Yesterday I harvested kow choi to season turkey salad. Today I raked dead leaves out of the herb bed. Also pulled a few clumps of grass. Since they are vulnerable after an early-spring rain, I should have gone after them systematically, but I am almost seventy eight.
The asparagus is up.
I raked on the fourth because the rhubarb had poked a leaf out. The rhubarb has been able to spare a leaf for some time, but I haven't picked any yet.
I could have green onions any time, and have dug a garlic plant.
I raked some leaves out of the garden and the herb bed today, and got some more grass pulled.
I've been harvesting kow choi fairly heavily. The oregano is starting to grow, and I think I saw some peppermint while raking the herb bed.
I pushed the Culta-Eze around the garden today. This required rather a lot of debris-raking. I still need to use the shrub rake to get debris out of the winter onions and garlic, and I need to rake out the humps from pototo digging, but I'll be able to plant onions and potatoes Real Soon Now. I already have the sets, which I bought at Open Air Nursery on my way home from my first trip to Leesburg.
The asparagus is up. Well, some of the asparagus is up.
The daffodils need dead-heading already.
The ferns are mostly up.
I planted the multipliers and the onions today. The asparagus appears to be done for the season.
I mudded in the potatoes a few days ago. That is, I laid each of the three sets on the ground and put a shovel of sand on each one. Three stakes show me where they are.
In the spring, I buried two sprouted onions in the raised herb bed. Today I pulled the one that survived, and got two small onions just right for bread-and-butter pickles.
The rue has set seed, so today I pruned it right down to the ground. Pity to waste all that rue, but I don't know of any use for it.
It has rather woody stems. I think it capable of growing into a bush.
I also yanked a lot of milkweed out of the strawberry bed and sort of planted it, all in one hole, south of the house.
And hauled buckets of water to the raised beds and the rhubarb.
I dug a hill of potatoes and got four medium potatoes. Then I pulled Kenilworth Ivy out of the strawberry bed and mulched the fern bed with it. I buried a couple of roots, but the best I'm hoping for is that some of the seed pods on the vines ripen.
I'm planning to burn the fern fronds and the tomato vines this evening.
The garden is grown up in weeds, and so are the raised beds. I gave up and sheared the herb bed south of the garlic chives.
The rose bush began as nothing, put forth a feeble leaf, and got mowed off. I put a flag by it, and now it's seven inches tall and looks healthy, except for the lowest leaves, which are turning yellow. Perhaps I should pile some loose straw around it after it goes dormant. Best to wait until all bugs have found a winter home.
I inspected the hearth and found that some of the fern fronds and tomato vines had escaped the fire I built yesterday. I piled them in the middle, where the next fire will be built on top of them.
I pulled some weeds in the strawberry bed, making two trips to the fern bed to deposite Kenilworth Ivy, and carried two shovels of sand from under the compost heap to pile into an empty corner.
Which reminds me that I meant to haul another shovel to fill a hole in the northwest corner that I found after pulling off the weeds.
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I found the shovel leaning against the chimney next to a patch of weeds that needed pulling.
It took three shovels to fill the hole, then I hauled another shovel to the southwest corner. I think I should fill the bed to the top with compost where-ever strawberries aren't. Then next summer the runners will colonize the good dirt and I can bury the mother plants.
I simply bury the peanut-shell mulch when it gets in my way. Peanut shells rot slowly, have their own supply of nitrogen, and hold a lot of water, so I don't think they will hurt anything.
I dug the second hill and found one small potato. Later found a deformed small potato and a marble in the pile of dirt; may have come from the third hill.
So I dug into the remaining hill and found a medium potato and a small one. That's enough potatoes for a while, so I stopped digging.
But if there are fingerlings at the farmers' markets tomorrow, I needn't pass them up.
Yesterday I dumped some over-age garlic cloves onto the raised herb bed and buried them in a couple of shovels of dirt from the compost heap.
An overlooked garlic from a previous planting was about half a foot high. I could find some other edible herbs in there if I roodled around; I saw green oregano leaves. But I'm on dried herbs for the winter.
I saw a green kenilworth ivy leaf while dumping cat litter on the fern bed today.