asparagus

Mine has been slow as well. I have managed to pick a handful though. Now that you removed the mulch, it will probably get going. I noticed somebody said to try leaving a few stalks to fern. You should never harvest all of the shoots. I'll harvest everything for 3-5 weeks then let it all go to fern after that.
 
My plants have finally started sending up spears! But the first couple I picked had little pock marks all along the shoot. So I took a close look around - Asparagus beetles! :barnie I'm now handpicking them from the spears into a container of soapy water. This is the first time I've seen these in my garden - black with red highlights and 6 yellow spots on their backs.

Keep your eyes open!
 
Huh..totally different color than the beetles that attack mine..must be a east-west thing..lol
The ones I get, which appear only after the asparagus has gone to fern, are bright orange with little black spots. It's almost like they are mimicking the berries, maybe as a means of camouflage.
Easy to spot, so I just squish them between my fingers.

I use a light layer of straw as mulch on my bed, and the spears just push on through it. I always found that it's a hard bed to to weed, because the asparagus side roots are quite shallow, and easily disturbed. If I removed the mulch, the weeds would take over the bed within a month.:barnie
 
We've been getting big fat asparagus spears for almost three weeks now. People at work are fighting over it when I take it in and set it down on the table outside my office for anyone to take. One woman the other day took off her shoe and was beating another one with it to get her to back off and let her take a bunch. Not a pretty sight. A funny one, but not very pretty.
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I am afraid that I may have lost my asparagus. They were in a raised bed and we had a long colder than normal period this winter. I am still looking for them though. Planted some new ones last week, so if my others are gone, I'll just have to look forward to these in a couple years!
 
We had our second batch of asparagus for supper today. There are still a few left for tomorrow -- if I don't have to share. This time of year asparagus is my favorite veggie.

Mine are in a raised bed and our winter was colder than normal this year as well. I hope yours make it. It would be a shame to lose all the goodness for 2-3 more years.
 
Ours are in a raised bed too. It's a 4'x8'x12" box we filled with a homemade mixture of a truckload of garden mix that we added some vermiculite, sphagnum moss, manure, and a bit of creek sand. I amend it each year with three bags of composted manure that I work in by hand with a small garden claw around the crowns. You have to be careful to not damage them. So far I've been lucky. Our asparagus bed is now in its fourth year so we pretty much can take as much as we want. A few skinny spears are still coming up but we let them go to fern. The biggest problem is grass in the box that I have to pull out by hand. I think we're about to mulch it heavily with some straw we bought the other day. Hopefully that will deter the grass some.
 
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