Recipe - Spring Breakfast Frittata with Asparagus and Ham

To get the recipe, go to my cooking blog, Simple Farmstead Cooking, {here}.

Baby Update!

Here's one of the beautiful little chicks at 1 1/2 weeks old.

Cutest things ever!

Gardening - Asparagus

One of the things I most look forward to in spring is the first taste of asparagus.  For 4-6 weeks we eat asparagus for dinner (grilled, broiled or boiled) as well as for breakfast in a spring Breakfast Frittata.  For relatively little work you can plant a bed that will produce these lovely little stalks year after year.

A well cared for asparagus bed can produce for 15-20 years, therefore, choose the site carefully.  They enjoy full sun - 8 hours a day is optimum.

Planting Prep:
If you can, prepare the garden soil in the fall for spring planting by working in a good amount of compost and well-rotted manure.  Test your soil, asparagus does well with a pH range of 6.5 - 7.5.  Amend as needed.

Planting:
Plant the crowns shortly after purchase to ensure the best success.  You can have success without soaking your crowns, but soaking the crowns in a small batch of compost tea while preparing the beds starts the feeding of the plant.  Dig a long trench for many plants or a single hole for each plant, about 12" deep for the Martha Washington varieties and 6" deep for the Jersey varieties.

Spread a handful of bonemeal and wood ash where each crown will be placed, if available, or a handful of compost.  Space out the crowns 18" apart, carefully spreading out the roots as you place them either in the trench or hole.  Cover each crown with a small amount of soil.

Gradually cover with additional soil as the shoots/ferns emerge.  Keep the bed moist but not wet.

Asparagus does well with parsley and basil.  Asparagus does not do well with members of the onion family.

Upkeep:
Add a layer of compost each spring to the bed.  Keep the soil evenly moist and weed free during the harvest season.  Cover the bed with straw, mulched leaves or grass clippings at the end of the season.  In the fall, cut down the asparagus foliage after it has yellowed.

Harvest:
The first year resist the temptation to pick any spears at all.  {I picked a couple.....ok ok, I picked a few}Instead, let them fern out to promote root growth.

The second year, pick spears more than 3/8" in diameter.

A typical harvest lasts 4-8 weeks.

Harvest the spears by either cutting the crowns just below the soil surface with the knife held parallel to the ground, or by snapping the spear off close to the soil.  I follow the cutting method.  Typically, a tight tip {1st photo} means the spear is tender where a loose tip means it may be woody or stringy.  Try to pick your asparagus every other day.  It's amazing how fast they grow.

Bugs:
This year is the first year I've been infested with the asparagus beetle.  They are tiny {about 1/4" long} and a black-blue with yellow spots.  The beetles and their worm-like gray larvae cause the spears to become misshapen as well as defoliate the plants.  Because I hadn't anticipated their arrival, this year I'm choosing to hand pick them daily.  Next year I'll use a floating row cover in the spring to hopefully discourage the pests.

Storage:
I've had very good luck with storing my cleaned spears in plastic baggies in the vegetable drawer for up to a week.  I've also heard of people storing them upright in jars with a little water in the bottom.

Tuesday's "Three"

Three things I'll be hearing this week:

• 7 baby chicks chirping and 1 frantic mother pecking
• Oliver barking at the school bus in the morning  {he has never authorized it to stop on our road and is oh-so angry about the whole thing}
• the ice machine on the freezer {LOTS of iced drinks this week}

Three things I'll be daydreaming about this week:

• our larger "someday" farm + B&B
• Fall {sorry, don't like the humidity}
• our day trip to Rhode Island next month

Three things I'll be writing about this week on my blog:

• A "So You Want To Raise Chickens" post
• Recipe for Spring Breakfast Frittata
• Tips on Growing Asparagus

Happy Tuesday!!

