Well its been awhile waiting for any signs of life from the asparagus crowns that I planted this spring. I want to say that I planted them late April and here we are well on our way into June, but the first signs of asparagus started poking their heads above the soil about 2 weekends ago. However, the asparagus shoots were so skinny and short they were hard to photograph. Below you can just make out a couple stalks of the purple passion asparagus I picked up a local Agway, breaking through the soil. Right now the asparagus is located in one of our shallower raised beds. This bed is constructed with 2×6’s and is approximately 4’x8’ in size. Next year I will add another layer of 2x’s to the bed along with some soil to give me some of the depth needed for asparagus.
I was concerned that our onions were going to overwhelm the asparagus but as you can see the lone asparagus fern in the center is catching up in height to the onions. As an aside the onions that we planted are doing fabulous! This will be the first year that we should actually get onions that are larger than the original sets we purchased. The some of the onion stalks are close to 5/8” in diameter, which is something we have never seen. We also have one onion that appears to have shot up a flower stalk!
We finally got the bright idea of putting a piece of white paper behind the asparagus so we could get a decent photo. Essentially we will let the Asparagus grow all year, they will turn into ferns and eventually the ferns will be killed off with the frost of winter. With any luck, this asparagus bed will survive and we can be eating fresh asparagus in 2015! Yep that right, this crop takes 3 years before you can harvest your first spears with out causing undue stress on the plants. The good news is that if you take care of these plants they should produce to 20 – 30 years! Time will tell.
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