henless' garden, 2018

[jackb]

I'm intersecting a lot of my personal stuff with your "henless garden 2018." I should say that I can and should go back and delete a lot. Yep.

Somehow, your experiences relate to my own and I want to encourage you, Henless. Your DH is likely someone who wants to encourage you, also. I know how that is, as well! I don't know what else he is up to but I bet this garden work makes him feel good, in many ways. Ya know how guys might need their wings trimmed now and then but try not to get cranky about the situation. Both of you can have a good time.

I go for ANNUAL gardens because of my circumstances. If you have perennial weeds that you and the asparagus would have to deal with, be prepared.

Easy for me to say. Asparagus is okay but I wouldn't want a whole lot of it for my table. What I need to do is flag the places it grows wild around here . That will take planning because I don't see it until it's too late to harvest, but it's plentiful!

One place asparagus is easy to find at harvest time is along the river. The river level drops after snowmelt slows, few weeds -- there they are! Hey! An exclamation point looks a little like an asparagus spear !

DW and I used to get plenty! Then, the issue of heavy metal contamination of the river made me question the wisdom of eating so much. Lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc came down from hydraulic placer mining areas and smelters beginning over a century ago. The public health people say it continues to be a problem for activities along the shoreline and eating the fish despite lots and lots of (too late) clean-up! So, DW and I should figure out how to find the asparagus ! in the grass not close to the river. Mapping ! On his hikes, @jackb uses that GPS device !!

Steve

I also use the GPS to remind me where I placed my trail cameras. Somehow, my memory just ain't what it used to be.

 

[baymule]

Wild asparagus.....I can't imagine!

Henless do y'all have a location picked out that you want to move to? Moving 20+ years of accumulation was a chore, we unloaded a LOT of it, but it still took us awhile.

 

[henless]

@digitS' - Thanks for the encouragement. I want to get my gardening area set up so that I won't have to do that every year. Just amend, plant and weed where needed.

I've learned over the years to just back up and let him do things in his own time. Sometimes my time frame does not mesh with his, but we still get it done. Sooner or later, lol.

I don't think we have wild asparagus here. Have you seen any @baymule where you're at?

No bay, we have no idea where we want to move. I'm really not looking yet. I would hate to find a place I really like but not able to get it. Did you get much rain? We got 5 1/2" over 2 days. It is still a mess outside. The fire ants are going nuts!!!!

Update on the garden:

We got our last bed up last weekend. Got it filled and amended. I planted asparagus in it on Monday. Went out to the garden yesterday afternoon and we already have a purple spear sticking up! I put in some new crowns and moved some I already had into the bed. I planted Purple Passion. Love the nutty flavor it has.

Rain hit us on Tuesday, so really nothing going on during the week. Today, I mulched my asparagus bed with chopped up leaves and planted some marigolds down the middle of the bed.

DH & I also put up our post for our muscadine arbor. We concreted the posts and didn't even have to use any water. That is how wet it still is here. Once they are set, we'll string the wire and plant. I believe they are Cowart Muscadines.

 

[baymule]

Wild asparagus I think is a northern treat, sure not in Texas! We got 2 1/4 inches of rain. Just enough to water everything, but not drown it. LOL

 

[henless]

We have rain coming again Mon/Tues then again for the weekend. Hope it's not as much as this past week!

I got 2 of my trellis's up in the garden today. I still need to put up 1 more, so we'll have to make a trip to Atwoods to get one. It's a bit harder to see the 2nd trellis. It's about 20 yrs old and on the rusty side. Blends in quite well.



My potatoes are getting big .... and starting to bloom.



I filled my asparagus bed to the top of the blocks. After our deluge last week, it dropped about 2". I planted a few marigolds down the middle and decided to mulch the bed to help keep stuff from sprouting on top.



While planting my tomatoes, I broke one of them off. I planted a few seeds to replace it. All 3 sprouted. It will be interesting to see how well this plant does against the others that I transplanted. These are Amish Paste.

 

[baymule]

Looking good! I NEED to get some purple asparagus!

 

[henless]

Not much happening this week. I do have more asparagus coming up. Looks like all the ones I transplanted are surviving so far. I moved 12 older crowns and added a few more new ones to the bed.

I am dealing with fire ants. With all the rain we've been having, they are on the move and popping up everywhere! I have some new ant bait that is supposed to be safe to use around fruits & veggies. So far I've just been hosing the heck out of them with the water hose trying to get them to move on. It works, but wrecks havoc in your planting area.

I'll probably have to go out this afternoon and cover up the garden. Temps are supposed to be 37 in the morning, but our temps tend to run a bit lower since we are in a little hollow. Sure don't want anything to freeze at this point.

I did clean out the coops and put all the bedding out into the runs. Added about 2 loads of leaves into each coop for the summer. Cleaned out the nests and added pine straw instead of shavings. The girls seem to like the pine straw ok.

 

[baymule]

You were more ambitious than me today! It is cold, drizzly and I don't want to go outside to play! Supposed to be 35 here tonight.

Take a shovel full of fire and mound and dump it in another fire ant mound. Take a shovel full of that mound and dump it in the other one. They will attack to defend their nest, so let them kill each other. It works about as good as anything else.

 

[henless]

Hey bay! Today is an awful day, isn't it? We went to Longview this morning and got caught in another downpour. I didn't even know it was supposed to rain this morning. We got another .3" of rain out of the shower.

I tried the shovel shuffle with ants back when I planted my blueberry bushes. I couldn't tell if it really worked or not. About the only thing I've found that works is Amdro. Sometimes you have to dose them twice with it. The water hose works, but they only move to a different site.

The coop cleaning, I did it on Thursday. It was nice and cool that day too, so decided to get the chore out of the way.

 

[baymule]

We got 3/4" last night and another 1/8" of slow mist today. It has just been a icky day.