The fence posts are upside down because I'm a bovine citified moron :) I thought those prongs were to hold the fencing on somehow until I was installing it, and then it didn't occur to me they were upside down until a week later. The fence overall is quite poor, and I'm redoing it. The second night it was out there a deer must have not seen it and run into it, because the corner post was knocked over. I got 8' 4 * 4s I'm gonna sink two feet at each corner and concrete, and in the middle of the 75' span, and I'm going to run 5' field fence with chickenwire at the bottom and the solar electric up top. About half my lettuce has died, and everything else looks real rough except for most of the broccoli and cauliflower, which is happy. Even about half the cabbage looks rough. Is this normal? Everything froze SOLID the second night it was out, the weather report was off by like ten degrees it seems. Most of the romaine is dead. The bibb is faring a bit better. Its been 70s in the day and 40s at night. I lost about half my carrots, several beets, etc. My potatoes have been in the ground over a month and haven't come up, just straw seed hatching from the straw I covered em with. I'm gonna dig one or two up with a hoe and check on them then if they're no good I'm tilling them over, adding 100lbs of manure to the row and re-starting those. The whole field flooded a week after I planted those, and had almost a foot of snow on top of that. The onions/garlic were happy but I think it must have rotted the potatoes. Most of the leaves on the problem plants are turning white and dying away, why is that? Even some of the cabbage, which was quite happy at first. I ran a soil test from the store and I don't have too much nitrogen. I water it every day, how long do I have to do that? I wish I'd hardened everything off more.

First, no you cannot harvest this first year. Well you 'can' since no one will stop you, but you shouldn't. And go easy next year too for best results. Second the Ohio State article isn't really off-base when it comes to planting. They will grow but it is better IME to arrange them just a bit. The point is you don't have to get carried away with arranging them perfectly or follow the age old guidelines of build a hill in a 12" deep trench and carefully arrange the roots around the hill with the crown perfectly centered on top etc. OK? 6=8" trench is the recommended depth for planting rather than the old 12" deep trench. As to the refilling rather than just covering and leveling - the gradually refilling approach is more so you can see which one take and which ones don't and can easily replace if needed. Either way works fine because if one never comes up you can always replace it in that space next year. Harvesting is mostly a personal preference - snap off vs. knife and at soil level vs. just below. The below soil level/sharp knife approach is supposed to discourage asparagus beetles from laying their eggs in the cut stems. I'm of the cut with knife at soil level then cover lightly school. That way I don't hurt anything. Hope this helps. Dave

Hi Dale, I have an old furrower my grandfather gave me. It looks a lot like a current model Glaser Wheel hoe, which I also have. I imagine your grandparents laid out the garden with string between two stakes and used a wheel hoe to make straight furrows. With practice, you could get the trenches to slightly slope in order to water the garden with them. That, or they were deep enough and they used enough water that it didn't matter if they were of an uneven depth.

Hi Folks, Stopped by Sears and they were able to get to a better photo of the furrower Gator found. Won't fit my tiller without some major modifications. Called MTD (nice folks, BTW) and they said the tiller I have won't accept a furrower due to the way the depth stake and rear shield are attached. So, guess I'll have to be creative and shape a piece of quarter inch steel and a Ubolt. Hmmm, maybe a "split bolt" (think of splicing two heavy gauge electrical ground wires together) if they come big enough. Just what I need, another project....:-) Thanks for all the responses. Ev