Asparagus Picking: Franch Style

As children, we used to walk up and down the country roads, looking for pop cans to collect. We’d find as many as we could, and then at the end of the summer we would cash them in for something like a whopping $4.86 at the recycling center in town. (Imagine $4.86, split three ways!) Between this endeavor and our mud pie factory, we kept ourselves fairly busy. We were so industrious back then! (maybe it has something to do with supplementing our $1 a month allowance…he,he,he!) We would walk along the irrigation ditches looking for cans, and a familiar site in the spring was asparagus. It flourished along the ditches and was seemingly ubiquitous. Sometimes we would pick it and bring it home, but I don’t ever remember eating it. I know my Dad doesn’t like it all that much. Now, I only wish I could wander along an irrigation ditch and pick a bag full of asparagus! That stuff is expensive!!!! I am hoping to establish an asparagus patch in my backyard next year, and while it will eventually produce some asparagus, I don’t think I’ll ever have the opportunity to pick bunches and bunches of it along the roadside. And I don’t think I’ll ever want to wander the roadside collecting pop cans.