It has been many months for these potted plants, living inside my basement waiting for warmer weather to arrive. But now with the frosts mostly over its time to get these plants in the ground. Right now these rose bushes are small, but eventually they will get very big. So making enough space is important for them, and digging the holes deep enough.
I bought these rose bushes during a garden websites cyber monday sale. So it has been quite a few months of them in little pots and under grow lights. Being outside in full sunlight and planted in the ground is exactly what they need.
Using my skidsteer I drill holes using the auger bit. This will allow the rose bushes to run their roots very deep and give me large plants one day.
With them in the ground, I spaced them close enough so they should all grow in together at some point.
Before finishing the other side of rose bushes, I get a picture of the plants without their top soil. Using good dirt for these plants around the roots. And then the clay is added on top of the good soil to retain it and help lock in moisture.
Recently I also planted some bosenberry and raspberry bushes. They are still in shock but hopefully the transplanting stress will ware off in a week or two.
I had two beds that fell apart, but inside is some really good soil. Using a hugelkultur method I placed sticks and tree material in the bottom of the beds. And up top is mostly clay soil. We can see how the beds are still in the shape of where the wood was. I am going to till all that down into one large area for asparagus.
These mounds have lots of black soil inside of it, just needs to be brought up to the surface.
I could probably just plant the asparagus crowns right into these mounds. But I figured if I broke it down and spread it out I can get three rows. Or around 30 asparagus plants.
The boards were removed a few weeks ago, but still funny to see block shaped soil… lol
I will also add some wood chips, but overall this stuff will be ready to plant in once tilled over a few times.
Once the ground was tilled, I soaked my asparagus crowns in some water with a plant tea mixed in. And let them lay in it for about 30 minutes to an hour. I kept the bucket out of the sunlight until it was time to plant.
Its hard to see, but I have two rows planted. I will add some woodchips on top soon so its easy to know where this line is. And by adding the woodchips it should help with moisture retention.
The thing with asparagus is, you must let it grow for a few years before I can harvest any. So once they come up I will let them leaf out and get big and strong for a couple years before consuming any. But that is fine, all of this is an investment into time and should be well worth it eventually.
