first day of a new season

last year i waited until the twenty-eighth of march to unmulch the asparagus in the community garden and a very pale spear had already popped up ( first photo )...i didn't want to repeat that this year and so i went out a bit earlier to open up...i found no spears...which is not a surprise...asparagus isn't the strongest plant when it comes to pushing up through the soil...so i dug down into the compost i mulched it with last autumn and formed a sport of trench that will help the plants find the light of day...we will be back-filling that the the heaped compost and more since the plants are heavy feeders...the early spring weekly ( or more ) visits to the garden to check progress will be starting...the garlic ( fifth through seventh photos ) came through the winter looking robust and will be happy until it finishes in june sometime...while i was out there i did the first dig on the half of my bed i plant to plant in spuds in a few weeks time ( early april )...unsurprisingly i found jerusalem artichokes ( ninth photo ) which i replanted on the proper side of the bed...more distressingly i found some already greening queen anne's lace ( tenth and eleventh ) some with tap roots from nineteen to twenty-five inches deep ( twelfth through fourteenth )...a profoundly stubborn ( almost as relentless as jerusalem artichokes...but not quite ) perennial member of the carrot family, it was an issue in the old garden and i am afraid it migrated when we brought soil from the old to the new...it means we will need to be vigilant in the other beds and as early as possible since it is a very hardy plant...we are started...more on what's happening as i find out.