How important is preservation? Asparagus is best fresh, and many people think that's worth growing it.

my bed is planted with the plants 1 foot apart and the rows 18 inches apart.
I think it does ok.
I wouldn't have it if it took that much room.

Asparagus is worth if you have the space. In limited space it is not. It is less work than most veggies though, and is also early, two non trivial details.

Mine are definitely planted more densely than that. I do understand that may mean not getting the "optimum" yield. My beds are still on the young side, but I think the question is really about how you plan to use it. Do you have to have a heaping side dish of it on every plate or is it worth it to have some to throw in stir-fries and pasta sauces, etc. I also prefer my asparagus fresh, so I do not worry about preservation.

Of course all of the above is about yield. Is it worth it for the taste? Absolutely. Shipped asparagus cannot hold a candle to the home grown. Like glib said too, after the first year or two it is rather easy. Keep it watered and fed and it will not demand much else from you during the busiest time of the season. My last frost date is May 15th but I just spotted my first asparagus today and will likely have some tomorrow evening. We will likely add it to fried rice. I cannot wait.

I grew asparagus many years ago and it was alot of fun. Had a small bed and enjoyed seeing it come up very early every year. My heartiest plants lasted about 10 years. Did I get pounds and pounds of the stuff. No, but it was fun eating a little fresh asparagus every year. Mine never made it to any pot. Just ate it raw. Delicious.

Our norm is actually to do a huge "side" dish of veggies... at least a pound each.

I know it takes the romance out of gardening, but garden crops have to pass three tests for us: flavor quality vs bought, yield/required space vs cost for equivalent quantity, versatility for year-round use.

It's beginning to look like asparagus passes two of the three, but is really really bad on space. If it takes 160+sqft to provide say, 10lbs of edible vegetation (less than a week's meals), it would only cost me $20 to buy it in season. Granted, storebought quality isn't as good, but when I can grow so much more in that same space and get equal quality gains with other crops it becomes very hard to justify.

Maybe I've strayed off course here, but I haven't seen anything yet that says growing asparagus is a good use of space. I would really like to be convinced otherwise (I love those litle green sticks!), so please... convince me!

I guess it really depends on your expectations. I'm always amazed when I read the projected amounts needed to feed x number of people. I have nine plants in a space about 2 x 8 (long narrow bed). Only some of the plants really produce like gangbusters. Perhaps moles have disturbed the others or they are just runts.

That said, the two of us have more than we can handle during a time of year when broccoli is still producing, kale remains vibrant, the artichokes are pumping out, beets are maturing, ETC. One does not live by asparagus alone, or hopefully any other thing. But the fresh asparagus is really, really good.

On the other hand if you want a pound per person at a sit-down, then, no, you probably don't want to devote garden space to it.

If I grow asparagus (still debating), it will be entirely about taste - to experience it utterly fresh. I won't expect it to be practical in terms of food per square foot. I'm not saying that that's a bad priority, just that I'm not surprised that it doesn't qualify on those grounds.

This post was edited by chickenfreak on Tue, Apr 2, 13 at 2:05

I put my asparagus bed in 30 years ago and have never regretted it. However, it seldom makes it inside the house. It's better to nosh on it while you walk around your garden checking on things. It's early...and when it's over,you can then snack on cherry tomatoes that you plant strategically in the garden to grab and go until you get to the bean trellis. Last year I kept a salt shaker in a plastic baggy under my cherry tomato.

The real advantage of asparagus is getting a fresh vegetable even before a lot of the garden is even planted for the year.

I have a row about 16 ft that I harvest regularly for about 6 months, to the point where sometimes people are getting tired of it. Dunno about how many pounds I get, but I'd say I get more asparagus from the same amount of space than main-head broccoli.

How much space do you have to dedicate to the asparagus, and is that space currently used for other things? And who says it has to be the only side dish when you make it in season? Grow what you have room for and enjoy it. If that means every one gets a small portion of aspargus and large portion of broccoli, then everyone still gets to have fresh asparagus. :) It does taste way better fresh, and if you've grown your own peas or corn, you'll have an idea of the sort of difference we're talking about. I'm not sure it is something you can ask others to convince you of, though. You're either going to have to be flexible or creative with your self-imposed rules or not. Cheers!

To the OP: what will you eat instead, during asparagus harvest season? Here lettuce, the first truly plentiful vegetable of the season, makes it after asparagus. Can you really eat a pound of arugula at every meal for a month?

