Harvesting My First Asparagus
I harvested my first asparagus last week. I have a few asparagus plants in the front foundation border because the ferns add such great texture to the garden. Each spring I harvest a few spears from these plants.
I started a proper asparagus bed last spring so I can’t harvest any of those this year. I can’t wait until my proper asparagus bed is producing, we really love asparagus.
In fact we love asparagus so much I’m considering doubling the size of my asparagus bed. I think it’s one of my favorite spring vegetables and I don’t see it at the farmer’s market very often. We love eating it sauteed or roasted and drizzled with olive oil and some freshly ground pepper.
Do you grow asparagus in your garden? What’s your favorite way to eat it?
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Quote of the Day: Rand B. Lee
Needless to say, a five by five foot plot of sweet corn is not going to feed many people for very long. But that is not why urban backyard gardeners create such things.
They create such things to remind themselves that once the world was a soil world, a bee world, a bird world and a seed world, not the concrete thing it has become.
Rand B. Lee (Pleasures of the Cottage Garden)
We live in a technology saturated society surrounded by flat images. So often we spend our time looking at photos or watching movies instead of getting out and enjoying the real thing. I garden because I like to step away from my computer and get out into the soil, bird, bee and seed world.
Do you garden to help balance out the concrete world we live in?
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Garden Harvests
I forgot to mention a few weeks ago when I harvested my first salad from the garden. My spinach that I tried to overwinter didn’t make it so I wasn’t harvesting in February like I was last year. Last year my first harvest was in February, this year it was over a month later on March 17.
I harvested a salad of mache (corn salad), dandelion greens and garlic mustard. The funny thing is that I didn’t plant any of these. The mache seeded itself from a few plants that went to seed last spring. It’s growing around the edges of the raised beds and in the walkways around the raised beds. It overwintered without any protection whatsoever in the garden.
The garlic mustard is an invasive weed that we have lots of, good thing it’s edible! And dandelions, well we all have those, might as well eat them, they’re super healthy. We really loves salads, so we’ve been enjoying a few each week thanks to all of our “wild” plants. There’s nothing better than eating things you didn’t plant!
One of the things I really want to work on this year is winter gardening. I am currently reading Eliot Coleman’s newest book The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses. I’m hoping to use some of his techniques and have a nice harvest of greens throughout the winter.
Are you harvesting anything yet? Do you practice any cold weather techniques?
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Potatoes Coming out my Ears
Come this fall I may have potatoes coming out my ears based on the amount I’ve planted so far this spring. I do love potatoes, they’re versatile, quick, delicious and healthy. So I decided since they’re supposed to be the most productive plant for the garden space they take up it would be worthwhile to plant a lot of potatoes. Another great thing about potatoes is that they don’t require any processing for storage (besides proper conditions).
According to The Worlds Healthiest Foods:
Potatoes are a very good source of vitamin C, a good source of vitamin B6, copper, potassium, manganese, and dietary fiber.
Potatoes also contain a variety of phytonutrients that have antioxidant activity. Among these important health-promoting compounds are carotenoids, flavonoids, and caffeic acid, as well as unique tuber storage proteins, such as patatin, which exhibit activity against free radicals. Read this article for in depth info about the healthfulness of potatoes.
My sister and I decided to split a potato sampler from Seed Savers this year. We got 2.5 lbs of 8 different varieties of potatoes to try. This is what we received:
La Ratta: Long prized by French chefs as a top quality fingerling. We cannot recommend this variety highly enough, an absolute delight to cook with. Long uniform tubers, yellow flesh with firm, waxy texture and a nice nutty flavor, holds together very well. Especially good for potato salad or as a boiled potato. Commands a high price both in the restaurant and fresh market trade. 100-120 days.
French Fingerling: This is a wonderful variety! The rose-colored skin covers its creamy yellow flesh. Very versatile and good for any style of preparation. Peeling is not necessary or recommended. Rumored to have been smuggled to America in a horse’s feedbag in the 1800s. 90-110 days.
