Asparagus Ideas, Tips & Guides

Black Vegetables are often overlooked in the traditional garden palette. They have a unique color due to the anthocyanins, a powerful antioxidant that is known to have numerous health benefits.

Why Is My Asparagus Thin? Tips for Growing Thick Spears

When and How to Harvest Asparagus

From the deep blossoms of eggplants to the surprising hue in the artichoke flowers, these vegetables with purple flowers are a must-have for a contrasting garden!

As 2023 winds down and gardening activities slow down a bit, what else is there to do but dream of what we can achieve in 2024?! Like every year, we’re keen on following top gardening trends to help you grow the garden of your dreams.

The growing trend of Shower Plants is gaining popularity, and it’s easy to see why! Thriving in the high humidity of a bathroom, these plants enhance the space visually and make it more luxe and lively. Plus, they’re low-maintenance.

Worcestershire provides some of the country’s loveliest scenery. With the Cotswolds to the south-east, the Malverns and the Shropshire Hills to the west and several notable rivers, including the Avon, the Severn and Teme running through it, this is a fertile, bucolic landscape that’s perfect for exploration and very conducive to agriculture. 

When choosing plants for office with no windows, selecting varieties that thrive in low-light conditions is essential. These flourish in limited light, offering a lush, green ambiance to boost your mood, purify the air, and create a more pleasant and productive workspace!

What are terrarium plants?

Inspire yourself from the tutorials below to create beautiful hanging planters for your beloved pothos plants; you can also house other similar indoor plants like philodendron or asparagus ferns.

From the elegance of sedge to the intricate patterns of mondo, these plants offer a luxurious green touch to any interior. Curious to transform your home into an indoor oasis complete with grass-like textures and vibrant hues? Keep scrolling to discover the best Indoor Grass Plants!

Terrariums are extremely popular as they provide greenery and freshness indoors without occupying much space. These Best Plants for Terrariums are vibrant, unique, colorful, and eye-catching to uplift any space of your home in a fun way.

Basil is one of the easiest herbs to grow in the vegetable garden, herb garden, or kitchen window. The highly aromatic basil leaves protect other plants from pests and attract pollinators as well. The basil plant also prevents insects like Japanese beetles, bean beetles, and worms. Instead of requiring protection, basil helps its neighboring plants. Let’s have a look at the Basil Companion Plants. 

One of the new things I am trying to grow this year is agretti, Salsola soda. It’s a big hit with chefs, but still new on the UK food scene and virtually untried in British gardens.

Get ready for launch, it’s time for the latest edition of Gardeners off World!

Hot off the presses, I have a garden plan for 2017. It’s not set in stone – last year’s got changed around during the season a bit due to unexpected arrivals and departures – but I have a guideline for what I’m hoping to achieve in the garden next year. 2017 will be the first year in which I start the year with all 12 raised beds in the garden built and available for planting. We still need to finish the margins of the back garden, and there are plenty of plants in pots that need permanent homes. We planted the front garden this year, and there are only minor additions to make to that.

My parents are coming to visit today, to ‘see the garden’ (which is probably just a convenient excuse for them to visit). I am a little apprehensive – not least because it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop raining all day. We were going to have a barbecue; we’ve thought better of it.

When the sun shone on Saturday morning, and the rain promised to delay until midday, we hatched a plan to build two more of the raised beds in the garden. One half of the garden – 6 beds – was completed last year, leaving 6 more to go. We don’t have space for them all until we take the old shed down, but we found room for two next to Ryan’s workshop.

Like new potatoes and asparagus, giant American marshmallows are clearly in season at the moment – they’re appearing in all the shops. We spotted them in our local garden centre (!) and, fresh from the success of our inaugural marshmallow toasting, we thought we’d set ourselves a challenge and see whether we could repeat it with something considerably larger.

Over the last Bank Holiday weekend I got a little over-ambitious with the outdoor cooking, given that we still only have the small bucket bbq to cook on. For some reason I decided it was time to try a three-course lunch.

Clearly we didn’t learn our lesson from our first slightly overambitious bbq meal, because last weekend we found ourselves with another 3-course meal to book on the little bucket bbq.

Our veg box delivery last week brought us a bunch of asparagus, so we put it to one side to see how well we could cook it on the bbq.

We’ve got a while yet before we get to the eagerly awaited and short-lived British asparagus season. This year it falls after the equally eagerly awaited and short-lived, but far less healthy, Easter Egg season. You can expect British asparagus to be in season from the end of April through until June. I planted some wild asparagus from crowns three years ago, and cultivated asparagus plants two ago, and so this year I’m hoping we can harvest our first home-grown spears!