Weekend

Mama Claire with Babies

 It's so nice to have the extra day on a weekend.  It's amazing how much you can get done!  We didn't go  camping or on vacation we had a work at home "stay-cation".  Saturday began quite humid but {thankfully} lost much of it as the day progressed.  Temp's were in the 80's for the full weekend.

Mama Claire and the 7 babies are doing splendid.  She is such an amazing mother and takes her job very seriously.  I was interrupting a "scratch and peck" lesson Saturday morning and she pecked her little beak so hard the chicks and I all jumped to attention.  The babies then forgot about me and went back to Mama.  I left before I got them in trouble.

Because we are only keeping 5, we have chosen 5 names:  Annabelle, Charlotte, Josephine, Edith and Helen.

Hattie

 The rest of the girls are doing well and enjoyed "helping" me in the yard this weekend.  Hattie was naughty.  She got into one of the garden beds and began plucking bean seedlings.  She couldn't figure out why I was suddenly running toward her and flapping my arms but she took off running in hopes I would stop.  I guess I should have better clarified what I meant by "helping" me.

(l-r) Sam, Wilma, Emma Jean, Lucy Lou, Kathy, Renee, Trudy and Kessa

 As I've mentioned before, my way of rounding them up is to shake the container of freeze-dried mealworms.  The photo above shows them running toward me as I shake it.  They received a very hefty helping of them.

Because it was so warm, there was no hot coffee being served at Cobble Hill this weekend.  Only iced.  It's actually more like coffee milk as it's about 1/2 flavored coffee and 1/2 milk, but it sure is refreshing on a hot afternoon.  I also made a batch of iced tea and coffee syrup to flavor the iced coffee.

The animals stayed inside quite a bit as it was too hot for much of the weekend.  Jackson daydreams of the day I put a collar and leash on him and take him for a walk.  I've thought of it, but I believe it goes much better in my head then it would in real life.

Jay put the menu plan together for breakfasts for the weekend.  For some reason on Friday he had determined exactly what he wanted:  breakfast burritos on Saturday, Eggs Benedict on Sunday and Asparagus and Ham Frittata on Monday.  For lunches we opted for simple sandwiches and grilled for dinner.

By the time Summer is close to ending I long to make dinners that require baking and then by the time Spring rolls around I can't wait to fire up the grill.  I guess it's the same with veggies.  In the winter I can't wait for fresh asparagus and then I crave fresh berries and tomatoes.  Toward the end of summer I can't wait to bake with apples and have winter squash with my meals.  Funny how our bodies naturally go with the season.

Hoping you all are having a wonderful weekend too!

Thank you to all who are reading this who have served in the military.  Happy Memorial Day!

Almost Octo-Mom

That's our "Mama Claire".  One chick shy of being an Octo-Mom.

Last night we brought the chicks out to see if Mama Claire and Little Lizzie were truly interested in motherhood or if they were using broodiness as an excuse to take a break from egg laying.  Turns out Little Lizzie (photo below) is on egg laying hiatus and has no desire to explore motherhood.  Mama Claire, on the other hand, willingly and happily took the five I originally offered her and then the two Lizzie violently rejected.

Lizzie growled, howled, and pecked the adorable little puff balls before I quickly swooped them out of her reach.  I tried putting them under her and she kicked them out.

She clearly wanted nothing to do with the job she was given.

So, Mama Claire and the 7 chicks are doing very well in their cage that we've placed in the coop.  When she eats, them come scurrying out to eat with her.  When she drinks, they drink.  They jump all over her like she's a playground toy and she sits patiently, enduring all the childish games.  What a wonderful girl!

An Adorable Little Thing Or Two .....

.....our new chicks.  Aren't they just the sweetest things?  We have 7 Red Sex-link chicks (2 are for a friend, so technically we have 5).  Just brought them home tonight.  We've got them in the house for tonight but tomorrow we're going to try convincing Mama Claire and Little Lizzie (both currently broody) that they would like to raise them.  I've never tried it before so I'm not sure it will work but we'll give it a go - watching constantly, of course, in case things turn bad.

I just had to share!