I have a 4x10 foot bed with plants about 1 foot apart in all directions. No specialized varieties or all male plants up the production. Over the season I harvest about 25 pounds from this area. Never a lot at once, but always tasty and welcome in the early spring. This is the only crop I have carefully weighed and recorded over the years and most every year I reached 25 pounds before I quit cutting or recording. I did not fertilize much and wonder how much more I would have harvested if I had. My yield is down now after 20 years....mostly due to neglect on my part. Blackberry bushes and weeds invaded the bed and I left them there too long. I'm hoping to replant this year because I really like the great taste of fresh grown spring asparagus.

We have very similar rules of thumb for what we plant as well. We have ridiculously long winters (we're still under feet of snow here now) and most of what I grow needs to be able to be preserved to be worth the effort. The amount of time we can eat fresh from the garden is so bloody short that we really relish it and asparagus is a huge part of it. It's the very first thing we look forward to eating in the spring. It's producing about the time I'm putting in the peas, so it's the only garden veg we can eat for the first while.

As far as space... our patch is about 1.5 by 20 feet and we have 23 crowns crammed into it. I started it from seed in 2004. The variety is Guelph Millennium and all the plants are male. We get a MUCH higher harvest than what you've read. I wonder what variety those numbers are based on because it's certainly not accurate for our patch.

Our soil is alkaline and very silty; it acts much like clay. With the exception of the first year, we've never done *anything* to maintain the patch (I know, bad gardener) - no fertilizer, no mulch, no ammendments, nothing. We've not even kept invading grasses in check. Yet every year, they go bananas... producing stalks as thick as your thumb and tonnes of them. We're a family of four and we eat our fill almost daily, to the point that we're sick of it and are begging neighbours to take some off our hands.

I do blanch and freeze some, but it's not as good as fresh. We can't get asparagus here in the winter period, though, so it's enough to satisfy the occasional craving. Our favourite way to prepare it from frozen is to heat up our largest skillet (you don't want to crowd them or they get soggy) over quite a high heat (like you would with a wok) and dump them in straight from the freezer. Toss and stirfy as quickly and as hot as possible, just until they've thawed and warmed up. If you do it hot and fast, the ousides don't slough off (similar to how beans sometimes do) and they taste very similar to steamed fresh. I've also taken mature stalks that are past their prime, cooked them and pureed them for the freezer for winter use in soups.

We're picking at least a dozen to twenty (estimating here) thick stalks from each of our plants per season and leaving four to six stalks to grow into ferns (more than the recommended three or so). The ferns grow to about 8' over the summer, so they're very healthy. So yeah, asparagus is totally worth it to us.

Another note about asparagus is that it fits into the "life happens" vegetable garden category. Because it is perennial, even in the years when "life happens" and you are way behind on the garden or not able to do much at all, it will still be there for you to eat.

Do you have good soil for asparagus? If, yes, then do it.

Wow! What a wealth of gardening and asparagus information from the previous comments!

Let me echo some others' comments that if you have the space, asparagus is a good choice for ones garden. Getting it started right with deep soil preparation and waiting until it matures are drawbacks. But once it gets going (after several years), it's a steady producer that requires little care. We give ours and inch or two of compost over our 3' x 15' bed each fall.

Our asparagus is just coming on this year. I picked 1.5 pounds of spears today. But…there's a cheat in that comment, as we also pick a sparse circular patch (about 5' in diameter) that sits just off our property. The landowner suggested a few years ago that we pick it, as she's now in a nursing home. (I took her a bag of asparagus this week!) But even so, both patches still aren't in full production, with lots of areas with nothing coming up as yet, but will fill in as the weather continues to warm up.

The circular patch has been in place since we moved to this property almost 20 years ago. It was irregularly picked some springs and just left to grow in others. The farm renter would mow the area once or twice a summer (part of his rent for farming the surrounding farmland). Even with that ill treatment and no soil amendments until I started caring for the patch, it survived, although we've had to clear a lot of nasty weeds and wild rose bush out of it.

So don't be put off by the "books'" recommendations about how much to plant. Allot the space you can, prepare the bed well, pick the best roots you can, and you'll probably be surprised at how much your patch produces once it matures.

Here is a link that might be useful: Senior Gardening

This post was edited by SeniorGardening on Fri, Apr 19, 13 at 19:35

Thanks to everyone for your input.

