Good for you! What variety did you plant?

Bob,
I've always been told and read that you can pick for a short period the year after you plant. And that is what a lot of the instructions I've received with mine have said. What one gardener told me that I try to follow is only pick those bigger in diameter. If pencil size I would leave them. If as big or bigger as a normal finger I pick for 10-14 days and then leave them. On my older crowns I pick till they get smailler and they keep spreading out every year. I have never noticed I hurt them. I put out around 12 this spring in the drought. And think all but one made it . I neglect my asparagus some. And some of mine really came on late but still not as big as normal. So imagine I may have to wait another year. I also feel the all male usually establish quicker and you can pick more the 2nd year than the others. hope you get a great harvest. I froze some for the first time this year. Will freeze all extra next year. Great grilled. I alos eat it raw. Jay

I followed the advice of my friend who grows commercially and bought U-289. The first small patch, about 2ft by 4ft was a package of crowns bought from the big box store. Had no idea about species. I had always thought that Asparagus was Asparagus and never thought about different ones being available. Those have been in the ground about 5 years now and that was the first experience with fresh Asparagus. After we had it, the family went crazy over it and demanded more. With the new ones we will have about 30 crowns growing and I think that will handle us. I had to chuckle about someone saying that they froze some this year. With the smaller patch, ours went straight from the ground to the steamer or grill and on the plate within hours if not minutes. Maybe in the next couple of years we will have enough to try pickeling some.

Bob,
I suppose my oldest crowns are over ten years old and still producing well. I know some say to tear them our every 4-5 years. I will leave mine as long as they produce well. I really haven't counted but imagine I have around 20 crowns for just me. So I have some to give away and some to freeze. I had never grilled it till this year. I just throw some onions, asparagus, okra, garlic and whatever else I have in tin foil and put it on the grill. Hard to beat. I do slip in a little real butter once in a while. But don't tell my doc. hehe. Jay

DH and I have been raising asparagus for over 30 years. Our MO is to pick by size not by age. As Jay said, you can pick spears next year that are finger size or larger. If you were in an area that got a lot of rain this year--eastern half of OK--the plants probably made enough growth to sustain a light harvest next year. As for fertilizing, asparagus likes a neutral to slightly alkaline pH. Again depending on where you are--eastern Ok has more acid soils than western--you may need to add lime. Our current patch is 20 years old and as vigorous as ever. But there are a lot of seedling plants in it as we haven't followed the advice to weed out the seedlings.

Bob,

If you amended your soil well with compost or manure or other organic matter, then I bet your asparagus has all it needs and that additional feeding wouldn't be necessary. Furthermore, if you always keep it heavily mulched (and my vote would go to a mixture of non-weedy grass clippings and chopped/shredded autum leaves), the mulch will feed the plants as it decomposes. So, if you keep adding mulch continuously, you'll be feeding the soil over time, and the soil will feed the plants.

However, I went to Dr. Cotner's (he's the former head of the horticulture department at Texas A&M) wonderful vegetable book (The Vegetable Book, published in 1985) to see what he recommended for fertiziling asparagus and here is what he recommended:

First, when enriching the beds prior to growing, he recommened tilling the soil and then covering it with 3 to 4 inches of organic matter like compost, grass clippings and hay plus approximately 1/2 pound of manure (he calls it 'barnyard fertilizer') per square foot. He also recommended applying a balanced fertilizer, like a 10-20-10, at the rate of 1/2 lb. per 100 square feet of bed area.

Then, for regular bed maintenance during the first two growing seasons, he recommends spreading a high-nitrogen fertilizer like ammonium sulfate (21-0-0) at the rate of 1/4 lb. for every 100 square feet of bed area or that manure be scattered at the rate of 50 lbs. per 100 square feet of bed area. He recommends the usage of these fertilizers just before the spears emerge in the spring during those first two years.

His recommendations for the following years (after the first two years) is to fertilize about two weeks before the end of the harvest period. The only difference is that if using ammonium sulfate he says to increase the amount to 1/2 lb. per 100 square feet of bed area.

He also recommends keeping the bed mulched heavily constantly to keep the weeds down.

Hope that info is helpful.

Dawn

Bob,
All I do to my bed is take the mower or shears and cut the tops off. Then sprinkle the mix I make of soybean meal, cottonseed meal, alfalfa pellets and bone meal over the bed. Then an inch of manure followed by leaves and grass clippings on top to hold it. When I first started mine was before my internet forum days and I followed the advice I read in a book by an asparagus grower who used manure only with mulch on top. So the other supplements may not be necessary. But it keeps doing great every year so I just follow the same routine. Other than that I don't do anything to my beds. Treating my horseradish bed the same way. I agree it is best to start with a fine loose soil. The area I put mine in is around an old foundation and they left lots of rock and gravel laying around. Messed up good sand. I cleaned out an area for each crown when I planted them. They have done well and now after over ten years I have several inches of great soild on top of what was there. Jay

We don't fertilize our asparagus patch other than with the woodashes (I think the proper pH is the most critical thing) and a layer of oak leaves each fall. Cut them down in the fall with the riding lawn mower before we put on that year's leaves. Don't water either although I think I may have the first summer. Been so long can't say for sure.

