Look at those lovely scarlet sweet pea flowers. Except they aren't. Well they are lovely, but they are asparagus peas. The seed packet proclaiming Delicious! Easy to Grow! Unusual! Attractive flowers! was too much to resist. And I have to admit they were easy to grow. Most likely because the snails don't seem to like them. But upon our return from the US the whole patch of them was a lush, unstaked foot tall forest of leaves, stems, flowers, and pods. Orrin, Silas, and I each snapped off a pod to sample them. OK, the one pitfall of the plants may be that they taste nasty. Hint: Do not eat asparagus peas raw, they will make you want to shave your tongue.
However, there were enough of them that I cooked them up with our dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread last night. I threw them in some boiling water for a few minutes, drained them, and tossed them with some butter and salt, crossed my fingers and served them up alongside our pile of noodles.
Lo and behold! They were delicious. Well, some of them seemed to have a tough stringy section, akin to the spine of a pea pod sometimes. I don't know if I should have tried to remove it, or if I just need to pick them when they are a bit younger. Anyway, I think we may be able to get one or two more harvests out of the small crop I planted. And by harvest, I mean enough for one meal for the two of us. It's a pretty big adjustment for me from going from an acre garden on the farm where nothing was grown that didn't have to be canned or frozen at some point, to not even having enough to feed us for the summer. But at least it may be helping Silas to learn to nurture and care for something, and that food doesn't always come from the grocery store. I think he also enjoys being able to pull things off a plant, put it in his mouth and not be told to spit it out.
