Expanding rhubarb and Asparagus patches

Easter seems miles behind us already but I couldn't resist putting this picture up.  For those who don't know this is Rachel and Ciaran, my better halves, at Callahan park at a . . . oh, you can probably figure that part out.  It was such a pretty day that day that I felt compelled to go out and mulch the garlic, which is long since finished and seems to be progressing well.

The rhubarb (the mulched thing pictured below) that I started from seed just last year also is doing really well, and looks like I am going to harvest some starting in about a week.  Very exciting and a convincing argument for doing it from seed and not from crowns.  So besides doing a ton more this year (the goal is about 200 feet of rhubarb), I am also filing in our asparagus bed with stuff from seed, which also germinated very well.  Since its been so warm and the rhubarb is ready even a little earlier than normal, I am going to try to get some to this years members.  As these patches become well established it makes the case for possibly starting the CSA a week earlier.

Other things in the ground are spinach, onions, chamomile, potatoes, peas, and napa.  Tomorrow out goes alot of brassicas (kale, broccolli, cauliflower etc.)

The Weather: what does it mean for us? Part 2

On again off again, this is Vermont Spring.  Still, on average it's been alot more on again, and hence we are about a week ahead of where we were last year.  I just finished composting the fields today and I think I will be putting in potatoes and possibly peas on Saturday. Very Excited about both: the potatoes because I am using the perfecta, a new tractor implement, to prepare the beds, and it should make for much fluffier, i.e. less compact beds, and maintain the soil structure alot better than rototilling, which acts like a giant blender.  You can kinda see n this picture: the tines cultivate and aerate the soil, and then the back part smooths it all out.  So I hope will give those tubers the space to get giant.  The peas are exciting, because I am doubling the seeding rate, which I might have mentioned, so I'm kinda planing for a bumber crop, leaning a little heavier to the sugar snap varieties this year, though one other exciting addtion is the shelling pea.  I bought one pound of those, every year more and more people ask me if I have them.