A Data-Gathering Year

The first year I started an inground garden, my best friend, sensing the ever-present anxiety about things I can't control, told me to think of it as science. 

This first year was to be a data-gathering year. I would see what worked, what didn't, and what I wanted to do again. 

The first year was a smashing success. 

This year, I decided it was time for another year of firsts. My first asparagus, my first grapes, and my first attempt at potatoes.

I have no clue what I'm doing. But I'm going to have a lot of fun trying. With blackberry bushes in bloom like these, how can gardening not be fun?

Grapes became interesting late last year, when I was at a wine flight, and one of the presenters explained that they were growable in our zone. I don't actually like grapes, but I do like a challenge. 

So in they went, near the trellises on the back of my property, and I crossed my fingers. The instructions from Burpee said six to eight weeks before I'd see new growth. And look what appeared only five weeks later?

My garden is good at acceleration. 

I have no clue what I'm doing about potatoes. Potatoes seemed like a logical next step in the quest of "only eat what comes from the garden." I like sweet potatoes, and they seemed easy, in how potatoes go, so why not?

I am grateful for the Burpee instructions here. They said that the plants may appear wilted, and the leaves bleached. So that made me feel better about what appeared when I opened the box, and I saw that they looked like I'd killed them. In the garden they went, and we'll see if they actually bother to perk up. If they don't, that's OK -- I can buy new, since they weren't horribly expensive. And it forced me to till out a portion of the garden and get a head start on the next part of growing.

On the other hand, I find the asparagus simply adorable. 

Lookit the little mini asparaguses! 

I had no idea what I was getting when I planted asparagus. The root stock doesn't look anything like it, and all I knew was that I was to dig a trough, plant them, and wait. 

Like, did you know that if you let them grow and get woody, they get little ferns? I didn't know that, but now I do!

I had waited to make a commitment to asparagus. Asparagus is a perennial (hence why it's in the herb garden), and not only that, but you're not supposed to pick it the first season -- and you can only minimally pick the second and third. If you go for asparagus, you need to be in it for the long haul. 

And I wasn't too sure about that until this past fall. I wasn't sure what I was going to do about Pittsburgh, and whether I was going to stay in the house if I needed to leave the area. But then employment things changed in November, and I knew that I could stay.

I think we're both here to stay.