Early May Garden Update.

It's true.

I've finally killed something in the garden.

I have a green thumb. Truely, honestly, making stuff happen in the yard really come easily to me. I've done difficult things, like starting lavender from seed. I've transplanted shrubs in July. I've planted my veggies long before the last frost date and I've never killed anything.

But the asparagus is no more. You experienced gardeners will know that asparagus is a perennial that requires little care once established. It will grow along abandonded farmhouses for years. It turns out, however, that transplanting asparagus (truly an advanced gardening skill) was too tough for me.

Here's the aspargus in 2010. I've perfected how low I can hack cut it back. It
came back year after year for 10 years.

Last fall we I got the brilliant idea to move the asparagus, make the garden bigger and make the asparagus happy. It required Brad's help as the asparagus crowns were extremely overgrown. He worked his tail off digging it up. I worked my tail off dividing the crowns, making sure there were roots, and then planting it in the new bed in front of the kids' play area. I thought this would be a good spot as it would get full sun AND the added bonus of screening the view of the kids' play area from the street. When asparagus is left to grow without being hacked cut back, it grows 6 or more feet tall. Perfect little privacy screen--so I thought, anyway.

Here's a closer view of the new bed, right after we planted it:

And here's how it looks today:

Nothing. Absolutely nothing is coming up. I'll have to dig it all up and purchase new crowns. Bummer! For this summer, however, I'm going to plant this bed with sunflowers and cosmos. No sense letting it go to waste!