Welcome aboard. You are invited to a personal viewing of my gardening season.

And the season has begun. I have eaten the first food from my garden this year. The asparagus is up.

I found five spears of pickable length last week, and Nancy and I split them for lunch – although I admit to eating one right in the garden.

If you have patience, asparagus is great. Buy roots locally. Dig a trench about 10 inches deep. Put a lot of compost – composted manure is ideal – on the bottom of the trench, creating little mulch hills every foot or so. The roots look like veggie octopuses (octopi?), so put the head on top of the hill and spread the legs down the side. Let the asparagus sprout and fill the trench as it grows to ground level.

Don’t cut any asparagus for three years. After that, you'll have asparagus the rest of your life, as long as you keep the bed weeded and fertilize annually with manure, compost or slow-release fertilizer – and stay in the same house.

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