My garden will be around 230 sq. ft. total. I already dug some by hand
but I have another 150 sq. ft. to go. It will be a straight wide row 4
1/2' wide and around 55' long. The asparagus will only use up the
bottom 12' of my bed. The crowns I ordered are Jersey Giant. They are
a hybrid and all male crowns so that should help cut down on the weed
problem when no female plants are in the bed. At least I hope it will.
You gave me some very good advice and I'm going to deal with the sod
just like you advised. I would sure hate to ruin my new tiller on the
sod. I'll just do a little each day and work slowly at it. My legs are
bad and I can only stand for 10 to 15 minutes at a time before I need to
sit down for a rest. I used to love to hunt and fish for trout but I'm
pretty much home bound now. That's why I decided to make vegetable
gardening my new hobby and why I'm keeping the sq. footage small. I
spent quite a bit of money so far buying lots of gardening equipment
including a compost tumbler which I got late last summer. I'm all set
up to grow my plants from seed indoors to plant in my garden. Since it
will now be my only hobby, I look at it as money well spent. You never
get your money back spent on any hobby but I guess it's really the
relaxation and enjoyment your really paying for in the long run. Every
year from now on, I should only need a couple bags of general purpose
vegetable garden fertilizer. Last year I grew a dozen and a half tomato
plants. I got the seedlings from a local nursery and they really done
great! That's when I got bit with the garden bug and decided that this
year I wanted to grow not only tomatoes but all the other veggies I
like. My wife said: your not going to tear up the yard are you? I
said HELL YES, I'd much rather grow vegetables than grass!!!

Thanks again for all the excellent information you gave me............
Rich