Asparagus: A How-To Guide

Asparagus:  The Mysteries Unveiled

by Robin Ford Wallace 

Reader, I have come to tell you the secrets of Nature.

No, Reader, not that secret of Nature, though since we are on the subject, I may as well tell you what my niece Katy said when her mother explained to her, at age 10, the monthly magic of womanhood:  “This is a joke, right?”

She had a point.  This whole business of existence as self-aware biomass is a serious thigh-slapper.  The yuks I have gotten from the digestive tract alone!  Throw in the reproductive system and it is a wonder anybody gets any work done at all. 

But were we not discussing asparagus?

 

Yes, Reader, asparagus is the mystery I came to reveal.  I had never considered it a particularly enigmatic vegetable until I decided to grow it.  It was then I realized I had never seen it growing and in fact had no idea what part of the plant it is that is eaten.  It is not a fruit like tomatoes, a root like turnips, nor leaves like lettuce.  Just what was asparagus, and what did it look like when it was growing?

Answer 1, as I soon learned, is that the edible part of asparagus is the young shoot that rockets up from the roots as the plant’s first growth; but it does so with such rapidity that there is no Answer 2.  One does not see asparagus growing, though one is sometimes tempted to stay up all night with a flashlight, and try.

One simply leaves the asparagus row an undisturbed expanse of dirt in the evening, then returns the next morning to find tall spears looming above the earth.  My city friend Joe, in fact, touring the garden one spring, accused me of buying the stalks at the grocery store and deploying them in the dirt, in order to mess with his head.

Asparagus row before harvest

After harvest, the asparagus row once again appears vacant – until, next night, the miracle recurs.  It is possible a fairy is involved.

After

Situating Your Asparagus Bed

If you would like to plant asparagus, the first point to consider is:  Where?  Asparagus grows in all climates except the wet coastal tropics – it requires at least a little winter – and it prefers light, well-drained soil. 

But for the home gardener, the most important consideration is that the asparagus bed must withstand the sands of time.  Once planted, it stays put, rewarding you spring after spring for decades to come with delicious green harvests.  So choose a location where your asparagus may thrive undisturbed as you lose your teeth, hair, faculties –     

And remember it prefers full sun.

Anyway, in choosing your location, you may use me as a cautionary tale:  I put my asparagus row about five feet inside the vegetable patch.  So now, each spring, if my neighbor offers to till the garden for me, he must do so in two sessions, one below the asparagus and one above, while I patrol the staked-out row grimly, defending it with my life.

How much room you give to asparagus should depend on how much you like it.  I love it and in theory could eat it every day.  In practice, I find that with my 20-foot row I can do so about twice a week during the season, sharing it grudgingly with guests and family members but never freezing it or, God forbid, giving any away. 

The rule of thumb for most vegetables is to take a piece of paper, add up how many plants you’ll need and multiply out how much room each will require; then you use the paper to wrap fish and plant one quarter that amount.  Asparagus is the exception to the rule.  If you like it, plant as much as you have room for.

Selecting a Variety

One can go cross-eyed choosing what asparagus variety to grow, what with plant catalogs hyping “new vigorous all-male hybrids,” as opposed to the time-honored but patently female-sounding heirloom, Mary Washington. 

All-male?  It is true that one might infer a certain masculinity from the manly skyward thrust of the firm, smooth shafts; but I looked up it up and went a little strabismal myself learning about dioecious and monoecious plants, which is to say those that have genders and those that do not.  In the end I elected to leave plant sexuality a moot point (at least until that nocturnal vigil with the flashlight), and stuck with Mary Washington.  

The disadvantage to female plants, apparently, is that they waste time and energy producing seed, and you may want to consider that.  I have, on the other hand, enjoyed the bright red berries my asparagus produces late in the season, and the pleasant surprise of finding wild asparagus growing along the driveway as Mary increases her family.

Planting

You may start asparagus from seed – it’s cheaper – but that lengthens the wait until first harvest, so most gardeners begin with first-year crowns.  These are hairy, tarantula-looking root balls from year-old plants, available in most garden centers.

