Thursday 4 September 2008

ASPARAGUS!

Just thought I had time to pick a few vegetables for my mother before leaving home when I saw the first asparagus...and now here I am...all skippity doo, with a handful of asparagus photos, something to say and another postponed list of chores that were supposed to be done on my way to the beach......tragic.....simply a blogging and vegetable tragic! Tricky thing was how to lie on the ground to get the photos without getting my clean clothes dirty. I am not sure I tried hard enough!

image image image

This year I sowed mizuna once the asparagus had yellowed and been cut down, so now the asparagus is coming up amongst the mizuna....and the weeds, mostly grasses, are pretty shocking there too.... I am not a tidy gardener. All the weeds end up either as chook food or in the compost... that's my excuse and I am sticking to it!

There are lots of these gorgeous pink-tinged shoots just emerging everywhere in the patch so in a few days I will have enough for our first meal of asparagus. I throw them into boiling water for about.....20 seconds. Drain and sprinkle lightly ...very lightly so as not to spoil the flavour.....with peanut oil, verjuice and pepper. Buonissimo! That is, if they get inside at all....crisp raw asparagus from the garden is irresistible....like lots of things!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a lovely untidy garden full of life. This weather is lovely and so is watching all the plants grow.. don't they say weeds are just plants no one has found a use for? I was happy to spot my asparagus coming up yesterday and this year they will get some terracotta pots placed around them (hope I don't do damage digging - might opt for a big pot sitting above ground) and the plants should be very happy. They did pretty well through the hot summer with not so much water. Tj eats most of our asparagus raw... she doesn't like it cooked but loves munching on it raw. Who says kids won't eat veggies? Give them a garden and see if there are any left for you!!
Thanks again Kate for a great blog!

chaiselongue said...

Delicious - lucky you! We have wild asparagus growing in our garden - but of course it's died back now. And it's good to see the Mizuna, quite a coincidence as Laura sent me some seeds which arrived yesterday and I'm going to sow them today. I see weeds completely differently these days, especially since discovering we can eat the purslane which grows everywhere! As tina said, they're just plants no one's found a use for. Enjoy the asparagus - bon appetit!