Asparagus and Artichokes Planted Out in the Garden

artichoke

asparagus

The asparagus and artichokes were looking very yellow after all the rain washed the nutrients out of their six pack cells. But after being planted out in the garden for a few days they are looking pretty good. The yellow color is fading quickly away. Just 2 more years and we can start harvesting asparagus. There’s 46 asparagus plants of the Mary Washington and Percoce d’Aregenteuil variety and the artichokes are Purple of Romagna. Perhaps you can see the bean plants here and there sharing the asparagus and artichoke bed along with the weeds, it’s a very weak stand of Pink Eye Purple Hull Peas which are a kind of cowpea or summer pea. We couldn’t plant them at the front of the house because there’s work on the foundation that has to be done. This winter when they go into hibernation the asparagus and artichokes will get moved to their permanent bed.

There was a baseball pitcher’s mound in the middle of my new garden space. When my husband cut back the 30-something trees in our tiny backyard he found a strange mound in the middle of the yard. Dug down and it was pure sand and on the other side of the yard a baseball home plate was found underneath a giant rotted deck. After being distributed around, the sand was tilled in along with the composted rabbit manure.

I think the bush bean bed germinated poorly because of planting too deep. The soil around here tends to very heavy clay and it’s better to plant the beans only ½ inch to ¼ inch deep depending how big the seeds are. It’s just impossible for the beans to drag their big fat cotyledon first leaves through the sticky mucky soil, and if they’re underground to long they end up rotting when there’s lots of rain. The soil was deceptively crumbly in the middle of the garden because of all that sand and I planted the bean seed deeper than normal since the soil was so easy to work. I’ve decided the Brussels sprouts will take up residence in the bush green bean bed since it’s so sparsely populated anyways. At least the pole beans are up and running!