I haven’t been feeling well this week, so in lieu of eating food, I have been reading about it. A while ago, whilst I was pondering what a resilient UK garden would look like, blog reader Audrey asked me if I had read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which is somewhat of a classic in the local good genre. I hadn’t, so I bought a secondhand copy and started reading.

With copper-colored wings and an emerald head, the Japanese beetle is pretty, but devastating.

If you want to add natural beauty indoors with the perfect combination of colors, then check out these really amazing Pictures of the Best Foliage Plants for Containers!

Why blanch vegetables before freezing? Blanching vegetables before freezing is critical to quality, but not safety. Blanching is scalding vegetables in boiling water or steam for a short time. It is typically followed by quick, thorough cooling in very cold or ice water. Blanching stops enzyme actions which otherwise cause a loss of flavor, color, and texture. In addition, blanching removes some surface dirt and microorganisms, brightens color, and helps slow vitamin losses. It also wilts greens, softens some vegetables, such as broccoli and asparagus, and makes them easier to pack. It is critical to use the correct blanching time for the size and type of vegetable (see table below). Under-blanching stimulates enzyme activity and is worse than not blanching. Over-blanching leads to partial cooking and causes loss of flavor, color, vitamins, and minerals.

Have you ever seen a century plant bloom? If not, put it on your horticultural bucket list! Century plant is a common name for a number of species of agave (Agave sp.), usually Agave americana in South Carolina. Most agaves are monocarpic, meaning that an individual plant only flowers once in its life and then dies. In fact, the name “century plant” is a much-exaggerated reference to the long time it takes for the plant to flower. In SC, agaves generally require 10 to 15 years to grow large enough to bloom.

Asparagus is known for its unique, savory taste and is a good source of folate, vitamin K, iron, and fiber. This makes it valuable during pregnancy and means it can contribute to heart health and the prevention of osteoporosis. Asparagus can be green, white, or purple.

COVID-19 has taken the world by surprise, and many people around the world have had to slow or shut things down in recent times. While many folks are working from home, one group of people who cannot are our farmers. Our farmers here in South Carolina have been working and are continuing to work each day so that the world’s food supply and our food supply here in South Carolina remains constant.

Wild or false indigo (Baptisia species) is the perfect Mother’s Day gift, whether your Mom is a newbie, seasoned green-thumber, or someone who simply enjoys flowers that come back year after year around Mother’s Day. These gorgeous herbaceous perennials are native to the eastern U.S. and comprise 20 species and naturally occurring hybrids that produce spikes of pealike flowers that come in blue, white, yellow, purple, and pink.

Spring has officially sprung here in South Carolina. While we are all familiar with the term “spring cleaning” when it comes to our homes, there is another aspect of our lives that could use some decluttering: our eating habits. By implementing these simple nutrition tips, we not only improve our health but also improve the environment and our communities.

To enter to win a copy, simply scroll down to the comments and tell us how you like your spears. Type a whole recipe right into the comment box, or just a link to a recipe on your blog or another’s, or perhaps a tip instead about what you like asparagus served with (Anna says dill and lemon come to mind, for starters).The backstory: I met Anna Thomas when “Love Soup” came out last fall, and promptly stocked my freezer with double batches of several of her recipes made from my winter squash and sweet potatoes and kale and the like, and stocked up on copies to give as holiday gifts. Now a whole new season of homegrown vegetables has begun, and I’m working my way through “Chapter 9: First Tastes of Spring,” and on to “Chapter 10: Green and Greener.” Heaven. Vats of Asparagus Bisque, here I come.Thismust-have cookbook features 160 vegetarian recipes for soups and all the extras, from b

I already sowed my first short rows of salad greens and arugula, one in the coldframe and one in open ground. The protected ones are up; I’ll repeat the modest sowings in open ground every 10 days or two weeks all season long, a little bit at a time, for a continuous bowl of greens. This is how I sow salad stuff.My seed potatoes—which is what small potatoes for planting are called—should be arriving before long, and will go into the garden late this month. How I plant potatoes.My asparagus bed

On her website, or her extremely popular Instagram account @AlexandraCooks, and her YouTube channel, Ali Stafford is always teaching. It could be a technique that provides the aha we need to unlock the secret to a recipe, or how to use the best of-the-moment recipe ingredients in inspired combinations, especially vegetables and herbs. And if you haven’t tried her no-knead bread recipe that’s the foundation of her cookbook, “Bread Toast Crumbs,” well, you need to.Learn ways to dress up roasted asparagus, an asparagus risotto recipe and a raw asparagus salad, too, among other delicious ideas, and even how to grow it. The hardest thing about that: the wait, until it’s ready for its first harvest.Plus: Enter to win a copy of the book by commenting at the bottom of the page.Read along as you listen to

As a kid, I wasn’t a huge fan of asparagus, but now I can’t get enough of it.The reason? There weren’t any aspa