Looking for asparagus

Yesterday I took a stroll around Happy Acres to see what has changed since the rains came. I was hoping I’d see some asparagus peaking up through the soil. Last year this time, they showed themselves and we picked our first harvest on the 25th. But last year everything seemed to be early from dogwoods to the irises. Anyway, after walking back and forth in the bed, I saw no signs of those lovely green stalks.

I did see some other green though.

The Lamb's Ears are back.

I found this area of tulips I forgot I had planted last year! These are Bestsellers – a combination of orange, red and yellow.

Bestseller tulips I planted last fall.

Before the rain, I moved some of the Stellas from the front, to this back area. This area behind this planting is the future site of  the labyrinth. I’m not a big fan of Stellas, but thought this area would look nice with some color. I couldn’t believe how much the daylilies had grown in a couple days.

Just a small group of daylilies

For the past couple years I’ve potted up some irises in the Fall for the May Master Gardeners’ plant sale. This winter I put half of the pots in the workshop and left the other half outside behind the house. I moved everyone outside a couple weeks ago. I was amazed that the indoor ones were at least a week ahead in growth from those outside even though I failed to keep the indoor ones watered!

Some of the little irises lined up waiting for the sale

Meanwhile inside, I baked a cherry cobbler for dinner. I used the same recipe as the Blackberry Cobbler, only I doubled the ingredients. I don’t make cherry cobblers often since we don’t have a lot of cherries in the freezer. I like to save them for special occasions.  However, I inventoried the freezer and found that we still had six bags left from both 2006 and 2008. There was also one bag left from 2005, but it was 4 cups. So I HAD to make a big cobbler.

Cherry Cobbler

Some great news! We finally have a local meat CSA. As you know, we grow most of our veggies and fruit, but now we’ll be able to BUY LOCAL meat and eggs. We dropped by the Stonewall Farms Monday to meet the owners and  pick up some eggs, ground beef, and bacon. We don’t eat a lot of meat, but to eat organic, grain fed beef and chicken will be great. We have already tried the ground beef, which is not quite as lean as the organic ground round we buy at the local health food store, but it still was good. (The beef we’ve been buying is from a farm an hour away.) We also tried the bacon yesterday, and it was so lean and great tasting. We’ll only be getting the chickens and eggs from them through the CSA, but we can also buy their meat to add to our allotment. The CSA starts in June. Can’t wait! Love buying local.