Garden Update

This is my garden as of this morning. It's starting to look a little greener!

And my seedlings are getting bigger! I transplanted some of them into larger cups, and those guys are really taking off. I need to transplant the rest of them - but I'm worried about having room enough on my windowsills for that many big plastic cups. The plants are spending most of each day outside now, so it might not be that big an issue.

Tomatillo (with some flower buds!):

Ground cherry:

I think that's a little bud forming on this guy too!

I have all of my raised beds planted with spring crops and perennials. I'll use the tilled bed in back for my warm weather crops (like tomatoes and the tomitillos and ground cherries!) that can be planted after the last frost at the end of May.

asparagus bed

Close up of the asparagus with a few new shoots almost ready for harvest!

I had my first asparagus harvest of the spring on Friday! I was so excited. This is my 3rd year growing asparagus. The first year you don't harvest at all, the 2nd year you harvest just a little, and the 3rd year you can harvest all you want, focusing on the shoots that are thicker than a pencil. You let the skinny shoots develop into these tall fernlike plants, the root  system gets stronger, and you end up with an asparagus producing bed for years and years to come!

Asparagus is one of the few veggies that are ready to eat this early in the spring in these parts, so I am truly psyched beyond belief that I'm managing to grow some!

First harvest of the season!

I have two beds of strawberries, and they're starting to flower.

And the peas planted in my last post are sprouting!

 The pear tree is flowering too:

Garlic's lookin' good. I planted arugula and red leaf lettuce in the empty spaces in the garlic bed. The arugula is sprouting already. Arugula is my favorite leafy green. Love the slightly spicy taste, and it's by far one of the easiest veggies to grow, and also one of the quickest to mature.

Garlic (and lots of pear petals!)

Arugula seedlings and pear petals

Remember the spinach that I planted in the fall hoping it would overwinter and come back to life in the spring to give me an awesome early harvest? Only two spinach tufts survived, and they're still pretty small.  They're in the corner of one of my pea beds. I still haven't figured out how to successfully grow spinach. I think it might involve cold frames, and I don't have one yet.

I'm a survivor!

The grape leaves are coming out.

 One of my new little hostas. It survived the dividing process!

Bleeding hearts:

Blooming rhododendron:

So fluffy and pretty!

 Raspberry:

My bleak looking raspberry area is below. I planted 10 bare root plants last spring. I had a *very*  small harvest last summer (5-10 berries!). Hoping they fill out and give me more this year. Supposedly they're invasive and can take over a yard (which honestly, I wouldn't mind at all),  so they're on the opposite side of the house from my veggie garden.

This tomato seedling isn't looking so hot. See how the leaf is brownish purple on the underside? That means potassium or phosphorus deficiency. It can happen when seedlings become rootbound, so I just repotted it and am hoping that fixes the problem.

This ground cherry doubled in size since I repotted it a week ago!

In comparison, my ground cherries and tomatillo seedlings are looking great. I was Googling last night and found that ground cherries can produce up to *300* fruits per plant (which is about what my one tomatillo plant produced two summers ago), compared to tomatoes which max out at about 21 per plant. Apparently ground cherries are weed-like and grow wild along the side of the road in warm regions of the US. They're sprawling and can take over a garden. Four to six plants is supposed to be more than enough for a family of four. I have about *ahem* 16 ground cherry seedlings. At this point I think I'll probably only keep the six healthiest. I want to save some room for at least a few tomatoes in my warm weather patch, but I also love the idea of making lots and lots of ground cherry preserves!