open

i spent a couple of hours on campus (6:55 to 9:04) this morning unmulching the yams and asparagus, removing some of the encroachment by the university lawn, and (maybe) finally adding enough organic matter to the east end of the garden so that it will cease being a sump when it rains...we'll see after it settles whether i actually have succeeded...the straw i used to mulch with was half rotten last fall and a winter under fabric didn't deter that process...along with the odd earwig i found numerous worms as i was picking the mulch up...that's encouraging...the colony of red wigglers i put in last spring has survived the winter and at least a few have stuck around...one less thing to do this year...the winter wheat has come out of dormancy and is growing...a bright green patch in the garden's early spring ( it is doing well here at home too)...there is exactly one spinach plant up, which means there will be more in the coming week...time to start regularly scheduled visits...which will be centerd around tuesdays, thursdays ( both class nights until the end of the semester) and weekends for bigger projects...after i opened up the asparagus beds i scooped the compost away until i got down to last year's surface level...asparagus isn't like elephant garlic ( or jerusalem artichokes ) which can push its way up through just about anything...probably including concrete...it needs a bit of help...so the garden looks like itinerant treasure hunters have been at work...just like last year, as the asparagus comes up i will backfill those holes with compost to feed the little devils...most of the garden is still dormant ( or the movement is still underground) but that will change by mid-month...somewhere around income tax day i will be putting in the beets and the spring wheat...on top of that fedx tells my my seed potatoes should be delivered today so there will be movement here as well before the month is over...now if only the teosinte takes hold...stay tuned.

11:19 am
fedx just dropped of my seed potatoes...it's still a bit chilly to contemplate cutting and callousing...i will stick them in a cool, dark place for another week and see how the weather is next week.