asparagus no more

Today I dug up the asparagus bed because half of the plants were dead and the survivors were performing poorly. I don’t know what the problem was but I suspect the severe cold of last winter had a lot to do with it. I’ve decided that an asparagus bed is an expensive luxury unless you have a good sized plot and can afford to have part of it out of production for several years. In the meantime the space will be home to another bean wigwam and some container veggies. I have the materials to build a decent cold frame there but that will have to wait till later in the year.

We have no frosts forecast for the next few nights but I’m reluctant to put out the climbing beans because there are very strong winds on the horizon which won’t do them any good before they get properly established.

The first lot of broad beans are now showing small pods so I gave them a potash feed to help them along

We love to eat fresh peas straight from the plant so this afternoon I sowed more peas to follow on from the sixty or so already coming along. I’ll do another sowing in mid June and hopefully we’ll have fresh peas right through till the first frosts.

Today's pic shows some celery plants in a big square pot. I have three pots of self-blanching celery but I do find it gets quite stringy unless picked early and watered well. We get  some small sticks for salads and have some as a steamed vegetable but much of it ends up as soup flavouring.