A Gardener's Diary

[Monksdream]

Feb. 22-As the growing season approaches, sometimes I feel overwhelmed before I'm actually overwhelmed. I had to do something after coffee on the patio while listening to the mockingbird. I went upstairs and planted four Cherokee Purple tomato seed in the paper cups I made from newspaper strips. The container, which holds four cups, went to the window sill. I'm getting more anxious with each passing day, ready to begin instead of lollygagging. I headed for the bus stop before 8. It was another day of adding lettuce seedlings to the raised bed (54 now), planting cool weather seeds (another row of Pink Beauty radish), nailing up a box, going to Wal Mart for cat food, Starbucks for coffee grinds, moving soil, leveling the bed next to the ledge, getting more 2x4s cut at the glass shop.

As planned, I got a bucket and spaded a couple shovelfuls of soil from a tomato box, dumped the coffee grinds, and incorporated them into the soil. Worms love coffee grinds. Although I come back with perhaps a couple pounds, in a month's timeframe those small amounts should fill a 55 gallon drum.

I tilled more soil on the slope to add to the watermelon hills. I've started into hill #2 while continuing on filling #1. I'll probably dump coffee grinds on the hills. Every bit of organic matter helps.

The busted water line got some attention. I dug into the soil, hitting clay after only a few inches and found the broken PVC pipe. I'll clear it out so one of the men can repair it.

Back home, seeds were in the mailbox from Baker Creek: Green Globe artichoke, Moon & Stars watermelon, and Bianco di Giugno onion. The freebie this time was a variety of cabbage called Brunswick. The packet says it's best for fall/winter.

In the raised bed second to the one next to the office, I discovered an asparagus plant. It volunteered itself sometime last year. I added some compost and organic fertilizer to help it along then cut it back by the time winter arrived. I figured it wouldn't make it but I didn't give up on it. This afternoon I noticed a green stalk, thinner than a pencil. Still alive. My best guess is it's an old heirloom variety, Precoce D'Argenteuil. In 2014 I bought a packet from American Beauty Garden Center when it was on Central. I planted them in a prepared bed I dug to almost two feet. The seeds never germinated. Or so I thought. I planted squash seed in the bed, and later in the early summer I noticed some fern like growth under the broad squash leaves. They certainly took their time, which clues me about growing asparagus from seed.

Sadly, that bed of heirloom asparagus. It, along with a handmade bed of Jersey Knight hybrid asparagus were destroyed when the property owner decided to move his equipment from his old site.

I'll find someplace suitable for an asparagus, which, hopefully, will outlive me.