Asparagus season!

The end of the flowering shrubs is in sight, which means the lilacs are out!

And, after a lengthy period of doing whatever it is that they do, the potatoes have finally pushed out of the ground.

The summer flowers are also underway, with these self-seeded poppies brightening the front porch.

On the weekend, Jenn and I rode down to the farmer's market and picked up several bunches of asparagus. We ate some fresh and the rest I started processing. Most of it was snapped, blanched and frozen for pizzas or veggie pot pie in the coming months.

I used some of the left over stalks and the water from blanching to make soup stock. I also put some of the ends of the asparagus in the dehydrator to make asparagus powder.

Over about 20 hours, five trays of split asparagus stalks lost about 90% of their volume. A quick whirl in the coffee grinder and they were reduced to about a half a cup. The powder will go into soups over the next winter.

The first of the radishes are ready out back. We harvested them along with a first cropping of lettuce for a salad last night.

I have done a second sowing of lettuce in some of the bald spots in the lettuce bed. We also planted from scarlet runner beans in behind the peas (which are up about 8 inches).

Jessica and Jenn also cut some rhubarb and combined it with some of last year's frozen strawberries (freeze clean-out time) to make a lovely pie.

We're forecast to get a bit of rain and a break from the heat this week. That's good as the watering demands have been crazy these past two weeks.