You could have knocked me over with a feather this morning when I saw that my first blog 'follower' was Annie's Granny! Welcome Granny, I'm honored to have you. Granny has the cutest dachsunds I've ever seen, they positively put my little J.R. in the shade..

But he really does try, I have to give him credit..



And welcome to Megan, I look forward to getting to know more people who like playing in the soil as much as I do.

Now for the unpleasant surprise...only one of the 20 asparagus plants I put in last fall seems to have made it through the winter. It was abnormally cold here, averaging 12 degrees below normal all winter, and if I'd known that was coming I'd have planted them deeper. The last time I planted some they completely disappeared by spring, and when I investigated I found all kinds of little critter tunnels deep in the sandy soil of that bed. So this time I planted them in sunken wire mesh baskets, smart no? Or so I thought. They weren't eaten this time, they just died from cold. As far as I can tell, anyway. Thank goodness I got them on sale. I'm thinking I'll accept my fate and do without asparagus, it takes up a lot of space for something that provides for such a short time. At least, that's what I'm telling myself after my second failed attempt. !!!!!

So this is what the bed looks like now, I've got a little patch of French Sorrel in the fence corner, and the rest of the 20x2.5 foot bed is empty save for a couple of broccoli that made it through the winter. The bed goes across the width of the garden area at the western end, and I'm thinking I'll put some trellising up against that 6 foot board fence and use it for melons and winter squash. I could do bush Romano beans in front, interplanted with Mrs. Burns lemon basil. The far end of the bed from this angle runs up to the picket fence keeping the dog and chickens out, and along that fence I've got lots of specialty thymes and yellow onion sets, as seen here..

Together they form an L shape along the sunny borders of this area of the garden. When the onions are ready to harvest I'll tuck some Spicy Globe basils in the empty spots. I've got two big 16x5 beds in the center of this space, and tomorrow's post will show the before and after of their clean and prep. Brace yourselves for the before, it's pretty sad. I'm hoping to get to that this afternoon, now that the girls are feeling better. They both had tummyaches when they woke up and slept all morning. They seem to have recovered completely now, so we'll all spend the afternoon outside. If they hadn't timed those tummyaches just so, I'd have taken them to the mall this morning to see an old friend. Hey, if kids were convenient, everyone would have them...