Good luck with the asparagus bed. Off-topic, some other veggies I've found to be well-adapted in the Valley include Contender bean for early, "beany" green bean fans (spring only - they get fibrous - not stringy - in cool fall weather). Maxibel is the best bush filet I've found for our climate. Romano Gold does surprisingly well for a yellow bean and for a Romano type, up until about the middle of June, with Romanette performing even better for a Romano in hot weather (though not as well as the most heat-tolerant bush varieties). Get it from Crosman Seed Co. Heat-tolerant Brio, Matador or Festina beans are generally good for harvest up to early July (Brio also performs well when planted in August for fall harvest - haven't tried the others then) and I like Black Valentine or Coco Rose de Prague as green or shelly beans in variable fall weather. Fortex pole bean is great when the weather cooperates. Plant some Fordhook 242 or pole limas for fall harvest. They grow well in hot weather, but don't set beans until fall. Much better as green shellies than dried. Cook until soft and add a little butter for luxurious flavor. Edamame soybeans do very well here, and can be "picked" in the hottest summer weather by whacking off whole stems and bringing them inside for preparation. 'Tourth of July' tomato is very early and sweetens during our hot summers when preventing sunscald on the big varieties is a challenge. 'Magda', a Lebanese-style zucchini from France performs extremely well. 'Summer Dance' cucumber from Pinetree stays sweet and productive in summer - never bitter - if grown on a fence. The Italian climbing summer squashes like Zucchetta Rampicante Tromboncino (C. moschata) grow fast enough for a summer shade structure - try growing with one of the Cucuzzi type edible gourds, good barely steamed when young, pared and stuffed when like a baseball bat. Flavors are different from zucchini. The Butternut family of winter squashes (C. moschata) are best adapted here. Try "Tahitian". 'Early Sugarshaw' melon is exceptional here, but you may no longer be able to find seed. Try another Crenshaw, though. Protect ripening melons from sunscald. Banana melon (the orange-fleshed type) is a fun novelty. Most melon varieties do well in the Valley, but watch the Charentais types for cracking - restrict water when ripening even more than for other melons. 'Extra Summer Sweet' is a great little Japanese melon. You might put some in your future asparagus bed this summer. For fall, try pretty little Oasis, Hakeuri or White Lady turnips and big, ugly 'Just Right' for later harvest. All have sweet, flavorful roots and sweet hairless tops with a tough midrib. Turnips are planted commercially in the valley in September, but you could start planting the little "summer turnips" above in late August. 'Gilfeather' turnip/rutabaga is good for storage. Plant some kohlrabi in August or early September, too. For winter harvest, Tatsoi and similar Asian greens are decorative. Tyfon is a sweet, edible cover crop. Also mild Savannah hybrid mustard, the only thing I have had passersby stop and ask to buy from my garden. Bolting of leftover greens and unharvested turnips in late January and February may attract bees to pollenize fruit trees. Have fun gardening. Do you have some favorite Valley varieties? Carolyn Here is a link that might be useful: Extra Summer Sweet melon

