Asparagus

[curly_kate]

Well, I'm finally taking the plunge - planting some asparagus, that is! What tips do you guys have for growing asparagus successfully?

ETA: I'm in southern IN, so I won't be planting them til spring.

 

[me&thegals]

Plant exactly according to package instructions, as much of a pain as that is :/ Ours seems to really like being piled pretty high with composted manure each spring and fall. It mulches out the weeds and, of course, is a great fertilizer. It's amazing what things asparagus can grow through!

 

[Reinbeau]

You need to dig a deep trench and improve the soil beneath where you'll set the crowns. Then, as the plants emerge, fill in the trench until it's level. I used well-rotted cow manure and compost to improve the soil, then that fall I fed them with Bulbtone (from Espoma) and gave them a nice layer of compost/manure as a mulch once the ground froze. Don't harvest the first year, but you can take a few the second (only a few!!). The third year you should have a good harvest, and it gets better from there!

 

[Rosalind]

What Reinbeau said. I give mine rotten dirty straw for mulch in the fall instead of the second layer of compost though, and they seem to do OK. Eventually, in 5 years or so, you will have to renovate the bed the same way you'd renovate a strawberry bed--dig up the very oldest roots and move 'em elsewhere, lay down a bunch of serious fertilizer, etc.

Sometimes even when you order male plants, a few female ones will get in there. Not always, but it's happened about once per five orders for me. Female ones have berries that turn bright red in fall, thereby attracting lovely birdies to eat them and spread the seeds around. If you enjoy the birdies and you really really really love asparagus, you can ignore this. If you think asparagus is quite nice but by Week 4 of the asparagus harvest, you are ready to freeze it all and are thoroughly tired of asparagus with lemon butter, grilled asparagus, pasta primavera, asparagus quiche, marinated asparagus in pasta salad, etc. then root out and kill the female plants. See, the birdies will swoop down, eat the berries, then go sit on the nearest perch (tree, fence, your porch, always somewhere the mower doesn't quite reach the edges of) to chow down. Then they poop out the seeds with a neat little package of birdie fertilizer. Two years later, you will suddenly have asparagus ground covers around your tree trunks, asparagus foundation plantings surrounding your patio and a tidy line of asparagus growing alongside the road, just under the power lines.

On the plus side, if you let that happen then you don't necessarily ever have to renovate the asparagus bed--you can just dig the whole thing up and make up your mind to eat naturally-growing asparagus the birdies planted on your behalf. But, in order to maintain the plantings, you have to not mow them until late in the season. Asparagus get, oh, 3-4 feet tall and look a bit like airy ferns, so you have to think about whether or not this is a "look" that you find aesthetically pleasing, especially considering that the birds will plant them any old where (as opposed to someplace pretty).

 

[Reinbeau]

About redigging and replanting - the whole purpose of doing the deep soil renovations is to avoid having to do that. My great grandmother, who taught me how to plant asparagus, had a bed that she had planted well over fifty years prior to me ever even thinking about growing anything - and I do believe it's still there, at her little cottage in East China, Michigan, although she is long gone. Asparagus is very long lived with proper soil preparation. I'll tell you one thing, I'm never digging another bed, that darn near broke my poor arthritic fingers for good!

 

[simple life]

What type did you both plant?
I am looking at the jersey giant, they have the knights, prince etc. and the purple hybrids.
They all seem fine but didn't know if one grew better than the others.

 

[Grow 4 Food]

Look at this one

http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=22833

 

[simple life]

What am I looking at ?
I don't see anything about types mentioned.

 

[keljonma]

We planted Mary Washington (an heirloom variety) in the method described by Reinbeau.

In 2008 we had our first small harvest. OHHHHHHHHH - it was heaven!

 

[simple life]

Actually, I have seen that advertised in the same catalog as the others, I forgot about thatl.
I think I will go with a variety this year and see what does well and what doesn't.
Thanks.