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since this will actually be my house in a few years time i don't feel as compelled to concern myself with apperances as i am on campus...neatness counts i have been told even if nature is anything but neat at times...but that is there and their opinion matters there...this is not...so i dispensed with the artificial neatness of landscaping fabric and mulched my beds with all the yard waste i could find and put down some compost to keep it in place...fits my personality and nature both more closely...the top photo is an asparagus bed i mulched wirh straw and composted manure...inelegant but effective for keeping the asparagus happy this winter and giving it more to feed on in the spring...all i have to do is dig down where the stakes are to allow the relatively weak asparagus shoots a way up ( unlike the elephant garlic or yams or jerualem artichokes which will defy most anything to stop them ) and backfill as they grow...the bottom photo is the bed with all the defiant ones in it...mulched with straw, dead jerusalem artichoke plants from campus ( neatness counts...i hauled all my waste that isn't waste home to use), the dead asparagus plants from here, old cowpeas, leaves, and compost...anything that came to hand that will feed the worms come spring...so i'm done ( pretty much) with the physical work of the season...the mental work goes on although the paper about all this is coming along okay...still a lot to read and try to make sense of...alot to try to make sense of ...can't help it and won't burden you further...there is still the jerusalem artichoke storage experiment to keep tabs on...it's been almost two weeks since i buried the last ones and i think i'll make something for thanksgiving with some of them...found a recipe for sunchokes au gratin that looks interesting ( cheese only serves to make most things better) and the gang will all be getting together...time to get moving...who knows how long things will last.