asparagus seedlings

My newly sprouted asparagus seedlings look just like tiny asparagus.

new asparagus bed

Here's my new asparagus bed. The sprouts are up, so I layered on another 2 inches of soil/compost mix today. I'll add another 2 inches in a few days. The plants should have 5 inches of soil above the crowns.

I squeezed my asparagus row between the fence and a raised bed. There was too much room there to let it go empty, but it's a difficult place for planting. Hard to access. Also, the soil of the lawn below is rocky, compacted, and nutrient-poor. When planting, I layered on compost and did my best to turn it into the lawn soil. The asparagus is now a raised row, so I'll need to make sure the soil stays raised and doesn't flatten out. I'm hoping this will work.

planting asparagus

I am SO busy with my Gardening Class added to spring planting on top of my usual work, but the asparagus I ordered arrived in the mail yesterday - so, it's time to plant asparagus! I need to move a few wheelbarrows full of compost over to the bed I have planned for them, turn it under, then plant the crowns. Last time I planted asparagus, I set the crowns in wrong. I dug them up and replanted them. So this is my second time planting crowns and I'll know what I'm doing (I hope). I'll add some pictures of the process.

asparagus ordered

I finally remembered to order my asparagus crowns. 25 Jersey Supreme from Johnny's. They'll be delivered April 25. I'm planting a new bed in my backyard garden.

asparagus harvest

I picked lots of asparagus today. It grows so fast! One day the stalks are a few inches tall - the next, a foot tall! I am picking all of the stalks now as my bed is pretty well established. I'll pick all of the stalks for another week or so, then let them grow into fronds.

I used to steam or saute my asparagus, then this past Easter, I came across a super recipe. Here it is: Emeril suggests roasting it. Yes! its super! Today, I layered on lots of garlic, some olive oil, some herbed sea salt and a bit of Parmesan cheese. I roasted at 400*F for 12 min. It was AMAZING!!! DELICIOUS. Awesome. Tender and sweet. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

chickens and eggs

We are doing some renovations upstairs of our new house where there's a good view of my chicken coop. The construction crew tells me they've seem a big red tailed hawk fly down and perch on my chicken coop a couple of times.

Of all places! Can't he perch on some bird feeder or a random small tree?!! He might as well put in his order for a chicken lunch!

The red tails out here are BIG! I've been impressed. They must be better fed than the ones in more urban Belmont. Stronger and better fed.... and able to carry off large chickens for lunch....

Usually, I let me hens run free an hour or so in the afternoon sun. After this conversation with the construction guys, I only let them out briefly today when I could watch them carefully. The problem was, it was such a nice day and the girls really wanted to run for a while. After 20 min, I started trying to get them back into their coop and it took me a good 20 min. They did NOT want to go.

So, the eggs in the picture above are what the hens lay in about 5 days now. Since all 3 hens are laying, finally, I usually get 6 brown eggs per week from Penny (Black Australorp), 5 blue/green eggs per week from Ginger (Auracana), and 3 giant pink eggs a week from Bertha (Light Brahma). Bertha has just started to lay. So that's 14 egg a week. Plenty for us, and we're giving some away to anyone who leaves a car with open windows on the driveway ;-) Tomorrow I'm planning to make mushroom quiche, and then, Friday for guests, I'll make some deviled eggs of all different sizes.

asparagus

This is my first real harvest of asparagus. Enough for a nice meal.

2012 crop review

At the end of the year, I like to go through my crops from last year, one-by-one, and write down the successes, failures and what I'd like to do different next year.

Going alphabetical the first is:
Apples. Well I'm starting the list off with a failure. No apples this year from my dwarf Fuji tree :-( I forgot to spray it with dormant oil before the buds broke this spring. The tree got badly infected with something. No flowers and no fruit. Also, growth of a maple to the east has shaded it more. Last winter we took down a big branch, maybe not in time to affect this year's flowers and fruit. Hopefully next year added light and timely dormant oil application will give us some apples. An added note, this summer I pruned the tree back quite a bit. I removed a lot of sucker growth and shortened the length of all branches.

Asparagus. I was able to harvest one small meal from my 3 year old patch this year. It was yummy. It seems that the spears grow faster than I had realized and that I'll need to harvest daily to catch them at the right point for eating. Many escaped me this year and got to big for eating. I expanded my asparagus patch this year and put in about 10 more new crowns. Its now about 4 x 5 ft. I fertilized with liquid fish fertilizer and kept it watered and weeded well this year. The ferns looked really nice. I cut them down a couple weeks ago and they are providing mulch for the plants now. I'll add some hay to the top next time I am at the plot. I am definitely looking forward to a BIG harvest of asparagus next spring!!

