It's Asparagus/Rhubarb Season!

It's early spring in NJ. The weather is unpredictable, and tomatoes are months away. What's a gardener to do to keep up their spirits?

Plant perrenial veggies of course!

Asparagus, Rhubarb and Egyption (walking) Onions are perrenial vegetables that you plant once and get YEARS of abundance out of.

In my case, I didn't even do the work of planting my asparagus and rhubarb patches, they were already there when I moved into my house. I did plant Egyption Onions that I received from a local freecycler.

After a couple of years of abundant asparagus harvests, the past two years have seen more sparce harvests. I think some of the local wildlife may have developed a tast for the tender shoots which I thought only appealed to the human population. But the patch is big and the stems are sparce with lots of space in between, so I think it may be time to re-plant some roots as well.

My favorite application for asparagus is broiling or grilling after tossing in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Cook until the shoots are starting to lightly caremelize...and STUFF yourself!

The rhubarb is always more prolific than I can get my family to consume...so I generally freeze some, make strawberry/rhubarb jam, and give it away to friends who are not as lucky as I.
This year, however, is the YEAR OF RHUBARB" and my patch is producing the biggest, most succulent stems I have ever seen! On saturday I harvested the first cutting - somewhere between 10-20 lbs of stems.

If you've never seen/used rhubarb, let me start by saying NEVER NEVER eat the leaves they are poisonous to humans. If you look for rhubarb in a store, it looks like reddish giant stalks of celery, because the leaves have been removed for your safety.

Rhubarb, although actually a vegetable (seeds outside the plant), is used almost exclusively like a fruit, and is sometimes referred to as "the fruit plant". It is tart - almost lemony - and although wonderful by itself, makes any fruit you pair it with taste more like itself.

The classic combo is of course, stawberry/rhubarb pie, which I have never made. The closest I've come to this is making jam...and it is WONDERFUL!
I have paired rhubarb with blueberries and peaches for dessert applications; made sauces with it; and made a lemonade variation with it.

Perennial veggies are the best part of being a gardener in the spring; when you're putting in all of the work for your mid- and late-summer reward and are feeling like you just can't wait for harvest time, you don't have to - you can enjoy the freshness of a spring harvest that comes to you year after year, with only a little nurturing in between!