Vegetables+&+Fruit

=Asparagus= SOHA has asparagus. Lots of asparagus. We have both green and purple varieties. It pops out of the earth in the spring. Spears less than a pencil in diameter should be left alone. These spears will grow into beautiful ferns that will return again next spring as edible spears. If you take the spears when they are too small you forgo next year's crop. Patience. For such a delicious vegetable asparagus likes to be fed with a fertilizer that smells horrible. Don't skip the smelly stuff. Side dress the plants before and after they produce spears. It helps make for heartier and more prolific asparagus. In the winter cover your asparagus bed with straw or don't cut the ferns off until the following spring so they can protect your plants from the cold. Asparagus plants will last for years if you take care of them.

=Tomatoes= We also have tomatoes at SOHA. This past May the local Master Gardeners Club had a plant sale. I had no idea gardeners could be so fierce and competitive when it came to obtaining certain varieties of tomato plants. In fact I had no idea there were so many varieties of tomato plants in existence. Even though I am not an experienced gardener, I am an experienced sale shopper. I got in there and scrapped with the best of them. At the end of the sale I came away triumphant. Chocolate Cherry, Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Sungold tomatoes and more are now producing fruit at SOHA. Tomato plants should be planted with the very bottom leaves under the soil. These become addition roots which come in handy as tomato plants become very top-heavy. You should tie your plants to tall, sturdy stakes or better yet grow them inside cages that provide support. Tomatoes that are planted outside usually produce until the weather turns cold then they die. However, the tomato plant growing in a container in my classroom has been happy and putting out tomatoes for two years.

=Strawberries= These tasty gems are prolific at SOHA. The former owners had a beautiful bed of strawberries already established. From the time that we agreed to buy the home to the time we got to move in the owners stopped tending to the garden. As a result the strawberry bed was completely overran with weeds. Months later with the onset of spring I ventured out into the garden. I thought the strawberry bed was a goner. So I ordered some plants online. Later on when the ground was soft enough to till I pulled the black plastic off of the strawberry bed to find a thriving patch of plants hidden among the weeds. I rescued the plants and moved them to a new bed. Then the plants I had ordered arrived. I had so many plants I had to give some away. We had a nice strawberry crop. After the plants are finished producing fruit they send out runners. It's important to help these runners get established in the soil as they will become strawberry plants for next season. Once the weather turns cold you can cover your plants with straw - not hay as it has seeds which make weeds. I suppose you could also cover them with plastic like the former owners did, but I'm not sure if this is a good practice.

Authored by Ms. Mosby * Any School * Published July 2010 * Last Edited July 27, 2010