first grilling of the season [3024x3024 - 1MB]

[–] • 4 pts

Would

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[–] • 1 pt

Should

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[–] • 3 pts

So glad I live down in TX, we've been grilling for a couple months now.

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[–] • 3 pts

(edited )

If you aren't already growing your own, put some asparagus in the backyard. Store-bought is never, ever going to be as good as just cut asparagus. Like peas or corn, it starts converting the sugars to starch as soon as you cut it.

Growing it is pretty easy. You plant rhizomes a few inches down, in a prepared bed. (Churn it up and put some compost in, or just pile raised bed soil into it.) Do this in the early fall, before your hard freezes start. In the spring, it will start sending up green shoots. Leave them alone. Just let them grow wild, it will make a weird alien forest. At the end of the year, when it sprouts berries and turns straw yellow, cut it all down. You're supposed to get about a 1/2 lbs of asparagus from every square foot you plant. Leave them alone for two, maybe 3 years, clearing them out when the tops die off in the fall. (Don't dig at the roots, not if you aren't absolutely sure of what you are doing.) You can mulch them real heavy, and that should help keep the grass and weeds from invading. That third or fourth year, cut them at the ground pretty much every day, no less than every other day. You want them when they are about a foot high, but before they "frond" (which is when they start growing little branches from the leafy things at the top.) Once they frond, they are woody and no good to eat. They grow STUPID fast, which is why you have to be out there every day. By the second day, sometimes they've already fronded and are a couple of feet high. You just keep harvesting ALL of them until around May, maybe June (depending on how early your climate lets them come up) and then you just let them go wild again for the rest of the summer. Every summer it will store enough food in the roots to come up again in the Spring. Here's the magic part. Once you are in that cycle, it will keep producing for at least 15 years, and sometimes 30 years. You plant it ONCE, and then it keeps giving you food for 20 years. (They are great raw when you first pick them. I'll eat a spear or two while harvesting.)

If you aren't already growing your own, put some asparagus in the backyard. Store-bought is never, ever going to be as good as just cut asparagus. Like peas or corn, it starts converting the sugars to starch as soon as you cut it. Growing it is pretty easy. You plant rhizomes a few inches down, in a prepared bed. (Churn it up and put some compost in, or just pile raised bed soil into it.) Do this in the early fall, before your hard freezes start. In the spring, it will start sending up green shoots. Leave them alone. Just let them grow wild, it will make a weird alien forest. At the end of the year, when it sprouts berries and turns straw yellow, cut it all down. You're supposed to get about a 1/2 lbs of asparagus from every square foot you plant. Leave them alone for two, maybe 3 years, clearing them out when the tops die off in the fall. (Don't dig at the roots, not if you aren't absolutely sure of what you are doing.) You can mulch them real heavy, and that should help keep the grass and weeds from invading. That third or fourth year, cut them at the ground pretty much every day, no less than every other day. You want them when they are about a foot high, but before they "frond" (which is when they start growing little branches from the leafy things at the top.) Once they frond, they are woody and no good to eat. They grow STUPID fast, which is why you have to be out there every day. By the second day, sometimes they've already fronded and are a couple of feet high. You just keep harvesting ALL of them until around May, maybe June (depending on how early your climate lets them come up) and then you just let them go wild again for the rest of the summer. Every summer it will store enough food in the roots to come up again in the Spring. Here's the magic part. Once you are in that cycle, it will keep producing for at least 15 years, and sometimes 30 years. You plant it ONCE, and then it keeps giving you food for 20 years. (They are great raw when you first pick them. I'll eat a spear or two while harvesting.)

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[–] • 2 pts

>Store-bought is never, ever going to be as good as just cut asparagus.

Second that, especially if the asparagus has been imported. I used to run the QC department for a produce importer. At least half the stuff coming in was fumigated before being released to our company.

I wouldn't even touch that stuff without wearing gloves, much less consume it !

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[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

@Frosty hidden gem of asparagus advice

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[–] • 1 pt

The real advice is that we all need to grow at least some of our food. If you don't want to garden as a full on hobby, I get it, but an asparagus bed, an herb garden and some blackberry or blueberry bushes are something that anyone with a backyard can do.

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[–] • 2 pts

Looks great and perfect combination.

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[–] • 2 pts

I was a little rusty on the charcoal grill. dumped the charcoal chimney too early and the grill wound up not being as hot as I would have liked. left the steak on longer to compensate and it got medium well done. still very juicy and very tasty. got two more in the freezer, maybe I'll post those cut up when I cook 'em.