Independence Days: The Asparagus Edition

It’s time for another thrilling garden and food update from your favorite smut-writing suburban homesteader. (I feel safe in saying that. There are plenty of homesteader bloggers and plenty of writers of sexy stories, but relatively few who do both. Very likely, then, that I am your favorite.) This time, the update really is exciting, and not because I’ve acquired either a baby alpaca or a redheaded guy half my age. The Cat-Herder would veto the alpacas. He might let me get away with the redhead as long as the lad brought his own backhoe and was willing to take out the scrub trees and poison ivy along the edge of the property.

No, it’s exciting because I planted asparagus. I’ve wanted to do so for years, but I didn’t want to give up one of my precious raised beds forever. Then we put in three new 16×4 raised beds last year. We got them done too late to put in asparagus, but this spring was the right time. Over the winter, I ordered 10 plants from Pinetree Garden Seeds in Maine. They arrived April 18.

On April 19–coincidentally my birthday–they went into the ground, taking up one of the beds entirely. (Those little plants have huge root systems!)

“Went into the ground” makes it sound much easier than it was. Digging an 8-inch deep, 18-inch wide, 16-foot long trench in a raised bed should have been work, but not killer. However, the topsoil we’d put in the beds had settled over the winter…and just below it was the fill. Or maybe it was the actual primordial bones of New England.  I’m talking rocks as large as a curled-up tom cat and twice as heavy. The Cat-Herder and his brother were burning the brush pile, cutting down trees with chain saws and doing other manly things, so with one huge rock that required the C-H and a crowbar, I was on my own. I’m proud to say I was only slightly sore the next day, but I definitely earned my birthday dinner and wine tasting.

And I’m definitely glad that asparagus bed is a lifetime proposition. Now the only hard part is waiting several years for my first crop.

Well worth the work, though. Already I’ve seen the tips sprouting out, though they were quickly buried again, as is proper. Talk about a thrill!

And now, for the Independence Day stats:

Plant something: Asparagus!! Also parsley seedlings. I started more Cherokee Purple and Black Krim tomatoes and moved some of the Oregon Spring tomatoes into bigger pots. The latter may or may not have happened because I knocked over the seedling pack, but in any case the “babies” are enjoying their roomy new quarters.

Harvest something: Mesclun, chives, dandelion greens, parsley, flowers

Preserve something: Nothing lately.

Waste not: Composting and remembering to eat leftovers–nothing exciting.

Want not: Nothing new and different

Eat the food: Eating freezer and canned foods regularly. The empty canning jars are piling up in the basement and the full ones are nearly finished. Except for the tomatillo salsa. I made quite a bit of it and as it turned out, neither of us liked neither as well as fresh, raw tomatillo salsa. I’m not planting tomatillos this year!

Build community food systems: It’s not exactly food, but it’s community agriculture. I found a local source for composted alpaca poo. Alpaca dung is high in phosphate, which asparagus craves. It’s a win.

Skill up: Read up on planting asparagus and on growing hazelnuts in New England. Sadly, European hazelnuts are prone to blight in this region. There’s a native species, however, though the nuts are smaller and not as exquisite. Decisions, decisions. Do I go for the “blight-resistant” hybrid, knowing it’ll eventually succumb, or settle for the lesser tree?