Good Things Grow

I am stuffed full of local Ontario goodness this week. In addition to the asparagus orgy, we've been eating fiddleheads, ramps, green onions, red mustard, rhubarb, eggs, and smoked bacon to name a few. The smoked bacon and the mustard greens came from Wheelbarrow Farm, one of the market venders at the Sorauren Market. Tony raises heritage breeds of pigs as well as organic veggies and if bacon can taste happy, this definitely does!

Things are growing on the home farm too. The beans are up! At least the green beans so far, no sign of the yellow or edamame yet but I'm confident it won't long now.

The potatoes are growing in leaps and bounds- I've added more soil to the pail twice now.

I also got some wild garlic plants from Forbes Wild Foods at the market- apparently wild garlic will grow anywhere so I'm testing tht theory by giving it a spot at the base of the big tree of heaven, where little grows now except rubekia.

I have two identifiable volunteers in the garden this year courtesy of the compost again I assume. The first is a pea of unknown parentage- I hadn't planted any this year at all.

Also a member of the brassica family has emerged and again I'm in the dark about which kind since I've yet to plant any. It picked a nice sunny spot that I hadn't allocated to any thing else so it gets to stay, at least until I figure out what it it!


The first round of tomatoes went in the ground last Friday and seem to be happy so far. I planted a brandywine, a big orange stripe, two opalkas and a black brandywine so far.

I still have quite a few on the deck awaiting a spot- several more will go in the garden and the rest in containers. My peppers are coming along slowly but should be ready to go in containers soon as well.

The potted herbs are coming along nicely and I have basil ready to go in the tomato containers as soon as I get to them.



Speaking of which, I have new plan for maximizing my container gardens- it's still a work in progress and I have a few kinks to work out but I'm hoping to get it started this weekend and will post more once I do.



I finally got to make the asapargus soup I mentioned in the previous post and it was absolutely heavenly. Mine didn't look quite as professional as Jamie Oliver's but I'm pretty sure it tasted as delicious. So good in fact that I'm currently cooking a pot of asparagus ends (left over from last night's canning class) to save as stock for future batches. Since there's no milk products in this recipe it will freeze perfectly and we can enjoy asparagus soup all next winter.

Finally!

Yep, that's local Ontario asparagus at long last! Along with some fresh free range eggs I picked up with the idea of making this lovely recipe from Jamie Oliver. Except we ate every stick of it already; steamed, sauteed in butter, in omlettes and with pasta. Asparagus for breakfast, lunch and dinner- this is how I ended up with kidney stones one year! Now that I know that I need to double up on my water intake to flush the excess calcium oxalate (also found in most dark green veggies), I'll eat it till I'm sick of it! I picked up some more at the Sorauren market today and tomorrow I'm teaching a canning workshop using my pickled asparagus and fiddleheads recipe. I'm going to make that soup yet and I still need to freeze some for next winter too.

Is there anything better than fresh locally grown asparagus?

(It was worth the wait.)