Planting Asparagus Roots

This morning, while I took care of Matthew, Dave watered all the trees we planted yesterday, AND dug a 2' by 8' trench, one foot deep for the asparagus.

I got the stroller out, so Matthew could sit and watch me plant the asparagus, but had to feed him first, and he fell asleep, so I left him in the crib and took the monitor with me.

I mixed the remainder of an open bag of manure into the trench with some dirt and created mounds over which to spread the asparagus roots. I spread the roots over the mounds and began refilling the trench. At which point Dave offered to take over and the refilling commenced at a much faster pace. Meanwhile, I carried water for the asparagus.

Thank you, Dave. You're the best!

While we were out working in the garden, we discovered a couple of tears in the pea trellis, so Dave got out the twine, and I repaired it. I hope it'll be sturdy enough for the peas. I almost wonder if we should jump ship on this version of pea support and go for a heavy duty trellis netting or Burpee's pea fence. Of course the netting costs $11 for 30' and the fence costs $32 for 16' or $56 for 32'. Maybe I'll give the twine a chance and see how it does.

The forecasted weather for today through Tuesday is 50/31, 59/34, 49/27, 49/31 with clouds on Saturday and Tuesday and sun on Sunday and Monday. I hope the new trees will be all right with nighttime temperatures getting down below freezing.

Support for the Peas

For supporting the peas, Dave and I constructed a trellis out of rebar, garden twine, and baler twine that we had laying around the farm. Dave cut 4 foot sections of the rebar and impaled the ground every 4 feet. This took 6 pieces for one 20 foot row of peas. We then strung garden twine between the rebar stakes parallel to the ground one inch above ground and along the tops of the stakes. With the remaining garden twine we zig-zagged up and down between the two rows of twine parallel to the ground. We ran out of garden twine halfway down the row, and borrowed some baler twine from the shop. It was thicker and stiffer, but seemed to get the job done. The top and bottom rows of twine may not have been quite tight enough; the zig-zagged twine tugged them somewhat out of place. We'll have to wait and see what the weight of the peas themselves do to their make-shift support.