What a wild gardening year this has been so far. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the warm weather had made the asparagus pop up much earlier than usual. In the first two weeks of harvesting we’ve hauled in over 6 pounds of asparagus. And to an asparagus lover like me, that is a wonderful thing.
My wife and I have done all the usual things with this bonanza of asparagus. One of my favorite ways to cook it is on the grill. You can find my basic recipe here. We’ve had it in a frittata. I’ve sauteed it as a side dish. And last week I stir-fried it with some shrimp, using Norma Chang’s great recipe. I wish I could say I had some photos of the stir fry, but I don’t. You can bet I’ll be making it again this season though!
grilled asparagus (click on any image top enlarge)
While asparagus may be the star of the garden right now, I’m still harvesting plenty of other things – including lettuce, spinach, mache, green garlic and kale. I’m still waiting on Beedy’s Camden kale to bolt. It’s still standing tall, and flowerless, which is pretty amazing given our hot March weather.
compost - a gardener's Brown Gold
One other thing I harvested last week was compost. I dug out 6 bushels of it, spreading some on a bed intended for spring broccoli when the plants are ready. The rest of it I squirreled away for later use. Then I turned the full bin of cooking compost into the now empty one. There’s nothing like forking into a steamy pile of compost to open up your sinuses on a warm day!
full compost bin, after turning
I’ll close with a sign of future (hopefully) harvests. It looks like the mild winter not only left the fig vines alive, but it’s also going to give us an early crop of figs. That will be a first here, since the vines have died back to the ground every year in winter since I planted the figs. Which mean all we’ve ever gotten is a fall crop, usually coming on quite late in the season. It also looks like the Celeste fig is finally going to bear for the first time, and I’m really looking forward to that.
Celeste figs setting on in April
To see what other gardener’s are harvesting, and cooking up with their harvests, visit Daphne’s Dandelions, host of Harvest Mondays.