the "other" garden

after an early morning eye exam i wandered over to the portage garden to have a look and found four garlic plants up and running, equalling the campus garden total...

unlike the campus garden, when i popped a couple of cloves up there were definite signs of life...

like the campus garden there was also a sign of a very vigorous volunteer spud that i obviously missed at last season's harvest...easy enough to do...

there were more in another bed from last year...so i ended up transplanting them all to the garlic bed...so...garlic and spuds...as a special correspondent to this blog has said "sounds like lunch!"...we will see how well they cohabit the bed.

spuds II

out early to the campus garden because i am no night owl and function best in the morning...

over in my "offical" bed...

the alflafa is looking vibrant...

and i am sure that a critically important correspondent to this blog will be pleased to see the alfalfa continuing to ignore limits and engage in reckless behavior...

past that events in the bed have taken a turn for the so so as i can find only two garlic plants functioning...somewhat disturbing...however it is early in the season yet...we will see what transpires...

over in the asparagus bed...

"ferning" continues...

and spear production seems to have slowed...i count only twenty-nine today ( incidentally the total includes spears that have "ferned" )...so the harvest today was minimal...

today's garden agenda was mainly planting spuds at the back of the asparagus bed...when i had a closer look back there it seemed as if the volunteer spud i transplanted from my "official" be had vanished... <

the fabric that covered the bed for the winter was responsible for the limited anount of "native growth" i encountered when i pulled it back...

i turned the bed and worked it with a warren hoe to break up old roots...

finding the missing transplant in the process...which i replanted...

the bed is overflowing at the moment and since i will be hilling the spuds with compost as the season moves along i decided not to add compost today...

instead, as i planted the spuds...

i tossed in a handful of worm casting for each one to get them started...

and then covered them over...now we wait for spuds...and garlic.

interfering in the lives of plants ( and the plants are resisting )

what passes for work these days ended early so i drove over to campus on the way home...

in the asparagus bed i found thirty-six spears in all...

in all shapes, sizes, and stages of development...

including some well on the way to "ferning"...the aspragus seems to be happy this spring...

so i took a handful home...

over in my "offical" bed i found two garlic plants up and running where there had been none before...seemingly we will need to apply patience...

the alfalfa looks very verdant...

and a critically important correspondent to this blog will remain pleased that the alflafa is still thumbing its green nose at limits...

and while we are talking disregard for limits, the alfalfa has seeded itself outside the bed in the garden lawn...there is a danger of mowing in this reckless behavior...

while i was running a weeding hoe through the bed i disgoreged a volunteer spud that was obviously working towards a season...

so i pulled back the fabric on the back side of the aspragus bed and scooped out a hole in the soil ( competent photographer that i am i managed to include the camera strap and my shoe in the only photo of the hole i took )...

and gave the spud a less hazardous home for the season...a day off tomorrow may see me in the other garden...or maybe not...i need to scout out a place for a strawberry bed in the back ( and then build it )...there may be a post in that...

they arrived bearing fruit and blooms...and i am thinking there will be stolons soon enough.