8:24 PM 3/28/2025 Friday, 28 March 2025 In the evening, I raked the asparagus bed clean enough that I will be able to see when the spears start coming up. I raked until I could see the dead stalks, then cut stalks until I could rake some more. I mislaid the pruning shears -- I was using them yesterday (on the asparagus bed) when the new microwave arrived, but they aren't in any of the places where I might have put them down. The lopping shears worked better; I didn't have to get down on my knees. But I hope I find the pruning shears before they get rusty. The asparagus bed needs a lot of weeding. Then I raked most of the leaves between the rows in the garden into the compost heap. It won't be long before I can Culta-Eze where I've been digging out the winter onions and start replanting one or two of every clump I dig. I harvested for the first time this year on the last day of February. I could have harvested on New Year's, but had some scallions in my fridge. The weather socked the garden in immediately after that, and I broke through a thin frozen shell when digging the first scallions. We raked leaves off the rhubarb yesterday, and it's up. The catnip started showing at least a week ago, and I've been harvesting garlic chives, but there are no signs of life in the thyme and oregano. There's a leaf on the marjoram. Hope I remember to take the kitchen shears out and trim the dead twigs off the oregano. I cut the rue back severely yesterday. Saturday, 5 April 2025 10:37 AM 4/5/2025 Nothing but catnip and, I suspect, creeping charlie in the herb bed. I thought I saw some green in the marjoram, but it's a seedling creeping charlie. Which I'm leaving, for fear that it's Kenilworth Ivy. The strawberries have come through the winter in good shape. The garlic chives could use a heavy harvesting. I'll cut a few to put into the potato salad I'm making today. Daffodils are in full bloom. The hyacinths were the first to open, and one plant isn't quite fully open. Others need to be dead-headed soon. While checking, I noticed sod invading the fern bed, but despite the soggy soil, it broke off instead of pulling up, so I fetched the glass tabletop that has been cluttering the asparagus bed and covered it. Yesterday I raked a substantial layer of leaves off the old compost heap onto the current one; I must have had a load of raked leaves dumped on it at some time, but they showed no sign of having been through the lawn mower. When digging scallions for the colcannon, I replanted some too-small-to-mess-with plants, so I've a start on repopulating where I've been clear-cut harvesting. The space between the winter onions and the edge of the garden is nearly sodded with sprouted bulbils; how did I come to miss so many? I'm leaving them in the hope that they will get big enough to mess with before they get in the way. They make it awkward to find a place to put my feet. Thursday, 10 April 2025 9:02 AM 4/15/2025 I dug up a catnip with the tablespoon and planted it on Fred's grave. It appears to have survived. I must fetch the trowel and move another properly. The tiger lilies are up. Friday 18 April 2025 5:10 PM 4/18/2025 Been good weather for working in the garden, but I've been afraid to get out of earshot of the phone. Friday, 25 April 2025 11:02 AM 4/25/2025 Surprise! I finally got around to planting the multipliers, and all that was in the basket was the sixteen bulbs I set back in case of total crop failure. However, most of the bulbs that I didn't get around to harvesting have come up. Not exactly flourishing, but they should make bulbs. If I'm able to harvest them. I dug a trench east of the winter onions, with a volunteer winter onion in the middle, and set eleven bulbs a palmwidth apart south of the winter onion and five north of it. Now I'm about to go out and dig dirt from where the compost pile was to fill in the trench. I've been thinking of digging up the tiny volunteers and throwing them south of the house. Should do that just before a rainstorm, to give them a chance. Friday, 9 May 2025 Bulbils are starting to form on the winter onions. This morning I cut off all I could find, chopped them, and stirred them into corned-beef hash, after celery and along with a mini-sweet pepper. Couldn't taste onion in the hash; I should have taken some stem with the proto-bulbs. Later, I cut all the flower buds off a volunteer chive clump and put them into the relish-plate box for future reference. 