Monday, May 25, 2015

backyard legumes and asparagus

the legumes are in bloom out there...the sugar snap peas ( top photo ) are setting nitrogen in the containers but they are meant to be eaten and will be, pod by pod...the winter vetch ( second and third photos ) is a riot of violet and it is setting nitrogen too...they are surrounding the garlic patch so we will see if the nitrogen has an impact on the bulbs soon enough...i'm letting them "go to seed" so we will have local seed for green manures in the gardens this autumn to pair up with some field peas and winter rye as a natural fertilizer/compost in the bed combination for the 2016 season ( depending, i suppose, on how well this idea actually functions in the community garden this season...there were several beds that had no soil amendments [compost, not chemicals] added beyond what the green manures provided and what was stored in the clover and winter rye i turned under a few weeks ago...we'll see how that flies and the empirical data from that will set the future course )...the last photo is of the six year old asparagus in my yard...i have not harvested it because i am letting it "fern" to 1) feed the roots, and 2) i want some asparagus seed this autumn....a few more days and it won't be recognizable as farm stand/supermarket asparagus anymore...just a six foot tall fern.

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