Wild Asparagus

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salt and pepper

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Picked a bunch today. Amazing how fast they grow over night. Trimmed and blanched.

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I love asparagus with big heads on them. There is so much more flavor in them than those skinny sickly looking ones in the stores. Send me a big plate please! :angel:
 
Jealous. I currently have one pathetic and skinny asparagus stalk growing here.
 
Nice. We used to pick tons of wild asparagus along the irrigation ditches in southern Idaho.

We're having the first half-dozen stalks from the garden tonight...with garlic and morels in a cream sauce over pasta.
 
Now you just stop that, Bookbrat! Or I'll hit you with my pathetic skinny asparagus spear!

Mmm. Morels.
 
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Dawglover--I am eating a lot of asparagus...ours is 10 days early...usually it doesn't come up until around the 15th. Asparagus grows 6-8 inches A DAY. After it is picked, it grows approximately 1/4" overnight in the fridge. Tomorrow I am test driving 3 recipes that use asparagus, including roasting it and dressing it with lemon-rosemary butter to go with baked rainbow trout. FWIW, wild and cultivated asparagus are genetically the same. I love asparagus. Since our season started early, we got a bonus--instead of 6 weeks, we will be harvesting asparagus for almost 8 weeks (cut off date is July 1 / 4) so that it can go to seed.
 
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Dawglover--I am eating a lot of asparagus...ours is 10 days early...usually it doesn't come up until around the 15th. Asparagus grows 6-8 inches A DAY. After it is picked, it grows approximately 1/4" overnight in the fridge. Tomorrow I am test driving 3 recipes that use asparagus, including roasting it and dressing it with lemon-rosemary butter to go with baked rainbow trout. FWIW, wild and cultivated asparagus are genetically the same. I love asparagus. Since our season started early, we got a bonus--instead of 6 weeks, we will be harvesting asparagus for almost 8 weeks (cut off date is July 1 / 4) so that it can go to seed.

I learned that when I was working with the 4-H kids. They had to go out and find "wild" asparagus and make several dishes with it. As one of the official tasters, it was such a difficult chore to do.

When I lived in Spanaway, WA. across the street was a little church. It had maybe 50 members. That church had a lot going on outside more so than inside. A swarm of bees decided to set up home in the steeple. Honey for all the members. Then daffodils went wild and the church was surrounded with them along with wild asparagus. That church looked so pretty with several hundred daffodils in full bloom. And each year there would be more and more. Eventually they did have to thin them out. A feast for the eyes and the tummy of members and ME! That little church was right in the path of the right winds carrying seeds from plants all around the neighborhood. I mentioned to the pastor one time that even the bees were creatures of God. "Oh yes, but with the sting of the Devil." was the answer I got back. Each year they had a bee specialist come in and collect the honey. But I can still see the large heads on the asparagus and how good they tasted.

At the end of the street was a prairie and the Scotch Broom would come into bloom. Unfortunately for me I was allergic to it. But it was so pretty when the whole prairie was all yellow when in full bloom.

Poo was about three years old and had learned to open the door. He headed for the prairie which was quite tall with growth. I could hear him crying, but when I tried to go into the Scotch Broom, I started to cough and sneeze. I had to call the sheriff to go in and get him. That was his last trip out the door on his own. :angel:
 
Dawglover--I am eating a lot of asparagus...ours is 10 days early...usually it doesn't come up until around the 15th. Asparagus grows 6-8 inches A DAY. After it is picked, it grows approximately 1/4" overnight in the fridge. Tomorrow I am test driving 3 recipes that use asparagus, including roasting it and dressing it with lemon-rosemary butter to go with baked rainbow trout. FWIW, wild and cultivated asparagus are genetically the same. I love asparagus. Since our season started early, we got a bonus--instead of 6 weeks, we will be harvesting asparagus for almost 8 weeks (cut off date is July 1 / 4) so that it can go to seed.
I don't consider it wild as much as feral asparagus. :LOL:
 
Well, a couple of beetles of a type I've never seen before totally decimated my one scrawny asparagus spear. I googled asparagus beetle, and I figure that's what they were.

Common Asparagus Beetles | Garden Gate Magazine

I am all to familiar with those guys. Keep an eye out for the larvae stuck to the sides of the stalks. I would squeeze the stalk and run my hand up the stalk where those egg sacks are. That was all it would to take to stop the eggs from developing. Keep at it or you will have more next year.
 
I am all to familiar with those guys. Keep an eye out for the larvae stuck to the sides of the stalks. I would squeeze the stalk and run my hand up the stalk where those egg sacks are. That was all it would to take to stop the eggs from developing. Keep at it or you will have more next year.


Thanks Beth. It's going in the garbage, not the compost. Just have never seen them here before.

Hoping to get more than one spear!
 
Thanks Beth. It's going in the garbage, not the compost. Just have never seen them here before.

Hoping to get more than one spear!

Gee, they are pretty little critters.

Spike found me the perfect bunch of asparagus at the store this morning. Nice thick stalks with fat heads. :angel:
 
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One of the sides I made today was roasted (400 F for about 10-12 minutes, depending on how done you want it) tossed with EVOO, salt, pepper, and parm (only about 1 tsp because I only was roasting 12 stalks) on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Topped with lemon butter (2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice, 1 Tbsp of lemon zest, 4 Tbsp soft butter). Delish.
 
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