I think for now, we will wait and see how we do with other veggies in the space we have dedicated. If it were up to me, I'd dig out the whole 1/2 acre back yard and fill it with edibles. Hubby and the dog aren't keen on that idea (and baby won't be either, once she mobilizes!)

Maybe we'll start asparagus another time with the understanding that it's a luxury as opposed to a production item. Any extra we can put into pickling/freezing would just be a bonus!
The way life is right now I wouldn't be able to properly prep a bed for long-term use anyway. Better off waiting to do it right than continually fighting a job done poorly!

I don't get all the talk about space for asparagus. Plant one row with your roots about a foot apart. The row can be 5, 6, 8, 10, 20 feet.....what ever you have available. Don't pick any until the 3rd year. I had more asparagus the first time I picked than any family of 4 could eat. It pops up willy nilly, is delicious, and extremely easy to take care of. By next year, my bed's 4th year, I expect to have more than I can eat and will give some to neighbors.

John-you sent me a message but no email to respond to, so here's my best effort to reach you!

Keep in mind that I have only had one "real" garden. We sold our house, moved cross country, working 80hrs and just had a baby... little short on time!

Anyway, here's what passed the test for me and why:
Kale-this stuff is freakishly expensive and poor quality in stores. It produced well from early spring through late september when we pulled everything to prepare for the house sale. I had it under a maple tree that leafed out as it got warm so it was perfect. Beets or turnips are in the plan for next year-greens plus a great root veg that stores easy for winter roasting

Roma tomatoes-lots of meat for saucing and canning. I abused my poor garden late in the season as these were coming ripe and had very good production, few splits and good flavor. I want to try a San Marzano next for better flavor. Most tomatoes were turned into marinara or canned whole.

Cherry tomatoes-i planted six different ones. By far the best one was Mojo. Plentiful, meaty and super sweet. The Sweet 100 and Sweet 1000 were a huge dissapointment.I would also only do one; enough for snacking inthe garden since hubby doesnt eat toms. Small tomatoes are a pain in the tush to peel for canning

Winter squash-four butternut plants provided about 30 large squash. I still have two of them in the basement a year later. Its important to be sure they get enough water though; mine are too starchy and not very sweet. But again, i abused my garden in august/sept

Zucchini-i used some fresh, but most were allowed to grow to boat size, grated and dehydrated. I got 20 or more HUGE zukes in a gallin zip bag and i put a handful in any/every thing... soup, chili, sweet and savory breads, oatmeal cookies, meatloaf, etc. You cant see or taste it and it boosts the nutrition!

Leaf lettuces-i did mostly a mesclun mix. If i coukd figure out which ones were my favorites i would go get packets of just those. If you only pluck the outside leaves it will keep growing. I picked from the same 20 or so plants all summer. By the end they look like they have gone to seed but are just bare stalk at the bottom and new tender leaves at the top. Once again, it would be freakishly expensive to get this kind of quality in stores

Cucumbers-i did pickling cukes. Heavy producers! But we discovered that we dont eat many pickles, so this is something I would only do once every few years or just buy my pickling cukes, can them all in one day and be done! We do t really eat regular cukes and they're cheap in the summer anyway so i probably wouldnt plant them

Hot peppers-on the fence. They're easy to find at farm stands for inexpensive. I dont have a good, versatile way to preserve them. But, hubby adores fresh peppers and pickled jalapenos

What doesnt pass:
Snap peas-they all come ripe at once, arent great for cooking (snow peas might have passed), dont freeze well, cant can them, and hubby doesnt like them at all. I ate nothing but raw peas for a week then didnt have any all summer.

Onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots-unless you have an affinity for a variety that is hard to find, or an excess of space they're just too cheap and readily available.

Asparagus-see above

Green onions-mine never have the greens that store ones have and the white onion is always really pungent which is undesireable for how i use them

Radishes-i just plain stink at growing them. Maybe it would be worth it if i coukd actually get something edible. As it is, its just wasted effort

Melon-i did canteloupe. They produced well but i got 12 fruit all ripe within three days. I wound up drying them to save what i could but most of those are still in the pantry. I just dont know how to use them besides snacking out of hand.

Basil-maybe it was the season we had, but it did nothing then bolted. I think i got five edible leaves from 10 plants. I also did t realize it was more of a cool season grower and i wanted to eat it with my tomatoes!

Heirloom tomatoes-had six different types. All ripened unevenly so the bottoms rotted out while the tops were still green. They were also highly attractive to every kind of bug. I didnt get to eat a single one.