I have lived in this house for over 8 years and still haven't planted asparagus. First, it seems so permanent and I wasn't sure I would put it in the right place. Second, I don't know how I could keep the grass out of it. Do you plant it far from any grass? Weeds aren't that big a problem because I can always pull those, but when I had asparagus at a previous house, it was next to impossible to keep the grass out of it. Do you use raised beds?

Carol, the place where we planted it was a fescue pasture, and we dug up the Fescue as we planted the crowns. We did in earlier years have a bit of Johnson Grass that we also had to either dig or roundup depending on how close it was to the crowns. Years ago we mulched with newspaper or cardboard covered with sawdust and that pretty well kept out the weeds and grass. But if you have Bermuda you have to kill it all (ALL) before you put in your crowns or you wll lose the battle. My Dad had a short row of asparagus that the Bermuda got into. He had a huge mound of rotted leaves that he scooped up with the tractor bucket and dumped over the crowns at least 6-8" deep. For the first couple years it looked like he had won, but this year the stuff erupted through the mulch.

We don't have raised beds just a large patch. This year we put up a 2' strip of chicken wire around it to keep the leaves in. And we ran out of leaves. (The patch is 30 by 50 ft) since the ice storm pruned our trees so severely so then started ripping up newspaper to add in.

I have about ten asparagus plants along one side of a raised bed. They are Martha Washington. Two of them are male and make berries every year. I really wish I had planted them elsewhere because the ferns lean out into the walkway even with tomato cages around them.

I agree that the finger-sized shoots are begging to be eaten. Mine usually don't even make it to the kitchen, but when they do, I put a little olive oil in an iron skillet, get it nice and hot, throw in the shoots and cover with a lid. After about five minutes, lift the lid and use a spatula to flip them over, let them sizzle just a little more and then they're done. Most of those don't make it onto a plate actually. I'm lucky because I'm the only one who likes asparagus at my house. YUM.

I did have some problems with asparagus beetles last spring, though. I was told that if you didn't clean up the area around the asparagus, that the beetles would overwinter in the mulch. I've pulled all the ferns and cleaned up the area as good as I can and I don't know whether to put leaves on top now or not.

A friend sent me some Precoce d'Argenteuile (spelling?) seed, I planted them and a few have come up, but this time in the herb garden where they will not be so much in the way.

I was kind of wishing I had planted the Martha Washington's along the side of the house but I have since found out that there's a big foundation for a fireplace the previous owners tore down, under the ground there, so it wouldn't be a good place for asparagus after all. (and what's up with these stupid previous owners reducing the value of this house? First the swimming pool, then the fireplace....)

Ilene, it is the female plants that make berries. The males, which don't waste energy on berries, produce bigger spears, but I am glad tht I have a few females as I have allowed the seedlings to grow and so have renewed my patch.

If given the choice between asparagus beetles and weeds/grass, I will fight the beetles. Strong plants resist beetles and mulch makes strong plants. Also clean picking until June in an established patch leaves the beetles with no place to lay eggs when they want to lay eggs.

My Asparagus is in a raised bed just outside the back door and about 3 feet from the house (West side) where they could get full sun for the full day. In this location they only get full sun from about 10am til about 5 pm. I have a brick walkway all around the bed and with the ferns as bushy and aggressive as they were this year, I am wishing that it was out in the yard completely away from everything. I started out by hitting the B'grass with Round-up for a complete year before putting in the bed. I tilled down about 8 inches and then on top of that filled in the full 10 inches with a mixture of manure, topsoil and garden soil from Lowes. When I set the crowns, I dug down a full foot and left a little hump where each crown would go. I spread the tentacles down and around the hump like an octupus sitting on it. I then put a fairly heavy dose of 6-8-8 around the low area and then raked the soil mixture in around all of that and leveled everything. Then I covered it all with a layer of red bark mulch for at least 2 inches deep, deeper in some places. I have had a few sprouts of grass but each time, it pulls up with about a 3 inch straight down rood string. The Asparagus begin putting up some small shoots within about 2 months and then in the later summer, it went wild putting up shoots and ferns. The ferns got a good 4 ft. high and as thick as privet hedge. Lots of them did break off this fall in the wind but most did survive for me to cut off. I have heard that you should burn the ferns, but it just made more sense to me to put them in the big garden to decompose there and help that soil.

My thoughts now are to rake the red bark off the bed and replace it with another layer of sacked manure from Lowes. The red bark has the bed completely full to the tops of the side boards.

Thanks to you all for your comments and advice.

Bob

i just planted my asparagus this spring and now it looks like i have a couple little trees! some of them actually look like i expected them to-lol. But which ones are males or females? are they both edible? should i just let them grow or clip the tops off? I really have no clue! my stalks are skinny though,did i maybe plant them too close together?...also they are next to strawberries! I think i may need to expand my strawberry plants the other way,or dig up my asparagus and move it somewhere else. I read that u can or should do that but it isnt neccesary...will i have to wait another couple of years if i move it?