Wild Garlic Focaccia

As anyone with even a vague interest in wild food knows, spring is the season for wild garlic - a pungent wild allium which grows in woodlands, and which has become very popular in recent years. A couple of weeks ago, I was out walking and found a vast sea of wild garlic stretching as far as I could see into the trees. I picked a bag full, stuck it in my rucksack and carried on walking. I spent the next few days making pesto with it, chucking it in a stir fry, mixing it through ragu, and anything else I could think of. A week later I went walking with my Mum and she turned up with a very full carrier bag of wild garlic, and I had to think of more ways of using it. I made a wild garlic focaccia, which was delicious.

A sea of wild garlic...

First pickings from the asparagus bed

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about planting out an asparagus bed. I was very excited about the prospect of picking my own asparagus. However, we had to be patient. The asparagus crowns need to spend a couple of years establishing themselves before they can be picked. This year, the bed being in its third year, we were finally able to pick some asparagus. It was with great excitement that in early April I spotted the first spears poking through the ground. Several days later they were tall enough to pick and we had our first harvest. On the first picking there were only a couple of spears. Delicious but not quite enough to satisfy the appetite. By the end of April we were able to pick enough for a plateful. They were delicious!

Our first asparagus spears