What to do on a chilly, misty morning in March

What can I tell you? It's spring. Yeah, I know it's rainy and kinda muddy in spots, but honest to Pete if I don't get outside and play in the dirt I will go crazy! So, when the asparagus starts arrived I took it as a sign that it was time to go get dirty.

I started an asparagus bed last year and this year I started a second one. (There is NOTHING that tastes like asparagus fresh from the garden. Plus it's fun to watch grow. It will literally grow a foot a day! It's an amazing plant and rather pretty too with it's great billowing ferns.)
I had put down a weed mat last fall and covered it with soil. I added more soil (this soil has cow poop composted right into it, so it should just be plant heaven to grow in!) and set out to dig my trenches for the asparagus roots. It might not look like much now, but you just wait a month or so. It's a beautiful thing.

When I finished with the new bed, I weeded the old one (I'll be able to cut some from here this year. Asparagus needs a year or two to get established. But once it is: Wham! You will have asparagus for the next 10 or 15 years!) and since asparagus is a heavy feeder, I threw some of the poopie soil on that bed too!

AND the green weeds I pulled from the old bed, all went into my compost tumbler (which my sweet, darling man put together for me last Saturday morning.) So I will have some lovely

compost later on!

Do you know, asparagus loves phosphate, so I went to the farm and tractor to get some 0-46-0 to throw on my beds and was told they don't sell it anymore. Evidently because some idiots used it as an ingredient for making bombs! So, I guess I will be adding some wood ash instead. It's cheaper anyway.

Lots of good information available out there if you want to learn more about growing asparagus. Here are a few links:

http://www.asparagus.org/http://www.emmitsburg.net/gardens/articles/frederick/2001/asparagus.htm

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/asparagus.html