Acquisition, an Accident, and Abundance: A Tale of Asparagus

It started out so simply...I wanted asparagus... (cue dreamy fog and fadeout)....

I wanted asparagus...so I did what any reasonable gardener would do: I snuck into somebody else's yard and stole it! No...I went to the store and bought two plants.  I was busy doing other things, so the packages sat in the corner of my kitchen for a week or two.

Total Asparagus = 2

Meanwhile, I was really behind on getting things ready in my yard.  I worked frantically to get things ready to plant lettuce and spinach.  The little 'fenced' raised bed had something dead in it, and that looked like an excellent spot to put my lettuce.  So, I tore it out and went back to cultivating, and eventually, planted my lettuce.  I was waiting on getting my compost bin, so I threw the yard waste into a pile beside the garage. 

Fast forward 2 weeks.  My dear friend Jeri came to help me in the yard. The night before she came, I happened to see a picture of what asparagus looked like in the early spring, before the shoots come up.  I thought, gee, that looks really familiar. 

I thought, I wonder, was that stuff I pulled out with the really thick roots, ASPARAGUS.  I looked back at the pictures I took.

HELLO DUFUS, I thought...those are seeds!  You wanted asparagus and you pulled out tons of it! I was really irritated with myself.  Then again, I was kind of dumbfounded that the people who lived here before would not think to tell me they had asparagus in the yard.  I distinctly asked, "Are there any plants or anything, perennials, etc...growing in the yard, so I don't dig them up by accident?"  They said, no...just some daylilies and some hostas.  WRONG.  So far I have found strawberries, asparagus, daylilies, phlox, yarrow, dianthus, hostas, and more. Maybe I'm crazy, but I would think that was important and worth telling somebody about.  Okay, so my suspicions were confirmed when I went out to the garden the next day with Jeri and there are some little aspargus pokies sticking up that I missed.  Holy guano, batman, you were right!

Out of curiosity, I went over to the refuse pile and starting digging for those plants I pulled up.  Lo and behold, there are the asparagus plants, still alive and trying to grow by my garage.  Sometimes I wonder how anybody can ever kill a plant, as hard as some of them try to live. I proceeded to dig out all the plants and rescue from the pile.  I found 6. 

Total Asparagus = 8

I was thrilled, I just got 6 free asparagus plants.  Yay for me!  A couple of days later, I set about digging a trench for my asparagus bed.  One trench turned into two, so that they would be spaced the correct distance apart.

I got ready to open the packaging on the plants I bought from the store.  Wow, I thought, these are great plants.  Look how thick the roots are...wait, what is this rubber band? I removed the rubber band, and the pile fell apart into many little asparagus octopus.  I grabbed the packaging and reread the label. 

Ohhhhhhh.....not ONE asparagus plant....but EIGHT asparagus plants!  Can we say pay attention to details? I had two packages, even. 

Total Asparagus = 8 + 8 + 8 = 24

OMG! 24 asparagus plants! What am I going to do with all that asparagus?  I am going to be swimming in it next year.  I am going to have a veritible asparagus forest this summer!

Well guess what, if you know me, guess what you are getting for your birthday?  ASPARAGUS.  Unless it is in December, and maybe even then.  I had to dig 4 trenches to accommodate all these plants. I filled them halfway with compost and watered them well.  When the plants grow up above the dirt, I will add more in til I get even with the ground.

Luckily, the plants I bought were males, so I won't have so many seeds laying around, but I'm sure there will be plenty.  There are male and female plants, but you can do just fine with either kind.  Some people say the male plants produce more, because they don't waste so much energy on seed production.  Who knows.  Also luckily, my friend Jeri said she will take a few plants.  That last row was a little crowded, so sending a few to her house will open things up a little. 

So that is my crazy asparagus story.  I went from no, to 2, to 8, to 24, and now maybe to 20 asparagus plants.  Maybe the moral of the story is:  Be careful what you wish for....or maybe it's:  Don't look gift asparagus in the mouth...Anyways, now I have asparagus, and I'll shut up.  I wonder how many times I wrote the word asparagus in this post?

Seed Grow Project: Spitfire Nasturtium from Renee's Garden

I am participating in a nationwide project with some fellow garden bloggers.  It is called the GROW project, sponsored by Renee's Garden.  All the bloggers involved received the same pack of seeds.  This time, it is Climbing Nasturtium, Spitfire.  Every month we will post an update on how we are doing with these seeds.  I think it is going to be so neat to see what so many people are doing with the same plants.  All of the blogs that are participating will be listed at the Grow Project website... http://grow.gardenbloggers.com/  Make sure to check it out!

