Springing… UP!
Posted by: TammySpring has solidly arrived here in Connecticut! Thank you, God! After all the snow we had, I had really begun to think we were in the next ice age.
One sure sign of spring is seeing asparagus reaching and stretching towards the warm sun.
If you haven’t been a regular reader, I wrote about my efforts at creating my asparagus bed last spring: Asparagus, a Bed to Last 25 years!. It was THE most difficult bed I’ve had to construct because of the depth I had to make it. But, as I mentioned, it’s a bed that will house my asparagus for at least the next twenty-five years, so making it right the first time was well worth the effort.
I chose to plant all-male hybrids in my bed based on the recommendations of Vermont gardener and writer, Edward C. Smith. His book, “The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible” is a fantastic resource for us Northern gardeners because he writes about what he knows, gardening in colder climates with shorter gardening seasons and smaller spaces.
When you harvest non-hybrid varieties of asparagus, you want to pick the male asparagus and let the thin, female spears develop into the ferny tops. In my case, I have a relatively small bed and can’t really afford to lose harvest to the whims of male/female plant genetics so I opted for a hybrid, all-male variety of asparagus produced by a research college in New Jersey: Jersey Knights.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know what I was looking for when I bought my asparagus roots last year. I bought at a local greenhouse and didn’t question the sad, dried looking bags of little short roots. Of the twenty-four roots, six to eight of the roots didn’t sprout at all and then after winter, I lost six to eight more plants (this was a relatively easy winter with my beds covered under six FEET of snow so the roots were well insulated and never experienced below freezing temperatures). I had a net loss of 50% within one year.
When I found Jersey Knight roots at my local Agway store, they were sprouting, flexible very long and MUCH healthier looking. I managed to get those planted last weekend, working carefully because of my sprained knee. I hope that next spring, I’ll have a full bed of healthy asparagus sprouting up. But again, make sure you buy healthy looking roots that aren’t dried out, short and sad looking. I basically lost a year of production because I just didn’t know, so don’t make my mistake.
This year, I could have harvested two to three spears from each plant but I chose to harvest a mere spear per plant, simply because I realized that the roots I had didn’t fair well over the winter and I didn’t want to stress the plants too much. We enjoyed our six asparagus spears in a homemade pasta alfredo dish I made. I cut the spears into one-inch pieces so we could all enjoy the taste of spring.
I’m eagerly watching for my new additions to show signs of growth and will keep you updated!