Yeah, right. Maybe in some other part of the country, but not here. Nonetheless, I have about 5-6 spears of asparagus surfacing, finally. Not from all of the crowns, and the first one that showed up has since dried up and broken off, which seems a bit sinister, but I do seem to have planted them correctly enough to get something started, anyway.
I'm sure they weren't helped by the overnight snowstorm the other day. We got maybe an inch on the grass and plants, and it was melted by 11 am, give or take. Nothing seems to have been fazed by it, fortunately. And, as noted above, the asparagus are finally emerging, ever so slowly.
Got more done this weekend, despite still feeling rather wrung out from a cold that has been far more influential than I would prefer. Tomatoes are in their barrels, enjoying the climate-controlled comfort of their wall-o-waters (is that walls-o-water?). And the backyard drip system is hooked up to its timer, in order to water the tomatoes and the window box where the remainder of the unplanted strawberries went. So at the moment, we have a lot of drips watering not much of anything at all, since it makes no sense to put summer annuals in until things warm up a bit. Looks a little stupid, but so be it - the tomatoes are being consistently watered.
And we got the tumbling composter built. The instructions were absolutely correct - that was a two-man job. Preferably men with 3 or 4 arms each. Thirty pages of instructions later, it's sitting in the gravel drive next to the other composter, with some of the top layer of that box inside (and as soon as I get home tonight, a bag of grass clippings will join it). Tumbling is much (!) easier than turning things with a pitchfork, that's for sure. Maybe we'll get something out of it this year (please don't point out that I have 13 bags of mushroom compost sitting in that same area that I need to do something with, not to mention the 1 bag left over from last year - that would be like protesting at any plans I might have this year to plant purple bush beans, just because we still have gallons of them frozen from last summer).
The strawberries and raspberries and blueberries seem to be settling in nicely. The strawberry and blueberry plants had fruit or flowers already in place, and I know that I'm supposed to strip all that off to ensure that they put their energy into roots, but I hate wasting work in progress like that, so they stayed. I'll regret it later, no doubt.
My daughter tells me that I am not to plant any peppers until she gets home from school (in about 2 weeks) - apparently she has several large pepper plants growing happily in her apartment in Phoenix. I hope they will make the transition successfully. For some reason, I have never been able to grow peppers with any sort of yield. Last summer, I think we got 1 fruit off of two plants - and if I recall, it was there when we put the plant in the box, so I don't think I can exactly take credit for it. We shall see. I'll give them wall-o-waters this year and see if that helps.
Thinned out the brussels sprout and lettuce seedlings last night - possibly the first time I've brought myself to thin. But I want heads of lettuce this year, rather than random leaves of mesclun, so thinning is required. I admit to replanting one of the thinned seedlings into an area where nothing had come up, so my "don't waste things" gene was at least a bit appeased.
I think, too, that I might have a little space for potatoes this year again - places where no potatoes have gone before (or other nightshade family plants). Since I think there are sprouting potatoes in the pantry, well...
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