Square Box Gardening # 10

When is Winter Going to Start?

I went out yesterday to check on my plants wintering over in my Square Box Planters.  Mostly Garlic, Asparagus and one single cabbage plant.  Planted in a box with a Plant Guard on top wrapped in Chicken wire.  I also have a plot for Herb experiments and a few odd plants here and there like Onions, Leek and even Wild Garlic.

It was a Gorgeous Day.  A warm 55 degrees, almost perfectly calm. Not a cloud in the afternoon sky. I made a tour of my little garden and took a few pictures. Let me show you what I found on this nearly 4th week of January.  I thought maybe I might do some bush trimming. the Butterfly Bush is getting Humungous in it's 4 year.  My daughter wants some cuttings taken from it too.  But I didn't have any tools in hand so I just decided to forgo that job For another day. I thought to myself, what can I show to my Friends on my Blog today? Everything's asleep in it's bed.  waiting for Springtime to bring life back to the garden. 

My 2 x 2 Square Box Asparagus Bed

  

For those who haven't ever been to my Blog, I am a garden experimenter. I like to try new things and check on old garden Wives tales and Tips.  I like to keep up with the latest innovations in gardening as well.  Here is a shot of my heavily mulched Boxes.           

        

 To the left is my larger 2 foot X 2 foot Box that contain about 250 or more 1 year Asparagus that I didn't have a plot prepared for. When fall came, here I had all these Asparagus plants in 3 inch pots still sitting on my patio waiting to be planted. What to do? I still had a new 2Ft. X 2 Ft. (48 x 48 cm.) Box that only needed to have my soil mix poured in and plants transplanted in.  Hopefully, in the spring I will have a permanent bed prepared. I mulched a few leaves in last fall without covering the plants. Then when Winter arrived, I added a 3 inch layer of Wheat Straw and on top of that added another 2 to 3 inches of Leaves.  Everything was covered in the Asparagus Box.  On the Right of the picture, you see the start of  a long row of 1Ft x 1 Ft (24 X 24 Cm.) Boxes. that hold new Garlic starts.  In the early spring time around mid-march, I will start removing the top layers of mulch and hopefully, the first layer of leaves will be completely composted.  I will not throw anything away, the top mulch of Wheat Straw and Leaves will end up on the compost pile.

 Kind Looks like a Melted Down Hay Stack! 

The stake to the back kind of gives you an idea of how deep the Mulch is which not only covers the Box but also surrounds the box as well.  The stake comes up from the ground about 6 to 7 inches.  The slight discoloration smokey looking thing to the top left with the rainbow colors is a ghost of summer past...  A smear on my camera lens caught it. It just hangs around... The mulch pile consists of a thin layer of leaves among the growing plants put down in the fall.  After the plants have died down after the first frost, a layer of Straw about 3 inches and then a layer of dead leaves are piled on as icing on the cake.  These will have to be pulled back in the spring as the plants start to grow.  

Readers. Occassionally "Blogger" decides to throw a curve and the background color of the text - or the text itself will change color, font size etc. There is no fixing it. To redo would probably just come up with the same results - different place. There is only so much re-doing and re-editing that I can do. Sometimes I just have to leave things as they are if I am ever to get finished with a post.  I must go on and I hope you will be patient. Eventually this software problem May be resolved by "Blogger".  Until then, I will do my best.  GrandBob

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