Wednesday 19 May 2021

Grubs Up

 



I don't often feature cooked food from the allotment but in this case I didn't think to take a photo before cooking it. 

Asparagus has been a long standing aspiration. 

My first attempt sunk without trace. Foolishly I repeated the error by buying "autumn planted" hands for a second time.  From 18 plants I got three that survived their first winter.  In a way I was lucky because it was one of each variety.  I expected them to be killed by the cold last winter so these pickings are a bonus. My insurance last year was to grow some Connivers Collosal from seeds myself.  Sadly these remained miniscule and only 4 have made it through the winter on site.  Meanwhile one of the older plants has started producing harvestable shoots, the first home grown asparagus.  As a result I am not (yet) abandoning the whole project.  


9 comments:

  1. I think the first ones of anything are so special. When I first read the title, I thought Grub (larva), of the beetle superfamily Scarabaeoidea. Joke's on me. Yum to you.

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    1. Yes it was a bit fly. There is also 'grubbing up' where plants are pulled up by the roots, which is maybe what I should have done, given the meagre yield!

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    2. Grin. There is also grubby as in clothes (after gardening?)

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    3. Ha Ha! And when it comes to blogging: Grub Street was a London street, noted by Dr Johnson as “much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems”

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  2. I immediately thought of little white grubs not asparagus. I notice Beechgrove grow all their asparagus in a polytunnel but I'm guessing that yours isn't so lucky so you are doing well to get anything at all.

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    1. As it happens there is an "asparagus beetle" that specialises on asparagus. Hopefully I will never get the chance to meet it.

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  3. Asparagus is one plant that we have never tried to grow, although we did have a couple of plants green for the fern to use with flowers when that was popular in flower arrangements

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    1. I agree that the ferns are impressive - later in the year.

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  4. Mmm, looks delish. We do love asparagus but have never grown it; unfortunately our allotment site has an impressive amount of asparagus beetles - they look good, but...

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