1:03 PM 5/9/2025 Got the wheeled weeding stool out and picked weeds out of the multipliers that I didn't harvest last summer. I didn't get them clean, but they are visible enough that I could run the slicing hoe on the Culta-Eze on each side. In the process, I re-planted a couple, and dug up and planted a healthy one that was way out of line. Also harvested a couple of little garlic scallions that were in the path of the Culta-Eze. Afterward, I sprinkled 12-12-12 on them as stingily as I could. On the way back to the house, I gave a dose of fertilizer to a north-end winter onion, and to the two strawberries in the northwest corner of the bed. One of the asparagus plants is putting up thin spears. The rest are still keeping ahead of us. Thursday, 5 June 2025 12:41 PM 6/5/2025 Dug up a clump of volunteer winter onions to get greens for my wilted-green lunch, and to my surprise there was a fine fat bulb on every plant. I took the scallions out of the relish plate and replaced them with the best of the freshly-dug plants. Friday, 13 June 2025 7:55 AM 6/14/2025 I pulled some of the weeds in the volunteer multipliers. The tips of the leaves are starting to turn brown. I sure hope that I notice when it is time to dig them. Tuesday 17 June 2025 4:00 PM 6/17/2025 Cut off the tips of a lot of scapes and put them into the fridge. The volunteer multipliers are smothered in weeds. If I don't blink there will still be a harvest, but they may be too small to store over the winter. Sunday 22 June 2025 10:13 AM 6/22/2025 I went out to harvest the multipliers; after digging a few I decided that they weren't quite ready, fetched the weeding stool, and cleaned enough weeds out of the rest of the row that I should be able to find them when the time comes. They are small, but most of them should keep through the winter. The ones that I was sure wouldn't, I planted in empty spots in the row where I planted the save-the-clone bulbs. These are so feeble that I have decided to let them stay in the ground over the winter. I hope that some of the volunteers will be fat enough that I can keep them back to save the clone when I plant them next spring. My storage space isn't very good. The raised beds are solid with weeds. We considered the possibility that I wouldn't be able to stoop when Dave built them, but didn't consider the possibility that I wouldn't have time to work. Thursday 26 June 2025 9:18 AM 6/26/2025 Dug a clump of five onions, re-planted one in the winter-over row. They are still not quite ready; I hope I can find them when they are -- no time to weed. Monday 7 July 2025 12:07 PM 7/7/2025 Dug up three multiplier bulbs. There are three more that weren't quite ready. Pulled weeds around the planted bulbs; perhaps some day I'll have time to push the cultivator -- and remove the trees growing in the compost heap. Beyond pull, beyond dig out, but they will still answer to lopping shears -- I think. Tuesday, 15 July 2025 5:01 PM 7/15/2025 Took lopping shears to the catalpa trees in the compost heap -- no rings even in the thickest; they must have liked the hot rainy weather. Then I pruned up the walnut tree to improve its chances of becoming a swagger stick. While I had the lopping shears out, I hiked to the lily bed, but hadn't cut out many trees before I decided that napping was the better part of industry. I did cut a lot of dead limbs -- and some not-so-dead -- off the mulberry tree on my way back to the house. I left all the trees and sticks lying near where they were cut. Time to dig up the garlic, and the bulbils are nearly ripe. The remaining multipliers have disappeared into the weeds, but there were very few of them. I'm pretty much keeping up with the weeds in the row where I plan to let multipliers winter over. I may engage in general weeding soon. Tuesday 29 July 2025 1:13 PM 7/29/2025 Cleaned the multipliers and put them in baskets between two paper towels, then into a paper bag for the winter. Small, but sound. I think that I could hold all of them in the palm of my hand, but it's enough to plant -- no reserve for disaster, though. I sorted out three to add to the row of bulbs spending the winter in the ground. I also clipped the bulbils off the garlic. Bit late to dig it, but stalks still show. I was pancaking, so I left off and hope to be at home again tomorrow. Bad weather for digging is good weather for bleaching. Pulled a bunch of grass near the over-wintering multiplier bulbs. This is the only clean spot in the garden. 6:54 PM 7/29/2025 After cooling off, I dug the garlic, hosed it off, shortened the stems, and laid it on the picnic table. I got three giant garlic and a lot of undersized garlic. Found some more bulbils and added them to the box to be cleaned and taken to Our Father's Pantry. None of the garlic will keep long; the protective wrappers have rotted off. Friday, 1 August 2025 2:39 PM 8/1/2025 I took the garlic to Our Father's Pantry yesterday. Left the bulbils in heads. 7:03 PM 8/1/2025 I cut all the seed pods off the rue. That made the scissors smell nice. Wednesday, 27 August 2025 12:31 AM 8/28/2025 Pulling a few weeds every time I went out made an impressive addition to the compost heap without making any significant difference in the garden. Today I took the wheeled weeding stool out, determined to get a space clean enough to push the cultivator through. There's a space where I can at least move the cultivator now. I piled the weeds in the asparagus bed. Saturday, 4 October 2025 7:53 PM 10/4/2025 Dug the flatfoot out to go to the ice rink today and found in its basket a box containing garlic I'd meant to clean and take to Our Father's Pantry. It wasn't fit for anything but compost, of course. At least there wasn't much. Still no cultivatoring. When I carried the garbage out, I pulled enough weeds to cover the fresh garbage.