Plant crowns or seeds any time after the soil has warmed – you will not be harvesting this year in any case.  Seeds should be planted sparsely, about ¼ inch deep, then the seedlings thinned to 15 inches apart.  As for crowns, place them 15 inches apart in a furrow five to six inches deep.  You can go mad deliberating which end is top; in fact, the root ball will send forth its tentacles no matter which way you put them.

Now:  Sit and Wait

Both seeds and crowns can take their sweet time to produce plants.  Depending upon weather conditions, soil temperature and how you are holding your mouth, it may take between two weeks and two months before you see any action.   

But wait long enough and your crowns will – finally! – send up the familiar solid green shafts that, left alone, leaf out into dainty, ferny-looking fronds.  If you have started with seeds, your seedlings will look fernlike from the beginning.  Interesting point:  The so-called “asparagus fern” is in fact a true variety of asparagus developed by florists for its pretty foliage. 

Even after you have plants, the fat lady has not sung:  you are still looking at a year or two before you can trot out the butter and the lemon and get down to business.  There is some argument in the gardening world about how long asparagus needs to establish its root system – here is where I remind you that most of what we know about horticulture, and possibly the universe, is lies and male answer syndrome – but most growers agree that with crowns you must wait at least one year, two if you can hold your horses that long, before you begin harvesting; and that growing from seed you should add another year to that.

But Reader, do not repine!  Remember that asparagus throughout the millennia has been rich-people food, and that throughout the millennia rich people have been the ones patient enough to realize the benefits of compound interest.

Harvesting Asparagus

            Unless you just like to thrash about in the dirt hand-pulling weeds, you should keep your asparagus mulched in with a thick layer of rotting hay.  According to the Ruth Stout deep-mulch method made famous by Rodale, in fact, the hay is never removed – it does, after all, keep the soil moist and nourished without chemical fertilizers – and the asparagus spears are simply allowed to push their way up through it in the spring.

            But our compound interest analogy notwithstanding, springtime is not a season designed to nurture patience in us winter-crazed gardeners, and I personally find it more expedient to pull the mulch back in March and allow the soil to warm up more quickly.  Then, miraculously, usually in April, though never as soon as one wishes, one goes out in the morning to find a lonely stalk, possibly two, thrusting upward through the dirt.

            Harvest the stalks by snapping or cutting them at or near the ground line.  Do it as soon as they are eating size, say five or so inches, which generally means the first morning you see them, or perhaps the second.  Do not make the common mistake of waiting until there are “enough to eat.”  Gardeners who do this are waiting still, no matter how long their asparagus rows!

            Cutting the stalks stimulates the roots to send up more.  And if you don’t cut them, they will grow tall and begin leafing out into summer mode.  

            Rather, what you must do is put the harvested stalks in a Zip-Loc bag and tuck them into the crisper drawer.  The next morning you will have several more stalks to keep them company, and as the season revs up you will find the bag filling up more and more quickly.

Saying Goodbye

            Though some experiments are now in progress for extending the harvest into summer, as a practical matter asparagus is a spring crop for most of us.  Many experts recommend limiting harvest to four weeks the first year, then eight weeks in ensuing years.  Many gardeners believe them, and cease harvesting by the calendar.

            What I have found in my own garden is that the asparagus itself seems to “know” when it is time for harvest to end.  The stalks start coming up looking ferny, and have an air of “wanting” to grow out into summer mode.  Though it is possible I am attributing more sentience to this particular biomass than it deserves, or drink too much beer.

One way or the other, ceasing the harvest just means leaving the asparagus to do what it’s going to do, and what it does is grow lush tall fronds that make an attractive backdrop to tomatoes and other summer crops.  Mulch the row back in and let the stalks stand there photosynthesizing and working on their root systems throughout the rest of the growing season.  In fact, it is best to leave them in situ even after they die for the winter, to mark the row in case anybody gets overzealous with the tiller come spring. 

Asparagus grows tall and leafs out in summer mode, providing a ferny backdrop to the veggie patch. 

In conclusion, growing asparagus at home requires a considerable investment in time up front but is very little trouble thereafter.  Further, it affords the gardener the satisfaction of looking at the price asked for the delicious green stalks at the store and saying smugly to the grocer:

“This is a joke, right?”