Weekend Compost - The males produce thicker and larger spears

My original intent was to do a "Friday Compost" (I call it this because the main stream news is rotten to read, and this is a great alternative) every Friday. But I suddenly found myself extremely busy, and then Blogger.com started having issues this week. I was also generating huge spikes in readers when I started blogging about work life balance. Based on work life balance popularity, and the fact that my gardening occurs on the weekends, Friday Compost will now be called Weekend Compost, and be the garden chronicle. I will write and post as I get time on weekends when I have something to write about. I'd rather garden than write about it.

Gifts from making lunch

Most of our vegetable seeds germinated very well (thanks Door  Gunner!). I moved a few of the lettuce to the garden last weekend, and am leaving the softer plants under the cold frame until next weekend. The carrot ends I saved while putting together lunch a couple of months ago have sprouted and are growing. See the results in the pics on the right.

There are so many vegetables we purchase that have all we need to grow them again. By doing this, we get more bang for our shopping bucks! Some examples of regrowable vegetables are potatoes, carrots, onions, scallions, and many more I am probably not thinking of. What did I miss? Add your favorite grocery store gifts to the comments below.

Four of the gifts have taken root
(the ferns in the black pots are the carrots)

We are anxiously awaiting our bees. A friend ordered a few hives, and decided she only wanted two, so we are hoping to get one hive very soon. My honey's bee keeper suit arrived last week, and she looked pretty awesome (and sexy) in the white suit with the head net. Maybe she'll let me post pictures of her in it once the bees arrive.

My "big" project for this weekend was to install a critter fence around the garden. We have a very large chipmunk and squirrel population, and they are wards of the yard, eating all they can get. If only I could convince the chipmunks that squirrels taste good, and vice versa. After much research online, we settled on a Mr. McGregor's fence kit. It came in quickly, and I was able to install it in about an hour. So much for a big project. I still need to dig in the edges of the plastic, and remove more grass for the veggie garden. I also need to move the lettuce from the temporary cage on the left, into the garden. Okay, so I measured wrong the first time around. The bird feeder will also find a new home.

I am a man who reads instructions

We spent part of Saturday taking part in Garden Conservancy 's Open Days. We've participated in this for years. It is a great way to see local gardens, and we always leave with inspiration we apply at home. As we left one site, a home owner nearby was selling loads of perennials in pots. We filled my honey's Miata with so many plants that I had to peer through the foliage of a Day Lilly as we headed home. Pictures of the plants will follow at some point.

We just ordered Asparagus and more Rhubarb for our gardens. We never realized that there are males and females. For the sake of any potential Asparagus social activities, we were going to get a gender mix of 50/50 males to females. As we read more about Asparagus, we found that males produce thicker and larger spears, since they don't produce as many seeds. That was the clincher. We purchased males, since we wanted a more prolific plant in terms of food production.

Looks like the rain is easing up, time to get back to gardening...