clean-up

today was clean-up day at the community garden...amanda was there...ellen was there...the school of nursing was well represented, as was the library...and the cooperative effort rendered the beds clear and, for the most part, ready to plant...at least one needs to be turned again..however i will be out there saturday to water the corn seeds and it won't take long to do...cooperation does not require a group presence...

i got there early ( but not by much...representatives of the school of nursing were there within minutes of my arrival ) to have a look at my bed which, true to expectations, had again had a small irruption of jerusalem artichokes..i culled as many out as i could without disturbing the corn hill and pulled the tops off the rest and then soaked the whole thing to keep moisture on the germinating ( i hope ) seeds...

that done i moved over to the asparagus bed where i planted a tomato plant...i believe i have mentions somewhere here that research has informed me that tomatoes repel asparagus beetles and asparagus repels nematodes that attack tomatoes...mutual support in plants that have no history of co-evolution...asparagus is native to europe, north africa, and western asia so the two would not have met until the columbian exchange since the tomato is a new world crop...still..support is support...

then i moved around to the he front of the bed and weeded out between the asparagus plants...mostly for aesthetics...the asparagus is so deeply rooted it doesn't much care what grows around it on the surface..and then i used that forty pound bag of compost on the ground...

and dressed the plants with it...they are heavy eaters...

i did cover the one new spear i found that had broken surface...the compost is not tightly packed however..thinking this one will find daylight again soon enough.