enough winter onions in the garden, and the bed south of the house has begun to seed itself.
I'm sparing the mustard seedlings where I can, and eating them where I can't.
I'm pretty sure that the little green bush in the fern bed came up from the roots of the porch plant that I set out there to get frostbit last fall.
The cottonwood is cottoning.
Saturday, there were clumps of cotton on the lawn under the tree, but none in the air.
I have moved some marigolds.
On Saturday, I bought a ginger root that had a sprout on it, cut off the lobe with the sprout, and buried it in the raised flower bed with the sprout sticking up, after leaving it out for an hour or so to let the cut dry.
Just when I thought it was finished, it is snowing cotton.
Hoed the asparagus bed and piled some sods Dave had dug along the walks at one end. I don't think I have the patience to get a lot of dirt out of them. I added a shovel of dirt to each hill of potatoes, except for the volunteer in the row of onions. Also pulled some weeds.
The mock orange is in bloom and the snowball bush is done. I've eaten a few ripe strawberries.
The mustard is bolting. I had minced mustard and garlic spathe-tops in my scrambled egg this morning, a very good combination. Asparagus still producing fat spears. But if I miss a day, I some of the thin ones leaf out and have to be discarded.
Garden getting weedy. Plan to Culta-Eze this evening. Lots of pulling to be done. The new asparagus bed looks very good; hope I don't get to hot to haul more dirt.
I picked nearly the last of the winter-onion bulbils for soup yesterday. The ones I picked were nearing the end of the time when one doesn't need to peel them; I'm hoping the head of microscopic bulbils that I skipped is younger -- I'm pretty sure I picked the first growth of that plant.
I haven't touched the winter onions on the south side of the house.
I found a couple more heads of bulbils while Culta-Ezing today, and ate them in a salad at supper. They need peeling now, but the peel comes off when pushed with a thumbnail.
The potatoes have been in bloom for days -- white flowers on the ones I planted, and a purple flower on the volunteer. Took a while to harden my heart to trashing them, but I did get them while most were still tight green buds. Also hauled one load of dirt for the asparagus bed. Meant to haul enough to make up for missing a few days, but it was raining when I got up from my nap.
Forgot to pick the old bed of asparagus until after it rained. I must get at it first thing in the morning -- it is still producing fat spears.
The rhubarb is looking a bit thin -- I must try to get it some lake weed.
There were fireflies this evening, not for the first time. I found another volunteer potato while I was weeding the onions.
Egg over fried potato and onion for breakfast. The winter-onion bulbs are bigger and stronger in flavor than they were the previous time I harvested some.
In the heat, I've neglected cultivation. In the dry, the weeds haven't multiplied much -- but those that were already rooted are now rooted firmly.
I hauled half a wheelbarrow of dirt from my mine to the hole in the southwest corner of the garden. I've havested enough multipliers that I can begin to hill up the volunteer potato. The multipliers are nearly ripe and not very big. I don't think a bit of rain would hurt them. Very little chance in sight -- I wish we could have saved some of the spring and winter rains.
While at the beach I noticed that the lakeweed is ripe for harvesting, so I piled up the wheelbarrow and mulched the rhubarb. Then I hauled a bucket of water from the rain barrel and poured it on the rhubarb. Also hauled one and poured it into that corner of the raised herb bed, but most of the leakage went onto the kow choi/garlic chives.
I pulled the garlic today, hosed it off, and laid it on the picnic table to bleach. The multipliers should be dug up tomorrow.
The winter onions are still in the bulb stage, but I'm getting close to having them adequately thinned.
Dave has picked two cucumbers, and there's one on the vine that should have been picked. I've printed out mom's recipe for bread-and-butter pickles.
Most of the multipliers are in the garage on a newspaper; half of those I dug today are sunning on the picnic table. Those that I dug in the morning were hot, so I put them with the previous batch in the garage before starting to dig the remainder.
Then I cut the stems and roots off the garlic that I left bleaching a few days ago, and put them into a paper bowl beside the multipliers.
I plan to pull the big onions as they are required for cooking; there aren't very many.
Pulled a few winter onions for breakfast; found a clump of three cured sets. I'm close to getting them thinned enough, and there are some spots that will require re-planting.
A couple of potato plants show signs of getting ripe.
I'm not at all sure which plants are leeks and which are giant garlic. I don't think leeks are perrenial, so it's probably all garlic. I allowed all of them to bloom, and they setting seed.
There's a fairly decent chance we'll get some rain the day after tomorrow.
A thunderstorm isn't what I had in mind, but it should open up my dirt mine. I had to stop digging because I couldn't tell the dirt from the sand. I did dig a couple of wheelbarrows of overburden and dump them into Dave's drainage hole. I went out today and found access to the overburden blocked -- I'm surprised that it took this long -- so I took sand from where I'll throw the overburden to finish filling the drainage hole. Shouldn't be difficult to dig a path to the mine, if the rain reveals that there is still dirt to be dug.
Been too bloomin' hot to work outdoors. I'll go out now and bring in the multipliers that are drying on the table.
I didn't root up everything, since a few at the north end appeard to still be growing, and Dave was about to water them. I've begun eating the reserve bulbs, now that an adequate number of this year's are curing. They are much harder to peel than the fresh bulbs, but quite as tasty.
We got 0.15 inches of rain today. One of the potato plants was in bloom, and I picked a lot of flower buds off the others. I got a generous serving of asparagus out of the old bed this evening, and photographed it for the Banner. The new asparagus is thriving, but only one is more than knee high.