*chuckling* Well, not a head chef by any means, just a Southern cook with a large family! Black eyed peas I will cook fresh, frozen or dried. They cook the same way with a couple small differences. After rinsing fresh shelled peas, I'll add water and simmer them for an hour or so until they are tender. Seasonings to taste, a little sauteed onion, maybe a little bell pepper, perhaps a little bacon or ham for flavoring. I also will just drop a ham bone into the pot. Frozen, the same, though the temp starts out lower and they simmer a little longer to give them time to thaw completely. Dried, depends on when I'm starting them. If the night before in my crockpot, I will just add the water and everything else, put them on low and let them cook all night and the next day. Check the water and how done they are first thing in the morning to decide if they need more water and how much longer they need to cook. We like ours just tender, but not mushy. I have a crockpot that I can set the cooking time on, after that, they just stay warm until we get home and are ready to eat. If I'm cooking dried for that evening, I'll get my tap water as hot as possible, drop the beans in and let them soak, keeping the water at a simmer to gently rehydrate them. Then I'll bring the heat up and cook them. While I was between crockpots, I use to get the tap water as hot as possible, drop the peas in and cover them overnight to let them soak, rinse them, then start cooking them the following morning. Notice that the only real differences in the way I cook them is whether the amount of time and whether or not they'll need soaked. Serving them, there are a lot of different ways- peas and corn bread, pea salad, a spoon of peas on a green salad, etc. Most dried beans can be treated the same way, though different beans and peas need different cooking times, may not need to be soaked, etc. Kidney beans, for example, I add beef or mixed beef/pork sausage to and let it simmer with garlic, onion, bell peppers and cayenne pepper, a few other seasonings and dried herbs and serve with rice- I grew up in SW Louisiana :)These I let cook a little longer because I want it to form thicker 'gravy' that coats and clings to the rice. You can combine several different types of beans/peas to make bean soup. English split peas make a lovely creamy soup and there are several recipes for them. Swiss Chard and collards I like to do the greens like I do any other greens. I'll either Southern pan fry them (which is more wilting with a very little oil) or use them in scrambled eggs or omelets or in salads as fresh greens, or on sandwiches to replace lettuce or stir fried with other veggies and perhaps a little chicken . All of these retain the nutritional value (yes, even the wilting, especially if you sop up or drink the pot liquor. Keep in mind that all leafy greens will shrink as they cook and wilt, so you will need what seems like an enormous amount is you're cooking them. Cow peas I'm not as familiar with since we don't care for them much, aside from the purple hulls- these I do like black eyes. Hot peppers can be used a number of ways. If they are big enough, they can be stuffed and oven baked or deep fried. My family likes cream cheese and cheddar to stuff them with, perhaps a little diced mushroom. Stuff them, then sew or tie them shut with a little turkey twine (you can find this where ever your store sells cooking gadgets)We also use them in salsa and in just cooking a variety of things. We also pickle them with vinegar and use the juice after it's set for a couple months in beans on the plate to taste. You can also grind them, add some vinegar and make home made hot sauces. You can also make pepper jelly or pepper chow chow with them. Sweet peppers- banana, etc, I will often use as I would any bell pepper. A different flavor, but I often use them the same. I'll stuff and bake them with ground meat and rise or the cheese mixtures, I'll even stuff and serve them fresh - stuffing often depends on the size and how much time I have. They're also great cut fresh for salads, in Mexican dishes, with sandwiches, etc. Another way is to take your hot peppers and add banana peppers for pickling. This will give you the banana pepper flavor, with a little heat and kick! I've also pickled them by themselves to preserve them for the winter. I've dehydrated them in my oven like I do tomatoes (my alternative to sun dried tomatoes)After dehydrating, I'll make a dried salsa of tomatoes, a variety of peppers, garlic, onions and toss it all together in a freezer baggie. In the dead of winter I'll have homemade salsa with the addition of some lime juice, a little warm water and fresh cilantro from my window. I've used both sweet and hot peppers cut into strips and grilled (or pan grilled) to use for fajitas. Larger peppers can be oven or grill roasted, similar to garlic, and added to a variety of dishes. I don't do a lot of winter squashes, we prefer summer squash, which I freeze in abundance and use a variety of ways. DH's Aunt pickles the winter ones, but I'm not as familiar with them except for perhaps Hubbard, which I've had baked. Hopefully someone else will chime in with ideas for many of the things your asking about and will have more info on the winter squashes. Pumpkin is one that I am familiar with. We bake the pie sized ones into pies after preparing the puree. We've also stuffed and baked the smaller ones with a variety of things- ground beef and rice.. apples pears and brown sugar with a bit of nutmeg. They are rather versatile. And of course, there is roasted pumpkin seed! These are a favorite for my kids and they will eat them by the handful! We'll do them several different ways- tossing with a little olive oil and sprinkling with cinnamon, salt, a dash of red pepper, tossing with a bit of honey, ranch dressing mix, or Italian seasonings- these are fun to experiment with! The larger pumpkins, especially if they're thicker and tougher, chickens and livestock enjoy a lot! Horses adore melon rinds, but be careful to make sure they're ripe and to give them as a treat. Sometimes the rind can cause colic in horses. I'd check with my vet first about the type of melon. Whew! That got long and I was tying to just give some ideas and not get into *all* the different ways I prepare these things! We eat a lot of veggies, fresh and preserved in one way or another. The kids really enjoy taking a handful of over dried cherry tomatoes and snacking on them like most kids do potato chips! I'm hoping some of the others will chime in too! I'm always interested in learning new ways, or ones that I know about but am not as familiar with, to preserve or prepare the veggies I grow. Ask away, Nichol! And everyone else, please jump in! I want to learn how others preserve and prepare! LOL, a lot of the things I do are things my grandparents and Daddy taught me and are wonderful, but I'm always looking for new or different ways! Kathy

Harvesting or separating worms from the media to acquire worm castings is the age old question of vermicomposting, and there are probably as many varied methods as there are people who engage in vermiculturing. I enjoy previewing comments on this topic because you never know what great ideas you might come across. My method is different than the previously ones posted here, but a lot like joe_jr's, in that I daily collect spent media from my four indoor plastic tub bins. So for what its worth, here's my two cents worth. I remove about a half inch of surface material form each bin at feeding time, which is dry enough to be removed with a kitty liter scoop. I simply scoop this material off into a 5 gallon plastic bucket. I then dig a trench on one side of the bin for feeding a blender full of food, and repeat the process on the other side. It doesn't take long me long to fill a bucket full of material which is perfect for germinating and potting mixes. I run the material through a quarter inch screen just before using it. I should also mention that I keep a four foot fluorescent light fixture on top of my bins which is on 24/7. If I do get a worm or two scooped up with the dried spent media they will crawl up the sides of the spent media storage pail if there is a lid on top. But even if you do get a few worms in your spent media they won't mind being potted up or shipped to the garden. Even after grating the spent media there are worm casings which ultimately hatch out in my seed starting peat pots and elsewhere. No problem there either. Note: the term 'spent media' is simply my way of looking at the finished product. I don't think the commercial worm castings are any different from my perspective, but that is one topic which gets lots of interesting responses as well. Some people go to great extremes to generate what they claim to be pure worm castings. To what end I don't really know. They are just going to be diluted when used anyway, so why go to all the bother. Please take a chunk out of me for that comment. Seriously I thrive on feedback, favorable or otherwise.

I'm another non-peeler. I eat asparagus until I'm sick of it every spring, Oceana County right next door is a huge producer of asparagus and I can usually get it for 50 cents a pound, right out of the field. This year it was up to 90 cents a pound because of the additional costs to irrigate, fertilize and harvest. I usually just swish it in cold water to wash it but if it has just rained the sand and grit gets inside those little leaves on the side. Then I do the "upside down in warm water" bath mentioned above. I never peel and I was astounded when I heard that people peeled asparagus, LOL, no one I know ever peeled asparagus! I just snap off the tough ends and use them for soup. I like it best roasted with a drizzle of olive oil, some salt and pepper. My girls like it lightly steamed, then rolled in a slice of turkey spread with herb flavored cream cheese. I will often use asparagus pieces in a form of garden vegetable prima vera with whole wheat noodles and lots of lightly sauteed vegetables from my garden. I've never met an asparagus I didn't like, except the white stuff. I tried it once and found it tough and fibrous with little flavor. I was expecting it to taste like asparagus, I guess, and it just didn't. Annie