Spargel Season

Three months ago I had a mild panic attack believing that my asparagus patch had given-up the ghost.  

Not so.  As it turned-out that bed continued to deliver fresh asparagus spears on a slow but sure basis for the next 3+ months allowing me the pleasure of fresh spargel a couple of times a week.

Me thinks this has been the last of it.

A couple of days ago I ate the last of this year's harvest along with a pork chop dinner.  

Just so you know, these bone-in, rib chops, from the local butcher shop, set me back $3.17.  A heckuva deal considering the price of groceries nowadays.

Fresh spargel sauteed in EVO and served-up with fresh-cracked pepper and sea salt really amped-up dinnertime. 

Same for baked tater and pan-seared venison, rare to medium rare.  Sauteed shrooms too.

Spargel season is short and sweet; and worth the patience.  Pretty good chow if you can get it..... 

Lazarus Asparagus

A couple months or so ago I figured my asparagus was done-for.  As it turns-out not so much.  For a while every day or so I'd pick a spear or three to keep my diet German.  And while things have been tapering-off I'm still picking enough to include homegrown spargel in the vegetable line-up on at least a weekly basis.

I swear - I get-up, pour a cuppa joe, look out the kitchen window and there it is.  I grows overnight! 

Pan-seared salmon, brown rice and you-know-who.

Pretty good chow if you can get it.   

Healthy too..... 

Winner, Winner.....

....whitetail dinner.

Pan-seared backyard venison (rare to medium), baked yam and freshly-picked spargel from the kitchen garden. 

A month or so ago I figured my asparagus was done-for.  As it turns-out not so much.  Every day or so I pick a spear or three to keep my diet German. 

BTW - my dog does all sorta tricks and commands for yam and spud skin treats. 

Pretty decent chow if you can get it.

Pro Tip: Rub your taters, yams and other tubers in bacon drippings before a hot bake in the convection oven. Trust me.....

Gentlemen - Start Your Grills

It's been grilling season for a spell already; nevertheless, there is this.

Backyard venison - rare to medium rare.

Spargel from the kitchen garden, anointed with EVO -  grilled.

Baked tater with butter, sour cream and chopped chives from the kitchen garden.

Cracked pepper and sea salt over all.

Pretty good chow if you can get it….. 

 

Has Asparagus Ended?

Contrary to my fears a week ago I guess not.

While hardly like the harvests of yore things have picked-up a bit.

There is this...

And venison steaks on the grill tonight to accompany grilled spargel anointed in EVO and freshly-cracked black pepper and sea salt.  Maybe a big baked tater too.

Has Asparagus Ended?

I picked this today. There’s only a couple-three more peeking out of the warming earth. 

Nothing at all like I was picking every couple of days ten years ago.

I think that after two decades the spargel bed in the kitchen garden has finally come to its natural end.

When you’re as old as I am do you excavate and start over with the knowledge that it will be three more growing seasons before I can harvest?

I already am aware I should’ve started a second bed a decade ago so don't rub it in....

The Garden Chronicles

When you live equidistant between the equator and the north pole it is the little things that matter.

The spargel is awakening from its winter slumber and beginning to peek thru the mulch.

 

 

And the radishes I planted awhile ago have germinated.

Let the gardening begin!

Spargel

Late spring I undertook to reestablish my asparagus bed.  I  excavated the old one established fifteen years ago with a pick and shovel removing approximately six wheel barrows of soil and a tangle of dead and dying asparagus roots.  I also enlarged it a wee bit.  The roots made this a challenge - hence the pick-axe.        

This was followed by laying a base of six forty-pound bags of composted cow manure.       The root crowns were carefully spaced atop the manure and six bags of rich topsoil blanketed over all.  A cup of Jung Asparagus Food was dissolved in a sprinkling can with two gallons of water and poured over all.       

As the new shoots began to reveal themselves three additional bags of topsoil were added along with a layer of shredded wood chips as a mulch.     

As you can see the bed is thriving.      

No harvest in 2021 and likely less than half of the largest shoots may be taken in the spring of 2022.      

Fingers-crossed.

Es lebe der Spargel

We have a kitchen garden surrounded by a quaint picket fence just outside our kitchen. Theoretically this is where you would grow those things you require in fresh yet small quantities for direct use in the course of your daily meal planning.  If you were to pay a call you'd conclude that it is a thoroughly disheveled kitchen garden.  It's in need of some long-overdue elbow grease and now that the porch contractors have moved-on this small, utilitarian garden patch will receive our full-time retired people attention.  It is important to note that this is where my spargel patch is situated.  

There is absolutely nothing more delicious than freshly-cut asparagus anointed in olive oil and delicately grilled with a sprinkle of fresh-cracked sea salt.  

Dunk a sprig in a Bloody Mary fashioned from my famous Uncle Dick's Tomato Juice and you'll think you've died and gone to heaven.  

Alas, all good things come to an end.  

After fifteen years of steady production my asparagus patch finally threw in the towel.  The spring crop started to decline beginning 2018 and this year only one, thin, lonely stalk, half the diameter of a straw, materialized.  

I'm not sure what the cause was; nevertheless, I was prepared for this eventuality.  When I placed my seed order with Jung in December I made certain to include the special two-pack featuring Jersey Supreme and Millennium Hybrid asparagus - twenty root crowns total.  

