Watering, Weeding, and Asparagus

Yesterday, while Matthew napped, I went jogging and then buckled down to the garden. I rearranged soaker hoses to start watering the front flower bed, where the pansy seeds are. I watered the veggie garden, the flower bed, the peach tree, and the asparagus patch.

Then Matthew awoke, actually I accidentally woke him up - oops. But it was nice warm weather out, so I plopped him in the stroller and he watched me weed the veggie patch. I got a lot done before he started getting antsy. Then I delivered him to Dave to watch flint knapping for a while. Matthew enjoyed the change of scenery.

While watering the asparagus, I discovered my first asparagus stalk. It's an itsy bitsy wimpy asparagus stalk, but I think that's to be expected since it's the first year. Seriously, it's almost as skinny as a blade of grass, but it's standing proud. I'll be watching for 9 more baby asparagus stalks coming up soon.

After all the watering, it rained last night, more or less negating the effort. Nevertheless, the soaker hoses needed rearranging, and I got quite a few weeds pulled.

Bill gave us a wheelbarrow full of mushroom soil that's weed free to use for fertilizer and mulch. This is the first year they've used this stuff so it's kind of experimental. I'm really hoping it's not only weed free but also mushroom free because if mushrooms get started, I have no idea if they can ever truly be stopped....

By the way, the peas are looking great, and the spinach is starting to show its first true leaves.

Weather today through Tuesday: 56/36 T-storms, 56/31 sunny, 54/36 sunny, 56/43 chance of storm. We may get even more natural watering. :)

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.

Poison Ivy?

I spent Matthew's morning nap in the garden with the baby monitor, removing clumps of grass and laying out soaker hose. It was a very productive and enjoyable 2 hours, and I'm happy to report the soaker hose works very well.

I also got quite a few clumps of grass trying to regrow out of the garden before it occurred to me that some of the clumps were brown and fuzzy, kind of like old growth poison ivy. Could it be? There wasn't any in the patch of lawn we turned into garden... but we did recently add some topsoil to raise the garden a bit and I don't know where that came from.

It could very well be poison ivy. Thank God I was wearing gloves.

So, I aborted the morning garden project in favor of immediate prophylactic poison ivy treatment. I went inside; washed my hands; stripped; smeared alcohol based hand sanitizer on hands, wrists, face, neck, and ankles; took a hot, soapy shower followed by a hot soapy bath laced with witch hazel. Take that poison ivy oils!

I hope I was wrong, and it's not poison ivy, and I did all that for nothing. But there was no way I was going to risk getting poison ivy on Matthew if I could help it. And I'm not such a fan of getting it myself either.

If there are poison ivy remnants in my garden, I'm not sure what to do about it.... Does that look like poison ivy?

Update: Dave assures me, it's not poison ivy. Just roots from something. Whew!

Watering Plans

So... in years past my garden watering has been accomplished by standing in the garden with a hose squirting one plant or one row at a time. Or, worse yet, walking down the aisles with a watering can. Somehow, the plants never seemed to get enough water during the hottest months. Despite the fact that we have a limitless (not really, but it may as well be) supply of well water.

I wanted a more efficient setup, one where I could walk out back, turn the water on, go do something else, and come back to turn the water off. My options were sprinkler or soaker hose. Initially I thought soaker hose, but figured it would require an awful lot of hose, and the soaker hoses in my flower garden didn't seem to spread the water very far from the hose. So, when I saw a sprinkler that claimed to cover a 30' by 30' area for $2, I was hooked. Bought it, tried it. Unfortunately, it actually covered more like a 10' by 10' area. Whether that's due to water pressure or deceptive advertising is hard to tell. But it sent me back to the soaker hose idea.

I have now purchased 200 linear feet of soaker hose, which should cover 8 rows looping back and forth across the garden. Once the rain stops and the ground dries out a bit, we'll set those hoses out and see how they do. We'll be using garden staples to hold the hoses in place so they don't roll around and squish seedlings. Here's hoping this great idea works out.

Cow Manure, Peas, and Spinach

Last week, I spread 800 pounds (twenty 40-pound bags) of cow manure in my new 20' by 20' garden. Bill tilled it in for me. So I was ready to begin planting this weekend.

Yesterday I planted a row of Garden Peas and a row of Spinach, both from Rohrer Seeds in Pennsylvania. The peas are Early Frosty (64 day maturity, 24 inch height). The catalog description reads:

64 days (24 in.). Our most popular home garden variety produces
uniform, dark green blunt pods tightly filled with delicious peas. Wilt resistant variety with excellent yields, vigor and freezing quality.

I hadn't intended to plant spinach. But I had space, and lots of leftover seeds from Ann and Bill from last year. And I noticed they could be planted early (March 15-August 15) and matured quickly (48 days) so they'd be out of the way in time for my summer planting. The variety is Bloomsdale. The description reads:

Savoy-leaved. The first early, vigorous variety. Desirable for local gardens. Plants erect in growth, hardy and attractive. Leaves large, crumpled, somewhat blistered, dark glossy green.

With the peas, I'm doing a sort of experiment. Half of the seeds I planted were soaked overnight (actually closer to 21 hours by the time they got planted). One quarter were soaked for several hours (about 4). And the remaining quarter were moistened at the last moment so the inoculant would stick. I planted half the overnight seeds, then the several hours seeds, then the dry seeds, followed last by the remaining overnight seeds. We'll see if this makes a difference in the germination of the seeds.

The sprinkler I bought that's supposed to water a 30' by 30' square area barely reached 10' by 10'. I need to reevaluate my watering plans. Happily it rained quite a bit last night, and is supposed to continue raining for several days, so I didn't have to worry about an initial watering. Just so it gets warm quickly enough that the seeds don't rot before they germinate....

The forecasted weather for the next few days beginning with today is 49/38, 52/36, 52/38, 58/43, 59/36.

2008 Recap and Lessons Learned

Last year's vegetable garden was less than a stellar success.

The plot selected was overshadowed by nearby dogwood trees and was at a lower elevation than the surrounding area. Both the peas and corn had very low germination, which I suspect was due to cold air settling and/or water sitting in the low spot that was my garden.

I was largely pregnant and couldn't keep up with the weeds. It didn't help that the ground also became hard and dry, preventing easy pulling.

This year, I have a plan to combat these problems. I have selected a new site for my garden, about 20 feet further from the dogwoods and with better elevation for drainage. I intend to experiment with cloth mulch for weed control between the rows for easier weeding, and a sprinkler system for easier watering. I also mixed 800 pounds of composted cow manure into my 20' by 20' garden. I'm hoping this will not only improve the fertility of the soil, but also its texture and workability. I've also taken a soil sample for analysis to determine what other amendments would benefit the soil.