April has been a good month for peering out rain-splashed windows and day-dreaming of warmer, drier weather. We're set to break the April rainfall records, probably this evening, with 5 more days of April to go yet. April showers indeed.
Do I need to tell you that it's been a soggy, drippy, messy April in Ohio? The garden is a big mucky mire. The grass hasn't dried out enough to actually mow and so is blowing in the wind like waves of grain. And the worst part is that the fields are flooded, so it will literally be weeks before farmers can even begin to think about planting crops. That's a bad thing, especially when you consider the rising costs of commodities...the outlook doesn't look good.
But there's good with the bad. The excessive rainfall has prevented late-season frosts, so we may have a beautiful stone-fruit harvest this summer. The Serviceberry tree is simply loaded with blossoms so we may have plenty of Serviceberry jelly and sauce this summer. And the wild garlic in the side yard under the trees is growing like mad. The patches of wild garlic apparently love, love, love wet, cool, overcast days. And boy, have they had a bunch of those this spring.
I discovered the wild garlic growing in the yard about 2 years ago. Whenever I cut the grass under the trees, it smelled amazing, all onion-garlicky....so I got down on hands and knees and crawled around looking for the culprit.
And there it was.
Wild garlic.
It's actually pretty easy to identify. It grows in clusters, is dark, dark green with long, slender hollow leaves that are almost identical to chives. When you pinch off a blade, it smells quite strong of garlic, so it's almost impossible to misidentify. That said, don't be reckless. What looks like wild garlic in my region may be something entirely different in yours. Do the appropriate research and for the love of Pete, don't eat anything that may have been treated with pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc.
So, through the rain and fog, I've been stalking this particular patch of wild garlic and my plan for today is to rush out between thunderstorms and dig up a handful of those beautiful green blades to serve with pasta for dinner tonight. I also found a great recipe at Food.com for a wild garlic pesto that I think would be divine with pretty much, well, anything and everything. And lastly, I'm wondering about a wild garlic soup, served a la onion soup, with crusty bread and melted cheese.
Hungry yet?
3 comments:
hmmm, hungry yes indeed, love mushrooms so much, and I understood your post so well, my DH has the eye as well, which I am grateful for when we are mushroom hunting.
opps, that was farmgal on that post, not anonymous, what kind of mushrooms where you collecting? What's ready in your area?
Mainly yellow and gray sponges...although there's another variety that I can't recall the name of. We ate half of them and dehydrated the rest for later in the year :)
Post a Comment