I forgot the pumpkins-maybe in a couple years when carving is important for the kid but not now. For pies just use butternut.

I used square foot gardening as a guide for spacing. Its a good start but needs modified based on how you grow/pick. My lettuce and kale could have been much closer because they never got to a mature size footprint while i was picking the outer leaves. I accidentally planted 2x the romas and with proper staking it would have been great! 1sq ft is fine for a zuke but you cant really do 15 in a 3x5 bed-only the outside ones produce well.

Sorry I am kinda verbose. I am sure I would have evrn more thoughts if you have questions. Just be sure to send your email address!

Asparagus does fine along the edge of any garden. When I lived in Michigan and Colorado it grows wild there. I do not know the space or shape of your garden but for my growing asparagus on my fence rows worked great and never got in the way of the rest of my gardening.

Sounds like things went well, congrats! A couple of thoughts- did you let your butternuts sit a while before eating them? I grew my first winter squash this year and in a thread I participated in a month or so back it was suggested that certain squash need to sit a month before eating to develop their sugars. Pretty sure butternut was one of those.

Also, if your husband likes jalapenos, try some homemade poppers. The simplest I do is just halve the peppers, scoop out the seeds and ribs, fill with cream cheese and microwave warm. Garlic powder is a nice addition, and if you have the time and inclination, wrapping those with bacon and grilling or baking them is a real treat! Your tomatoes sound like they had blossom end rot, something to read aout over the winter, it can be prevented. And I'm not sure what happened to your basil, but mine thrives in the high heat and humidity all summer, I don't think it is a cool season herb at all. Maybe just more water to get it better established before the summer heat? Or was it started from seed, possibly too late? Well, those are all my thoughts. Enjoy the fruits of your labor! :)

"Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all it's flavour." - William Cowper

I have to admit that I simply do not understand the logic that if a person, for whatever reason, cannot grow as much as is wanted of a certain vegetable variety for every desired purpose then it is not worth growing any of it. When did veggie gardening become an all-or-nothing proposition?

Just for the sake of discussion, asparagus may not be the most efficient use of space but melons, winter squash, and pumpkins are themselves horribly inefficient. Corns are even worse. Cucumbers are terrible unless trellised. The value of anything with a high water content should be suspect (water weight skews yield/sq. ft. totals). The value of anything with a high susceptibility to disease or other problems should also be questioned (a rather inefficient use of space if the plants get sick and die, so there go the tomatoes as they would no longer be worth the risk). What about breaking things down to efficiently and effectively producing the highest amount of human nutrition per square foot - is that not the ultimate goal? It is not just about weights or quantities, or total canning jars filled after all. We should learn the nutritional specs of every vegetable being planted so that information can be properly included into the equation.

If a person wanted to use space as efficiently and effectively as possible then the garden should be completely seeded with something like turnips. Turnips produce an incredible amount of nutritious food (roots and greens) by weight per square foot. They can be eaten fresh, they can be stored long term in the fridge or the root cellar, and they can be preserved using the methods of canning, freezing, or dehydrating. To increase the efficiency even further all the scraps could be fed to pigs to aid in home meat production. Of course I am taking things to an extreme. Obviously it would be a real drag only having turnips to eat, but it makes the point of my argument which is that gardening is about making decisions and decisions should be based on balance, not all or nothing.

If you like the stuff, why not plant one asparagus plant in the garden? It will be a wonderful spring treat and will taste better than any asparagus you buy at any grocery store or farmers market because the spears will be harvested from your plant that is growing in your garden and they will only be touched by your hands. It will also be an experiment that would allow you to observe how much yield you can get from one plant growing in your local conditions. Who knows, you might find the yield to be acceptable enough to allot more garden space for planting more.

Congratulations on your gardening success this year! Nice to hear good things, so many gardening woes posted in this forum during the growing season that it gets rather dreary here at times.

-Tom

Tom, you raise a valid point. In fact turnips and beets are in my plan for next year for the exact reasons you stated.
In my experience the actual bed space required for vining squashes and melons is very small, provided you have an area of non bed space for the vines to go. These can be tied to sturdy trellises as well.

I didnt say that my method is the only way to operate a veg garden, only that its my way. I do not disdain others for planting, harvesting and consuming in a way that pleases them. Filling my pantry with a year's supply of homegrown diet staples is what pleases me.