Basil. I planted a big patch of basil under the tomatoes. Then, when late blight was spotted nearby early, I started spraying the tomatoes with copper. This seemed to seriously damage the basil. The leaves looked burnt. I pulled all the plants after a couple weeks of spraying. Next year, no basil under tomatoes. The basil grows better in my sheltered side yard garden anyway and is more convenient to harvest there. I am thinking of planting all herbs in my side yard next year.

tied up asparagus

I was asked about how I "tired up" my asparagus. Here's a picture. A couple wood posts and some string around the edge of the patch. As I look at other asparagus patches, they seem to stand up better on their own than mine. Mine flops over onto the broccoli. Maybe because its young (3 years old). This does the trick. I'll remember to bring some fertilizer to it tomorrow. And I suppose it could use a couple inches of compost layered on top. Please let me know any advice for growing asparagus.

asparagus shoots

Pretty little asparagus shoots are poking up!

But so far only one of the 12 crowns is growing. I'll keep watching.

My asparagus bed is about 5 ft by 3 ft with 12 crowns planted last spring. Last summer the fronds grew to about 5 feet tall, nice and bushy. The bed is at the far north side of the garden plot, between the compost bin and a lilac bush, so they don't shade anything.

planting asparagus - again

I dug up and replanted my asparagus. I wanted to make sure its done right. I am very glad of the comments from my previous post suggesting that I didn't really plant it right.

Here's a fantastic asparagus planting video that Soilman made this year. It has lots of information and great video, so I won't go into it. Just check out the video. I didn't use compost for the center mound as he does, since I had already mixed lots into the soil bed, but this sounds like a great method.

asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)

planting asparagus

Note added later: Please read the comments. I planted this wrong and will be digging it up to replant soon.

I finally got my asparagus roots planted! They arrived in the mail a while ago (2 weeks ago I think). I moistened them a bit while waiting to plant them. They seem fine still - little sprouts have started on most of them.

I planted them a bit close - 12 inches apart in my 5 ft x 2.5 ft bed. I gave away half of the crowns and planted 10 crowns in this bed. I dug trenches 8 inches deep, laid out the roots, then added back 2 inches of soil and patted it down.

Since I also kept the planting instructions moist for the past couple weeks, I photographed it before it disintegrates.

Now I just need to be patient for two years.



asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)

my asparagus shipment is here

This box arrived yesterday! Time for planting asparagus. I have 25 crowns. My asparagus plot is 5 feet long and only 28 inches wide. At a spacing of 10 inches, that's 6 crowns per row. Though the recommended spacing per row is 3-5 ft, I'd like to squeeze in two rows, 12 crowns. (Elaine is waiting to plant my extras.) So my rows will be only 14 inches apart. Since its only two rows and I can zig-zag the plants, I think this will work. But it will take a few years to know for sure.

asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)

planning for my asparagus shipment

I ordered 25 units of Jersey Supreme asparagus back in the depths of winter. They should be here any day now, so I checked on the planting instructions. Here is what Johnny's recommends:

CULTURE: Asparagus is a perennial vegetable that can thrive for 15 years or more. It likes a sunny or only partially shaded spot richly fertilized with compost or aged manure and limed to a pH of 7.0 or higher. Space plants or crowns 8" apart for slender spears to 14" apart for thick spears in a trench 6-8" below ground level. Space rows 3-5' apart. Keep free of weeds and irrigate. To fill trench, add soil 3 times during the first few weeks as the plants grow, ending with a slight mound to prevent puddles. Heavy hay, straw, or leaf mulch may be applied in mid-summer. The "ferns" that grow feed the roots; don't cut them back until they die naturally in the fall. Apply additional compost or aged manure each fall or early spring.

PLANTING CROWNS: Plant the crowns in furrows 6-8" deep and 3-5' apart. Recommended spacing within the row is 8" apart for slender spears and 14" apart for thick spears. Plant crown in early to mid-spring. Lay the roots flat in the trench and cover with 1-2" of soil. Fertilize with a high-phosphate starter fertilizer or abundant compost. As spears grow, gradually fill in the trench with soil.

HARVEST: The new bed will be ready for moderate harvest a year after planting, and full harvest every mid-late spring thereafter for many years. Harvest by bending spear until it snaps, or cut 1" below the soil.

So, at 10 inches apart, 25 crowns will require 250 inches = 21 ft of row. Rows should be 3 ft apart. I think I only have room for one 4 ft row (19 crowns) or two 3 ft rows (10 crowns). I'll measure the space tomorrow. My friend Elaine has some room for the extras.

I made a copy of the planting information from GROW for Elaine. It seems like a nice article.

asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)