The Perennial Agriculturalist

one of the walking onions "walked" twelve days ago and, i would have thought, set a precedent for walking behavior...clearly my thinking along these lines has been incorrect as the onions will demonstrate shortly... when the aerial bulbs touched ground on this one they were still contained in a membrane... since it touched ground the membrane has opened and it has irrupted in aerial bulbs and what looks to be yet more stems with membranous heads containing yet more aerial bulbs..i am keeping an eye on this... another onion has begun to walk and it too has a membrane over the aerial bulbs...all wonderfully tidy and consistent behavior...until i begin to look a little further... and find a yard full of upright and ruptured membranes exploding in flowers, aerial bulbs, and new stems...so which is the aberrant behavior? i will be looking for that answer as the season progresses... and my two spear asparagus seedling continues to fern and has topped two inches...we are all good here so far.

another asparagus plant has popped up...nine in all now and all from the planting on the sixteenth of december...it came to my attention yesterday making it fifty-six days from planting...it has joined last weeks three under the grow light in the basement...all are doing well although two are intertwining themselves as they grow and will be difficult to separate at planting so i am assuming i will be leaving them conjoined in the garden...the program has proved successful so far and i only need two more to fill my space at the iuncg...year old crowns are reasonably inexpensive and easy which is why i used them to start the bed at the perennial garden project but my inclination is to try to save seed and propagate my plants in a more traditional manner ( the row light being one of many exceptions to a traditional form of gardening )...i want the experience of starting from scratch and defying the seed patenters out in the agribiusiness world...round up ready soy beans or liberty-link corn aren't something i want to deal with...i also don't want to be dependent on energy intensive technology...worms, manure, seeds. and rhizobia are all i want to use.