Wild Asparagus

Yesterday I walked to the asparagus patch to check on my wild asparagus.  The patch is a little walk away from the house and  sometimes I forget about it. 

My wild asparagus grows so very fast.  In about a week an asparagus stalk grows tall and goes to seed before I realize it.  The above picture shows asparagus that has already gone to seed.  The right picture shows asparagus that is ready for picking.  I cut it off at ground level.  New stalks grow from the roots.

Here's a little skinny asparagus!

Here's a really tall asparagus that has gone to seed already.

End of the East Coast Heat Wave

This morning it finally rained. 

And boy, did we need it! 

There's been a major East Coast heat wave this past week, and a lack of rain and high humidy really made it hard for us all.  Meteorologists began calling the hot stretch a heat wave, a phenomenon defined in the Northeast as three consecutive days of temperatures of 90 or above. Oppressive conditions forced two East Coast tracks to call off horse racing cards, made life difficult for golfers practicing for the women's U.S. Open in Pennsylvania and sent ballplayers searching for any way to stay cool.  The East Coast broiled last Tuesday as record-setting temperatures soared past 100 from Virginia to Massachusetts, utility companies cranked up power to the limit to cool the sweating masses and railroad tracks were so hot commuter trains had to slow down. The temperature broke records for the day in New York, where it hit 103, and in Philadelphia, where it reached 102.

The National Weather Service says this was one of the hottest stretches in about a decade for many locations in the Northeast. "You'd go back to 2001 or maybe 1999 to find a similar heat wave."

Here at our farm, the heat wave and absolute lack of rain was causing many concerns.  Our well water got cloudy and sandy, which made us think possibly it was running dry.  Our well is very old, over a hundred years old.  No one really knows how old it is.  The water has been tested and is very good and clean, no iron or sulphur.  But we're concerned the water supply may not last through heat waves such as this; we were told it would not last as long as it has.  So, we stopped doing laundry and running the dishwasher in the house, started using disposable paper plates, and showers became really fast.  Luckily, the well didn't run dry, and the water became clear after a couple days of not using much water.  

With the self-imposed water restrictions, we decided we couldn't afford to water the garden. 
And so the garden died.
I stopped going out to look at it because it was too depressing. After all the time we spent preparing, planting and weeding, we had to let it die.  

During the heatwave I picked one yellow squash. 
I only got 2 squash this year, both yellow, quite a few green beans and cucumbers, and a couple small tomatoes before the heatwave. 

Maybe the garden will make a comeback. 

The chickens didn't like the heatwave in the least bit.  Eggs were down from between 9 to 11 eggs a day down to 3 or 4 a day. 

According to The Weather Channel, more rain and cooler temperatures are predicted for this upcoming week.

Thank goodness!

Garden Bounty

First cucumbers and squash from the garden!

A Day in the ...Garden?

Yesterday was another 90+ degree day here in Maryland.  I spent all day out in the garden weeding.  The ground was so dry it was brittle.  I had to water the garden several times during my weeding so I could pull the weeds out of the earth!

I was out there in the garden so long I listened to an entire book on my iPod - Choke by Stuart Woods.  I've been listening to many Stuart Woods books lately. 

I listen to A LOT of books on my iPod - I work in Washington DC, so I sit in traffic for at least 2 hours a day.  Recently I've been listening to books I download from the local library.  

I got a nice sunburn on my back and shoulders from being outside in the sun all day.  But I love the sun, and enjoyed the heat, so I'm not complaining. 

After a full day of weeding, I'm still not done!  I'll have to try to finish in the evenings this week... 

I harvested quite a bit of green beans.  The Derby Garden bean plants seemed to produce the most beans so far.

The squash, cantaloupes and cucumber have lots of flowers, but only one small squash and a few small cukes were starting to grow. 

A few tomatoes are starting to appear.  The plants look dry.

The carrots are growing fine, but are small. 

It appears a critter has enjoyed most of my sugar snap peas, much to my regret.  They didn't bother the plants much, but ate all the peas!  We're going to have to put a better fence around the garden! 

Possibly it was a rabbit (we've seen one out in front of the house recently) or a woodchuck (Gordita the woodchuck lives in our backyard, and a male woodchuck visits very often).

While I was weeding the garden I dug up these odd, white, soft, seeds.  They appeared to be buried under grass and other weeds in the soft, moist dirt at the edge of the garden.  At first I thought they were some sort of egg because they were soft (like a snake or turtle egg), but they have roots, which make me think they are a seed of some sort.

Any ideas?  I tried to research them online, but had no luck.

I also dug up a little piece of history ~

It's some sort of old iron tool.  It appears to be broken.

This property had a farm on it from the 1700's through the 1900's.  We are always turning up some pieces of history, although we don't always know what they are!

Asparagus gone wild!

I've mentioned in previous posts that we found asparagus on our property when we moved here.  This property was farmed for hundreds of years, and I have no idea when the original "gus" was first planted.  I'm always learning something about this property; it's so interesting. 

The asparagus is growing very well after all these years, the stalks from the original patch are huge and come up every spring.  The asparagus patch is in the middle of a field in our back yard.  When we moved here the field grass was chest high.  Now we keep it mowed, but we don't mow around the asparagus patch, we have to cut that by hand in the spring.  The below picture shows at least 4 asparagus stalks growing in the grass.  And this is just one section; there are more large stalks growing all around.  (The grass needs some hand-trimming when I took this pic!)

