"a little less like transplanting...

 and a little more like wrestling with Mother Nature." That's the only way I can think of to describe transplanting year-old asparagus from the front yard to the back.  Last spring when I planted the whithered root-things, I would never have guessed the fight they would put up when we had to move them. Then again- when I planted them, I thought I was putting them in their home for the rest of their wee little lives.  We realized in January that two of our raised beds out front were in need of repair. Repair has meant transplanting both the asparagus and Swiss chard. The Swiss chard put up little resistance. The asparagus, oh, it threw down. In order to move the 6 plants that had survived Penny's  dirt bathing, Jesse and I had to work in tandem (with Ardis as acting supervisor) to pull the tarantula-like roots out of the ground. I'm fairly certain our neighbors not only think we are crazy but now have proof.

Our reward for our efforts to safely move the 6 plants to their new *permanent* location  (one of which has a single piece of asparagus the width of a piece of pencil lead) was to up-root the potatoes I planted in February from the same bed. Ardis stepped out of her supervisors role for this- carefully, pulling the golf ball sized potatoes off the plants roots. Each potato was carefully place in her wagon and counted amongst the others ( "3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 3").  They were delicious boiled and slathered in butter.

Recent radish readiness resulted in roasted radishes. Nice consonance, huh? I don't particularly like radishes. My mother does. Jesse does. I don't. Not really. However, after hearing about roasted radishes, I thought I'd give it a go. For lack of a recipe I liked, I washed, cut the stems and ends off, tossed the radishes in olive oil, and sprinkled with a little salt. We ate them with crackers and cream cheese. I think with a little tweaking it will definitely be worth repeating.

Spent quite a bit of time this past weekend dividing tomato seedlings into larger peat pots. Of the 10 varieties we have going, I only worked my way through 3 (Queen of Hearts, Roma [either regular or Juliet- they weren't marked well. eep.], and Jubilee) and now have 42 peat pots with little tomatoes growing in them. Woo-hoo. However, I still have 7 varieties left to divide. Hopefully, I will get those taken care of before the end of the week. With Good Friday approaching and a possibility of Blackberry Winter next week, I want to to get as much done beforehand as possible.

Lastly, our pear trees are loaded. Taking into consideration the pears that will have to be culled, if all the pears make it- I will have a field day this fall making pear preserves.