Asparagus and raspberries

[KathyLauren]

We had our first harvest of the year: some asparagus was up. We missed harvesting it last year with moving, but this year we were ready. We got about 8 spears, enough for a small side dish each. Yum!

It's a pretty pathetic bed, and needs some rejuvenation. We are hoping that the shoots we harvested will send up more. Or, it is possible that we ate their last gasp. We'll see. We'll dig in lots of compost for next year.

We also planted two rows of raspberries. There were raspberries here already, but they are pretty pathetic. We are thinking that one of the existing rows can be rehabilitated, but the other one is coming out. We planted about two dozen canes in the new rows. You can never have too many berries.

There are a couple of blueberry plants, too. We got a handful of berries from them last year, but the birds got most of them. Even if we could keep the birds off, two bushes won't give enough in a season for a single pie, so there may be no point in keeping them. There's a nice organic U-pick blueberry farm down the hill, so we might just go there instead.

[Flo]

Ah the great rejuvenation project to make you self sufficient - can be hard work getting near to the point of self sufficient in anything.

Now allow yourselves the luxury of the u-pick blueberry farm - will keep someone else in a job (if not in profit).

[Green Aura]

There's a nice organic U-pick blueberry farm down the hill, so we might just go there instead.

Very sensible.

We've had an organic box delivery weekly for about a year now, so have some idea about what it will contain. We have difficulty growing some things here well and the conclusion that we came to is to let the box scheme cover the staples and we'll concentrate on the more unusual stuff that doesn't turn up in the box.

With the exception of tomatoes - nothing tastes like home grown (and a glut for bottling is good too)!

So we're trying to concentrate more on things like soft fruits, beans (which we only got once or twice in our box), peas (not at all), spaghetti squash and kale - mainly because that has self-seeded prolifically and we haven't got the heart to pull it up.