Except for hanging out the wash, I spent most of the day inside. I haven't even inspected the sand pile to see whether the rain re-opened my dirt mine. I quit digging when it became impossible to see where the dirt was.
Still picking asparagus and winter-onion bulbs. Potatoes are still green and flourishing.
First the rain wouldn't come, and now it won't go. Supposed to be dry tomorrow. One of the wedding guests said that she saw curled corn west of here, but I presume that that is all fixed now.
I haven't been out to my dirt mine.
I found a flower bud on the kow choi/garlic chives today. Also found a Monarch chrysalis on a rubarb leaf, and a larva on an nearby milkweed. I think the chrysalis is the caterpillar I saw a few days ago , as the current caterpilar isn't a speck bigger than that one and might be smaller. Should have taken a picture.
The larger volunteer potato is ready to dig. The others are still green and flourishing.
I'm storing the set onions in the earth, because it won't take long to eat them up. I'm getting more ounces than I planted, but not a lot more. We've eaten about half a foot of the short row.
Dave found the chrysalis on the rhubarb leaf empty, and when I went out to look at it, I found a monarch perched on a wood sorrel in the chocolate-mint bed, waving its wings. Dave got a good picture before it flew away. The caterpillar on the milkweed beside the rue is missing -- or well hidden -- but I haven't found another chrysalis.
The pods on the milkweed around the strawberry bed are well developed and should ripen soon.
The planted potatoes are showing signs of being ripe. The book says to wait until two weeks after the tops die back entirely to let the skins toughen, but I'm not planning to store any unless those four hills produce beyond belief, so I'll start digging when the green on one plant is all gone. I should dig the volunteer hill while I still have supermarket potatoes, in case there aren't any in it.
I used the shrub rake to stir up the mulch on the asparagus bed. The garden rake is too heavy to use from outside the bed. I'm concerned that most of the asparagus tops are still very small, but they look healthy.
I have been thinking of digging up the volunteer asparagus I've been trying to pick to death for years, and planting it in one of the spots where the purchased roots didn't make it. I should have done that before mulching.
Also pulled some grass out of the winter onions. One clump has sprouts on it, but there is no sign of sprouting in the clump that still needs thinning.
I dug up the volunteer potatoes today, and got one teeny potato from the smaller plant and three small potatoes from the larger. All scabby, but the teeny potato is the cleanest.
The planted potatoes are still growing, but showing signs of going dormant.
The leeks or giant garlic (maybe some of each? But the two clumps look identical) are dormant except for the seed stalks. When they ripen, I intend to dig up one clump and pickle it. And dig up and divide the other one. Or maybe some of each.
When I went out to count the clumps -- I had thought there were three -- and verify that the green blades I'd seen after culta-ezing the asparagus were garlic, I found another teeny potato, this one with no scab.
The winter onions are sprouted, but haven't completely lost their old leaves.
The herb bed around the raised herb bed needs weeding something awful. Rhubarb is healthy, but could use more space and fertilizer.
I finally cleaned the multiplier sets and put them into the cupboard this morning. I noticed them only when mounting my bike, so last Tuesday I wrote "store onions" as the first of the notes that get stricken off in green after they are transcribed.
Two of the paper-maché baskets had vanished, and the remaining one was the smallest, so I found a small corrugated box and used that. I think the porosity of the paper -- and the layer of onions being not much more than one onion thick -- will provide enough ventilation, but not too much. But being so late putting them in the box will have speeded up the drying. But most of them should be viable come spring, since this clone will keep for two years -- and has on more than one occasion; I always keep the fattest bulbs back in case of complete crop failure.
The garlic chives are still putting out flower buds. Now I wait until a flower opens, then pull off the head and eat it on the spot.
I dug up the stray clump and cut it up for meatloaf this week. I should thin the main body, as the leaves are so tangled that it's difficult to find the bottom of a flower stem. But the roots are surely at least as tangled, so I'm not looking forward to it.
Last fall I set a patio plant out in the fern bed just to get rid of it. Much to my surprise, it was still alive this spring, and today I noticed that it is covered with flower buds.
I saw a monarch caterpillar on the milkweed plant on the southwest corner of the strawberry bed yesterday. The milkweed pods got to be as big as cucumbers weeks ago, and they've held there ever since.
The first hill of potatoes had only three potatoes in it. I stopped digging after turning up the largest a few days ago, and we shared it for supper yesterday. Today I dug up the remaining two, and ate the smaller for lunch.
The volunteer mini-sweet peppers are loaded, and some could be picked now if I liked them grassy green. I'm pretty sure they will get larger, if given time.
There is enough volunteer garlic that I might not plant any.
The raised herb bed is still producing.
Herb bed still producing. Milkweed pods still haven't opened. Volunteer peppers still haven't been frosted.
Last night's freeze got the basil; the rest ofthe herb bed looks all right. The rhubarb's three leaves are drooping. I'm tempted to pick them and freeze the stems for soup, but I hear that frosted rhubarb isn't wholesome.
The frost also nipped the topmost leaves of the volunteer peppers. Tonights freeze is predicted to be borderline and very short, so I don't expect further damage. I think the compost heap is radiating a little heat, which would protect the bottom parts of the volunteer peppers.
Not only have the peppers suffered no further damage, they are loaded with flowers and flower buds. I picked a lot of them off. I must go out tomorrow with dainty scissors; pinching them off sometimes gets leaves as well.