In Iowa where I live, zone 4b and 5a (I'm right on the line) I can't put out my nasturtiums yet.  I also moved about a month ago, so I am getting my flower beds set up, so some of my pics will look kind of transitional for a while.  I wandered around my yard today, thinking about where I will put them when the frost is past.  I have grown nasturtiums before.  They are actually the first edible flower I ever grew (knowingly).  I love how the flowers are so bright and cheery, and it keeps on blooming all through the season.  Since this one is a climber, I have been considering some places it can go UP.  I will definitely put some on this cool garden gate, next to my cucumbers and green beans. 

 

Another spot I was considering is this cute white fence.  I have been waiting to see what comes up (perennial-wise) before I commit to these spots.  I already have two clematis planted along this fence, along with a helleborus and some sea lavender...but there is still a lot of room for the nasturtium to go up the fence. 

 

Now that I own my own home, I am going to attack a bunch of projects I have never been able to, or had the time to.  I have always wanted to make one of those tippy-pot things.  You know, where you have like 5 big clay pots tipped sideways on top of each other on a big pole or piece of rebar.  I think the spitfire would look fantastic spilling out of one of those pots. This is probably where I will put it, once I put it together.

 

I am also creating my herb garden bed.  This is it, so far.  I know it doesn't look like much so far, but eventually it will be filled with 10-20 different kinds of herbs.  Several clumps of nasturtium would make a colorful addition to this bed...or I could put some in my vegetable garden.  

 

I do love building tepees.  I built one today, just for the nasturtium to go one.  Right now, yarrow is trying to take hold in the bottom.  I removed a big clump in the center before I built the tepee.  I would eventually like to have parsley and cilantro, or lettuces growing in the bottom of this, with the nasturtium growing  up the sticks. 

I will be starting my nasturtium seeds this month.  They sprout quickly, so I will have many plants to set out in May, when the frost is safely gone by in Iowa.  I hope that you will be amazed by the changes in my garden, not only the growing of the spitfire, but how all the plants contribute to each other. I also look forward to eating the nasturtium....as they are not only beautiful but delicious.  

“I’m growing Nasturtium “Spitfire” for the GROW project, thanks to ReneesGarden.com for the seeds”.

Starting Over in a New Garden: Post #1

A lot of people have expressed interest in watching me take over my new space while moving my entire garden from my previous yard.  So I will be doing a series of posts on 'Starting Over in a New Garden'.  I by no means claim to be a gardening expert...I have no training in landscape design...some people might even call aspects of my garden 'ugly'...I just do what I like.  So, if you are interested, you can follow along and watch as I blog about my adventures making the new yard my own.  Feel free to offer suggestions and advice if you desire...I am always open to new ideas.

Funny that I noticed how this flower bed looks like a heart from this angle.  I have been calling it the pac man bed.  It is one of the existing flower beds in my new yard.  It came with 2 rose bushes, if you can call them bushes.  I know next to NOTHING about roses, so I'm going to have to do some research.  Since the two roses were the only thing in the bed, I replanted my gladiator alliums here...I have two kinds of alliums, the really huge purple ones, and mid-size but still huge azure blue ones. 

I also added some regular garlic bulbs around the roses.  The roses benefit from the garlic because it will repel aphids.  Garlic also gathers sulfur in the soil, which acts as a natural fungicide and helps with disease prevention. 

This is my ponytail grass.  I don't remember if this one will come back, I think it may be an annual in my zone, but it still looks cool as heck in the garden.  I surrounded it with my recycled christmas wreath from this year.  I thought it was an interesting arrangement. 

I posted some pictures on twitter before of my newly designed sun-bed.  However, Iowa One Call people showed up and drew an offensive orange line (the phone company) right through the side of my flower bed.  I had to adjust my bricks to accommodate the line, but it worked out, because now I have a sun bed, and a separate bed for my herb garden.

This is going to be the herb garden.  I formed the shape of the bed I wanted with an extension cord (a hose works too).  When I get the shape right, I put the bricks down to more concretely mark the bed.  Sometimes, I will dig in the bricks at an angle, or stack them.  For now, they are just laying horizontally. 

I also do not remove all the sod when I make a flower bed.  I just place the plants where I want them, and then lay down a heavy layer of wet newspaper and mulch.  This keeps almost all the weeds from coming up, but still retains the benefits of keeping the sod in place.

This lovely circle is where I decided to plant my cilantro and parsley.  I am still not exactly sure what the plant is in the center, but I am just going to work around it for now.  I also have to keep the squeanies out of it.

This doesn't look like much right now, but at some point in the future it will be lots of tulips, crocus, and daffodils.  I dug the mulch back and put all the bulbs underneath...I'm not sure if I will get any blooms this year, but next year I will for sure. 

This bed was created for lots of viney and trellisy things.  I plan on having 3 kinds of cucumbers, green beans, and probably my nasturtiums here.  In front, there will be perennials and annuals. 