All Blue: Deep blue skin, blue flesh with a thin white line just under the skin. A good choice for baking and frying, nice for making colorful chips. When boiled the color turns to a light blue. High mineral content, good keeper. 90-110 days.
All Red: (a.k.a. Cranberry Red) Red skin with delicate pale pink flesh. Low starch content makes this variety a good boiling potato for salads or any dish that requires potatoes to retain their shape. Considered the best producing red-fleshed, red-skinned variety. Introduced to SSE members by Robert Lobitz in 1984. Consistently a good producer at Heritage Farm, regardless of the weather conditions. 90-110 days.
Carola: Our most popular variety. Heavy yields of medium-sized, rounded oval potatoes with straw-beige skin. Excellent when harvested as young new potatoes. Creamy yellow flesh, relatively low starch, great for soups, boiling or fried. Maintains new potato qualities for months in root cellar. 95 days.
Purple Viking: Quickly gaining the reputation of a great tasting, slightly sweet, general purpose potato. A choice variety for any preparation , snow-white flesh is excellent for mashing. Average tubers are 3½ – 4″ in diameter, but in a good year it can produce even larger tubers. Excellent storage qualities. 80-100 days.
Red Gold: Bred by Ag-Canada at the University of Guelph in 1970. Beautiful reddish orange skin with creamy, golden-yellow, semi-moist flesh. Excellent variety for baking, frying, mashing, steaming or roasting. Good disease resistance, best used fresh, not recommended for extended storage. 90-100 days.
Yukon Gold: A favorite among gardeners, consumers and chefs. Delicious flesh is drier than most other yellow varieties, perfect for baking and mashing. Yellow flesh appears to be buttered. Bred and selected by AgCanada and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food in 1966. Excellent yields and a great keeper. 80-90 days.
I spent Wednesday at my mom’s again this week planting most of these potatoes. If you remember last week we planted Yukon Gold and Kennebec potatoes. I’m hoping to have a pantry full of potatoes this fall. This year is a trial run of trying these varieties. I’ll probably narrow it down to a few different kinds next year.
Do you grow potatoes in your garden? Do you have a favorite kind?
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A Day in the Garden
My mom has nice soil and a nice open sunny area in her back yard with a traditional rowed garden (here’s her garden last summer). She’s been generous enough to increase the garden each year to let me grow sun loving crops in exchange for some seeds, plants and work. On Wednesday I went to my mom’s house and we spent a day getting the garden ready for the season. She covers her garden with a tarp over the winter to protect the soil and to keep the weed seeds out. We uncovered the garden and went to work amending the soil a bit and planting a few early crops.
Traditionally here in Ohio you plant peas and potatoes on St Patrick’s day. It was too cold on that holiday and it’s been pretty wet this spring, so we’ve been waiting for the weather to break to start planting. We spent the entire day getting the garden ready and then planting 8 rows of peas and 4 rows of potatoes and some onions. We follow a more intensive planting system so we plant wider rows of plants instead of single rows with walkways in between. In the walkways we’re planning on adding stepping stones and lower growing plants to make even better use of the space, perhaps beets, chamomile, and other low growing herbs.
We planted peas and potatoes for the freezer and the pantry. I’m hoping for a good pea harvest so I can enjoy lots of peas in our winter stews and a pantry full of potatoes to eat on all winter. What varieties did we plant?
Wando peas: 68 days, produces good yields of 3 ½” long sweet peas. Pods have 6 to 8 dark green peas. A remarkable high quality variety that is resistant to warm weather and drought conditions. The Wando Pea will grow a crop during the driest, hottest summer months, at a time other varieties fail. High in Vitamin A, B, and C. Excellent freezing and canning variety. Vines are 26″ tall.
Kennebec Potatoes: a late maturing white potato variety. An excellent one for fries; chips; baking or hashbrowns.
Yukon Gold Potatoes: A favorite among gardeners, consumers and chefs. Delicious flesh is drier than most other yellow varieties, perfect for baking and mashing. Yellow flesh appears to be buttered. Bred and selected by AgCanada and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food in 1966. Excellent yields and a great keeper. 80-90 days.
What are you planting right now?
