Your garden is looking good Perry.

Bell Peppers grow great here, but they really start producing late in the growing season, and all the way to the first hard frost.

I bought the soaker hoses two years ago, but don't really like them much. They started getting weak and breaking at the connection fittings and there's no good way fix that. I'd really like to rig a drip system with pvc pipe instead.

I'm still in the weeding phase on my garden right now. I didn't really do much at the end of last season so there are lot of weeds growing on it now. I don't mind that much though because it's still a winter cover for the soil. The soil looks better again this year too. It's really been nice to see it improve so much every year.

This year I have so much compost in between the raised beds that I think I'll have to make at least one more raised bed. The worms have been working it for about 5 years now and it's so mixed in with soil below that you can grow in it too now. I have a spot for it, and I'll probably grow some potatoes in it.

DTape, I ate my first asparagus spear of the season this afternoon. I planted my asparagus two years ago, so this is the third crop coming up this year. I planted two year old roots and I read I could eat as much as I could harvest the second year. I didn't do that, I was kind of scared to cut that much last year and I barely ate any the first, but I realize now I could have, and should have last year. This year I'll be harvesting as much as I can and I should get a lot. I am thrilled with how well they've done. I hope yours do as good!

I also ate my first Shiitake Mushroom this afternoon! I was sure relived to see a few of those sprouting today after the vicious hot and dry summer we had last year. Tomorrow I'll fill a stock tank I have with water and start soaking as many as I can fit in there for 24 hours. That's supposed to "force" them to fruit, so I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that most of them will produce. I have a lot of logs, so I'll be working my butt off on that for then next couple weeks.

I still have cilantro growing, I munch on that every time I've gone out there since last Summer. And there's some leaf lettuce that popped up and is ready to harvest, and some that survived the winter and is flowering right now, and the flowers are delicious. I'll let some of that go to seed so I can collect and plant it later this year.

And I have a few marigolds that survived the winter and some coming up from seed, so that's good. They really did help keep the bugs away last year, so I'll plant more this year, and those things are hardy too, they did great all last summer.

So far we have had some nice long soaking rains, but it's been pretty cool, so the forest is just starting to wake up. The Dogwoods haven't bloomed yet, but the persimmons are just starting so they won't be far behind now. It's still a tad early to get plants in, but there's no excuse here for not getting things ready for them.

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"You want to go where?"