Then one day I saw them. And I remembered why last years picking was so dismal. These annoying little black bugs with red wings eat the spears for lunch and laid eggs on the stalks! They were back!!! I found them a few weeks ago. I yanked the afflicted stakes hoping that would throw them off the scent...but to no avail.
My facebook page for this blog turned out to be just as much for my help as it was for others. My friend Shelley posted a simple solution for getting rid of pests organically. Dish soap! We added some to a spray bottle and doctored the asparagus patch for a few consecutive days.
Bam. Like that. Well not quite that dramatic, but it seemed like we were back in the asparagus business.
I celebrated with one of my favorite reasons to grow asparagus. You can make those hoity-toity omlettes you pay big bucks for in restaurants.
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| Asparagus makes a triumphant return to our table! |
Omlette:
2 egg omlette with 1% milk, Stirling butter and Wilton cheese.
Asparagus steamed (over my son's hard boiling eggs no less! Can I say I reused the steam?)
Moors & Christians:
1 can of black beans, fried in 2 tbsp veg oil, 1/4 cup of diced white onions, 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, 1juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/4 tsp cumin, S & P
Side:
Wild and brown rice mix and fresh garden spinach, with fresh, local, hot house tomatoes on top!
I love the eggs and the rice together. I love the blend of cool and hot flavours to savour. The rice and beans remind me of my sister's wedding in Costa Rica. The tomatoes and spinach make me feel proud of my garden. So much emotions on one plate! Thank goodness it was too delicious to be too sentimental. In addition, this meal (minus the beans and the rice) has a realitvely small carbon foot print (meaning most of the ingredients came from VERY close to my home, making less carbon to get to my plate) and it generated almost NO garbage. The bulk of the waste was composted here, with the expection of the metal beans can and the plastic bag from the rice that will both get recycled. Gastronomically healthy to boot!
I also wanted a chance to explain my disappointments in the garden and (in this case) my triumph over pests. My garden is pretty organic considering all I actively do water with cached rain and weeding manually. I don't spray or treat my garden in any way. I prefer to let nature take its course. Its hard not to get protective on something you've watched grow from seed, but bugs gotta eat too right? So thank you to Shelley for helping me keep my garden from becoming a radioactive test site. (I was tempted, I really do love me some asparagus!)
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