My son got out the chalks.  This is about how I felt after all that digging.  This weekend is bound to have more digging in store....in fact, I see digging in my future for the next several weeks.  That's okay, though, when you are starting over in a new garden, digging is the name of the game.  Have you ever had to start completely over in your garden? 

A Short Visit to the Iowa Flower, Lawn, and Garden Show

Today is the first day in spring, and outside, you'd hardly know it.  The temps dropped back down to the 30s and the sky dropped about 3 inches of snow outside.  I know it will be gone by tomorrow when the temp is back into the upper 40s, but the cold is still a little depressing.  Luckily, I made a quick visit to the Iowa Flower, Lawn, & Garden Show.  I would have stayed longer, but my son gave me the stomach flu this week, so even though I'm not technically sick, I still wear out easy.  I just thought this blast of spring color was gorgeous. 

I thought this was a clever container.  This is actually one foxtail fern plant.  The lady working the stand said it was 2 years old.  I couldn't afford the cool kitty planter, but couldn't resist the dr. suess-like fuzzy tails. 

Living with a cop, I am always on the lookout for cool cop stuff.  This was also put on my wishlist.  You wouldn't believe how much a decorated rock costs.  I do believe I'm going to get one with our name on it, to put in the front. 

And you thought you had large lawn ornaments.  I love my little yardbird spider, but I think he would run and hide from this thing. Check the guy standing behind it for size reference. 

Of course, there are always lots of lanscaping displays.  I think they are pretty, and they are nice to see after all the winter months, but most of them do look the same.  I do covet the pretty brown mulch though.

Here are some of my purchases for the day.  Adding to my herb collection:  peppermint (I had chocolate mint, but wanted straight peppermint for 'herbaltinis'), a curry plant (smells great!), a stevia plant (an experiment, would like to get myself off artificial sweeteners), chervil (which I have never done, but sounds cool), and bronze fennel (which I don't eat but love to touch as I walk by). 

I had to get some of the little rocks today.  I turned the one with my son's name over, but he will be thrilled to see it out in the garden.

I just threw this pic on the end, because I was photographing the rhubarb out in the yard the other day.  I have never seen it come up, it is such a weird alien plant.  I have SOOO much of it back behind the garage.

So, I didn't spend as long as I might usually have spent in the show, but I still managed to spend plenty of money.  So maybe it's a good thing I left early.  More money for plants later, too. 

My New Yard!

This may be true for now, but not for long!  This garden is waking up!  The last two days we have had up to 50 degree temps and some good hard rains, and almost all the snow is finally gone.  Remember, I have never seen the yard of this house without a foot of snow.  I had NO IDEA what was out there.  It was really exciting to see what I have to work with.

The first surprise was a huge raised strawberry bed!  It is probably about 8 by 3 feet.  I am already smacking my lips thinking of strawberry jam and pie this summer.

This is the current garden space.  It is behind the detached garage, and looks ready to go without much work, so I will be out there soon sowing some early spring crops.  I'm not sure what she had in the sunken pots yet, I'll have to see if anything comes up in them. 

This is the garden plot from the other side.  There is an enclosed area that she had tomato plants in, I think. I will probably do some little lettuces and greens in there. Built in bunny protection. 

The back of the yard has a big fence running along it.  There is a huge flower bed running the whole length of the property.  The fence belongs to the neighbors, so I probably won't be able to hang things on it, but maybe they will let me lean some trellises against it.  That would be a good trade considering their dog barks all day and all night.

This is one of the few trees we have in our yard.  I am bad at identifying trees.  Is it blue spruce?  That is my favorite Christmas tree, and it looks like that.  If not, please correct me.

This is the view of the house from the far back of the yard.  My yard is skinny, but very long.  I have an excellent view of the backyard from my bedroom window.

This neighbor's back porch literally pops right out into my backyard.  There will be a fence going up there as soon as I can afford it for privacy, but this year there will be a 'living fence' of sunflowers and giant zinnias.  The garden space will be almost tripled from what it is currently, as long as there are no underground cables in the way, it will gl clear over to where the small tree is on the right. I might even take that tree out, because in years to come it may end up shading my garden.

This is the side of my detached garage.  There will either be trellising beans or some kind of flowers here eventually.

Another nice surprise.  A large 'wheel' in the sideyard.  It has some delicate little plant growing in it, with a larger version in the center.  I was thinking if it gets enough sun, this might be a great centerpiece for my formal herb garden.

This is my sideyard.  A lovely privacy fence blocks the patio area behind the house.  There are some perennials here already, I can't wait to see what they are.

This is the beforementioned patio area.  Right now it is filled with miscellaneous garden stuff, waiting to be dispersed throughout the yard.  I was so happy to see what was out there today.  I think there is even more potential than I thought there would be.  Now, while I am unpacking, I am dreaming of gardening and seeds outside.