progress report

the side garden has been planted. my wife saw asparagus roots on sale the local home improvement store and bought them. we have a trench planted with twenty four 1-2 year old asparagus roots, i thought it was going to be 3 asparagus crowns, more is better. i moved the rhubarb plant to this side as well. i put in mesclun under the dome in the front yard. peas will go into this space as well.

the first batch of compost for this year has cooled and will need to be sifted/screened before i can use it as a side dressing. there are more than a few sticks and a few corncobs that need to be reprocessed in the next pile. composting proceeds through a ‘hot stage’ at the beginning of the process, this is due to the action of beneficial microbes. the heat also is purported to kill the weed seeds. when i first dug into the pile after a week , i was impressed by the color change and the heat. the color change was due to the rapid growth of fungi. i continued turning the pile every 3 -7 days until it cooled, six weeks is good time frame for an active pile with plenty of aeration. it’s not a completely broken down pile, but there are no discernible ‘kitchen scraps’ evident and it looks a lot like dirt and smells earthy not rancid.

enjoy your spring, the planting of warm weather crops is still a few weeks off in Minnesota. see ya in the garden.