Asparagus season in the Ardèche

So juicy and full of flavour. If you come round, I’ll be serving this for dinner for the next eight weeks. After a slowish start we are now in asparagus production mode.

I picked so many asparagus spears today that I ran out of room in the bag, so I had to stuff them into my pocket. I use a fly fisherman’s jacket (gilet) to hold all my tools in this peak gardening weeding and sorting season.  And the deep pockets are perfect for spears.

You may recall I had two bags of compost which were left over from my last purchase. They went on the step garden.  Were I stronger, I would have hauled them all the way up to this top potager, because this asaragus bed is not an aesthetic treat. Not by a long shot.

I had mulched it heavily with grass cuttings last autumn and it did a good job over winter.  But now I yearn for something a bit neater and a way to differentiate the just emerging spears from our not so good sandy soil.

In fact walking up here to the top of the farm is a bit of a plod. One is rewarded with the spears of course.

But you don’t gaze on mulched potatoes and clover green manure paths and take a sharp breath of delight.  This is definitely the poor relation in the vegetable garden looks department.

But thank goodness it’s productive.

Now where is my sharp knife for cutting more spears. You have to cut to keep up.