Stinky Ditch Weed

By Rachel Voss

STINKY DITCH WEED? Why Not?

It’s a bird, it’s a plane….NOPE it’s a Prois Girl killin’ time until spring turkey and the mighty mushroom season!!! Most of us in the outdoors look forward to the months of May and June not just for spring turkey, but for Morel mushroom season.

Me, myself, and I? I look forward to asparagus hunting! The day I see that first massive- fatty piece of what I call “Stinky-Pee Ditch Weed” AKA Wild Asparagus. I’m like a goofy kid on Christmas morning!! It helps pass time until shrooms and gobblers, and it’s pretty fun! I’d like to say I am just so dang smart that I knew our orchard not only fulfilled our bellies with apples, cherries, peaches AND wild asparagus….but not so much!!

Taking my dogs for their daily run one spring day last year an odd bright green stumpy caught my eye; than another, and another, and another. It was a STINKY PEE ditch weed gold mine!!!! It wasn’t long before this ol’ smarty girl realized “hey if I can distinguish these old brown, seeded out bushy stalks from last year, than hidden below is the ULTIMATE jackpot for a wild asparagus lover”! Wild asparagus grows various places throughout the US, and is known as an” herbaceous, perennial plant”. For us scientifically challenged folks (boy do I fall into this category) this means: “it grows back every year”.

NOW, don’t turn your nose up! There are so many amazing ways to prepare asparagus: Fried in peanut oil with garlic salt and pepper (ok, not the healthiest but dang it’s good) boiled and buttered, creamed, asparagus soup….and my favorite; PICKLED. Get out and get on the hunt for some asparagus! Trust me it will become your “HEALTHY-HUNTIN-HERO! Like I said it’s my favorite pickled, when pickled it can last years on the shelf….and easy to throw in a baggy into your hunting pack. Loaded with B6, Calcium, magnesium, zinc and being an excellent source of dietary fiber and protein it gives me PROIS POWERS come hunting season, and let’s be honest….who wouldn’t want Prois Powers!? Go get you some! Eat well, hunt well!

Rachel Voss is on the Prois staff and is also the Washington State Chairman of  the Mule Deer Foundation.