Things have been slow over here at Blowing Asparagus of late but I’m looking to change that.  I’m trying out a new “Self-Improvement by avoiding self improvement” technique that involves putting off things that really need to be done by writing for 30 minutes a day.  Ok, not really, I’m actually putting off surfing the tubes first thing in the morning until I’ve written for 30 minutes so I figure this site might get a few more updates.  This is number 1.  Note to self, write more in journal that people don’t read if you’re really going to write at 7 AM in the morning.

Our summer garden had some decent successes and some spectacular failures.  Our cowpeas were the main success, we got probably 3 full size quart jars out of 10 plants or so.  Mark that one down to plant next year.  Our tomatoes and peppers didn’t do nearly as well in the summer but got decent in the fall.  I’m not sure exactly why but that’s how it goes.

In the fall garden, the collards and lettuce were good as were the tomatoes.  We had such a warm fall that we harvested tomatoes up until December 3rd.  One thing to remember for next year when planting the fall garden is that it only gets sun on about half the plot because of how far south the sun is.  The neighbor’s fence really blocks it a lot.  Our garlic chives are dead because they just don’t get any sun.

Last week, I pulled everything up from the fall and summer and mulched really well.  We have 15-16 heads of garlic growing and that will be about it until January when I’ll plant potatoes and onions.

In other garden news, the satsuma was a success this year with 18 or so oranges.  The snapdragons and mums in the front are doing well though I need to do some work on the sprinkler system to get better coverage.  Because our bushes have gotten so high since they planted them, the sprinklers don’t fully cover the front beds.  I think I can get some of the 4 foot risers and fix the problem.

Another thing to remember for next year in the veggie garden is to plant more flowers around it so that the bees and wasps are attracted as pollinators.  My yellowneck squash never did anything this year but the luffa went crazy because it had so many more flowers.  The mexican heather by the back porch was really good at attracting bees so I think I’ll plant some of that around the garden next year to help with the pollination.

That’s really it for now, we’ll probably plant a tree or two later in the winter but most of our planting is done until spring.