There is a second smaller patch of asparagus that is at least 3 years old.  We believe this patch came from seeds from the larger patch.  The stalks are thinner, but are not bad!

Here's one of the larger asparagus stalks that I cut.

This spring we planted some new asparagus roots.  We tried 2 different varieties ~ Jersey King and Mary Washington.  And they both are growing in just a few weeks!  You can see from the pictures below why they say you have to wait several years before you can harvest from new asparagus roots ~ the stalks are so very tiny!!!  I'm holding the big asparagus which I cut so you can compare the baby asparagus stalk to the grandpa stalk; the little stalk is in front of my fingers. It's easy to miss!

Here's another little asparagus stalk.  When I looked around I could see them everywhere, they are just so small.  In quite a few years, we'll have more asparagus than ever!   

Garden Update

Our garden has started growing!

Squash are easy to grow around here.  We planted numerous types of squash, as it was our best crop last year.  Minds well go with something we know does well.  And we do love squash.

Green beans are on the right.  We planted three different types of green beans ~ they are one of my favorite veggies.

Below are the carrots.  We planted carrot seeds this year.  We've never done this before, but figured we'd give them a try.  They are those little small plants that look like blades of grass.

We were lucky to have asparagus on the property when we moved here.  I don't know how long it's been growing unmanaged out in one of the back fields.  Many large stalks grow, and it has reseeded into a nearby area a few feet away.

This year we planted some new asparagus roots, so we'd have more asparagus.  Below is a pic of one of the stalks from the new roots.  It'll take a few years before the new roots grow as well as the other asparagus roots.  It's covered in morning dew.

I'll leave you with some pics of our back fields which I took this morning after I checked the garden.  The grass is still all wet with dew.  It's time to start mowing the grass again, too.

Garden Planting

We started working on the garden last week.  Well, actually before last week we started planning the new and improved 2010 garden.  Here's our plan... 

We decided to make the garden bigger than it was last year ~ it was too crammed packed last year.  We needed more room.  Yes, I understand that a larger garden means more weeding will be needed ~ please make sure to remind me that I chose a bigger garden later this year when the weeding is driving me nuts...

We moved back the chain link fence which enclosed the garden last year, and decided to use part of the existing backyard wooden fence as our garden deer barrier this year.  The wooden fence is not rabbit or small animal proof, but we don't have any problems with rabbits ~ there are many fox in this area which keep the rabbit population in check.  And I don't think all our woodchucks will eat our vegetables (they seem to only like clover and grass).  We have raccoons and opossums and skunks, too, all of which will have access to the garden now...hopefully they will not be an issue.


Randy dug up the garden earth with the tractor first, just to mix up the dirt and making the tilling easy. We dug up all sorts of cool and interesting items - pottery, toys, glass, metal pipe, buried hose, and two more horseshoes. Last year we also dug up a horseshoe in the old garden area.  So now we have three old horseshoes. Are they supposed to bring luck? Hopefully this means our garden will do twice as well as last year!





Next we tilled the garden with the rototiller and the hoe. While we were hoeing I brought in some of the hens to assist with "worm control".  I really just wanted the hens to enjoy the fresh dirt.  The hens had a great time digging up and eating earthworms.




On the right are Little Danni and Chloe.  Below is Lucy, our friendliest hen.  Lucy was constantly in the way, diving in to get worms before the hoe left the dirt. She thought we were out there digging just for her. 

Eventually we got the garden all planted before dinner Saturday night. We planted many varieties of peas, beans, cucumbers, squash, carrots and cantaloupes.  Last year our best veggie was the squash ~ we had yellow squash, dark black squash, spaghetti squash, and green zucchinis.  I ate more squash than I've ever eaten in a season, and still had so much to give away.  Last year we didn't plant peas, carrots, or cantaloupe.  We'll see what does best this year. 

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain here and water our new garden. We still plan on planting corn, asparagus, tomatoes, potatoes and pumpkin, but they are not going in this fenced garden this year, they will be planted elsewhere on the property.  Now we watch and wait.

Garden update

Here's the latest pics from our garden.  It's not much this time, just a couple spaghetti squash & cucumbers.  I keep telling myself that next year's garden will be bigger, but I'd like it more varied.  We had way too many squash this year!  But this was our first garden, it's a learning experience, like everything else.  If you'd like some squash, I have some extra ~ just stop on by for a visit!

Garden Bounty

I just went out and picked more squash and cucumbers from our garden today. These are by far the best crop from our garden. The squash just never stops producing! There are more on the vine right now! I can't wait to try the spaghetti squash - they are one of my favorites!

Here's a fresh plate of cucumbers.

Garden update

We picked fresh veggies from the garden today... Here's the squash & cucumbers...













Yellow squash

We are going to be so tired of eating squash!!

Don't laugh ~ our corn didn't do too well!! We have corn bites!

Tomatoes & Cucumber

Freshly picked from the garden tonight...

Squash & cucumbers, anyone?

I put a quarter there so you can see how big some of the squash are!