I got lucky with the advance planning because once the COVID-19 pandemic hit - everyone decided they wanted to grow their own victory garden.  Gardening companies have pretty much been cleaned-out of their seed inventory.  But I digress.

I excavated the original bed with a pick and shovel removing approximately six wheel barrows-full of soil and a tangle of dead and dying asparagus roots.  I also enlarged it a wee bit.  The roots made this a challenge - hence the pick-axe.

This was followed by laying a base of six forty-pound bags of composted cow manure.

The root crowns were carefully spaced atop the manure and six bags of rich topsoil blanketed over all.  A cup of Jung Asparagus Food was dissolved in a sprinkling can with two gallons of water and poured over all.

As the new shoots begin to materialize I'll add a minimum of three additional bags of topsoil to raise the bed as everything settles-in.

No harvest in 2021 and likely less than half of the largest shoots may be taken in the spring of 2022.  

It was back-breaking digging yet there-again nothing beats fresh, home-grown spargel.  Just ask our Labs.  They'll filch a stalk or two if you're not looking.  My hope is that this is the last asparagus patch I'll be establishing in my life.  Here anyways.    

Stay-tuned.....

 

Spring Crop Arrives in Fall

Peru's seasons run opposite of those in the northern hemisphere. The country's location in the southern hemisphere means that summer technically lasts from December to February, while winter spans June to August.  All of which would explain why this yummy handful of tender spargel is a product of Peru.  Sautéed asparagus in the fall is another reason why we shouldn’t have trade barriers.

Spargel Season

Free range farm eggs?  Check.

Leftover ham?  Check.

White cheddar cheese?  Check. 

Butter?  Check.

Freshly-picked garden asparagus?  Check.

Omelet!

 

Spargel

Spargel (asparagus) is a perennial g plants in the family Asparagaceae. I planted a small bed of asparagus in the kitchen garden a dozen years ago and allowed it to establish itself for several years before harvesting it beginning in the third year.

This is a delightful spring treat to be enjoyed for the briefest of times.  And it is truly a blessing to step outside and cut some of these wonderful sprigs and serve them fresh from the garden - roasted, grilled in an omelet or fresh as a garnish in your Bloody Mary.

A little known fact is:  Labrador retrievers love spargel and as a consequence they have to be kept out of the asparagus patch let they devour every fresh shoot in sight.  Another factoid is that spargel is a really big deal in Germany this time of year - especially the white spargel grown by Europeans.   You can learn more about it here. 

Der Spargel

Tackled and prepped the asparagus bed for the winter.  Now that the ferns have died and dried and translocated their energy back in the root system I cut everything-off at ground level and removed the debris.

I'll treat it with a water soluble solution of fertilizer matched to the needs of an asparagus planting, give it a light mulching of grass clippings and call it a day.

Asparagus is the first crop to be harvested every year and the last garden member to be put to bed.  My patch is 12 years old already.  If  you manage it properly this perennial garden plant is the gift that keeps on giving.

Spargel

Once again I am reminded of how much Labrador retrievers adore fresh asparagus.

After our walk the other day I was hosing the dogs-off at the dog hosing location adjacent to the spargel patch.  Afterwards, and as I was corralling the dogs towards the porch to dry-off the blonde Lab scarfed a newly emerged stalk.

She performed the theft in one fluid motion barely breaking a step.

Grrrr.

Picked some more and keeping a sharp eye on the marauding canines.

Spargel

I'd previously introduced you readers to the earliest of harvests - the spargel or asparagus.

The sparget patch isn't very large but it's ramping-up to twice weekly production.

I swear that this stuff grows overnight. 

Vive le jardin magnifique!

Spargel

If you want to make something really yummy to consume I recommend a Bloody Mary built upon a foundation of Uncle Dick's Tomato Juice.  Nothing better than a refreshing adult beverage that includes liquid sunshine.  Even better if you garnish it with a freshly-cut sprig of tender spargel (asparagus) from the garden.

From Wikipedia:

Asparagus, or garden asparagus, scientific name Asparagus officinalis, is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennial plant species in the genus Asparagus.

Asparagus has been used as a vegetable and medicine, owing to its delicate flavor, diuretic properties, and more. It is pictured as an offering on an Egyptian frieze dating to 3000 BC. In ancient times, it was also known in Syria and in Spain. Greeks and Romans ate it fresh when in season, and dried the vegetable for use in winter; Romans even froze it high in the Alps, for the Feast of Epicurus. Emperor Augustus created the "Asparagus Fleet" for hauling the vegetable, and coined the expression "faster than cooking asparagus" for quick action.  A recipe for cooking asparagus is in the oldest surviving book of recipes, Apicius’s third-century AD De re coquinaria, Book III.

Many German cities hold an annual Spargelfest (asparagus festival) celebrating the harvest of white asparagus. Schwetzingen claims to be the "Asparagus Capital of the World", and during its festival, an Asparagus Queen is crowned. 

The Bavarian city of Nuremberg feasts a week long in April, with a competition to find the fastest asparagus peeler in the region. This usually involves generous amounts of the local wines and beers being consumed to aid the spectators' appreciative support.

The spargel emerged last week from its winter slumber in the spargel patch here at The Platz.  

This tasty and ephemeral spring vegetable will be enjoyed for about a month before it goes to fern, leafs-out and flowers.  Best to enjoy it while you can.  I like it grilled or roasted, anointed with a bit of extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper.

Click here for the best spargel recipes around.