The good news is, asparagus is not actually all that
difficult to grow. An established asparagus bed should crop fairly
prolifically. We used to have an asparagus bed and picked so much that we had
to come up with imaginative things to do with it. The only downside to such a
surfeit of asparagus was the funny smell it gave our pee more or less
continuously for about six weeks.
Asparagus is a perennial vegetable, meaning that once
planted it can stay in the same place and will crop year after year. Once
established, an asparagus bed shouldn’t require too much work. The hard work is
all up front. Patience and self-discipline are required to allow the plants to
establish in the bed, as one must resist the temptation to harvest any spears
in the first two years.
March and April are the ideal months to plant out an
asparagus bed, and the bed preparation can be done over winter. We recently moved,
and I decided to plant a new asparagus bed. I started digging over the bed in
February and planted out the crowns in March. Most people start an asparagus
bed from crowns, essentially one-year old dormant plants. It is possible to
grow asparagus from seed, but this will require a three-year wait before you
can pick any. I decided to go down the crown route – three years is too long a
wait.
Preparing the asparagus
bed
A healthy asparagus bed can crop for 10 or even 15 years,
and it is worth spending a bit of time on bed preparation. There are three
things to think about when preparing the bed. First, getting organic matter
into the bed, to ensure the plants have enough nutrients. Second, removing
perennial weeds – asparagus doesn’t like competition. Third, removing stones
and other debris from the ground. If there is debris in the ground, the asparagus
spears will develop kinks as they hit stones in the ground as they grow, and
(at the risk of getting all Frankie Howard on my readers) no one wants a bent spear.
I dug my new asparagus bed out of the lawn. This has the
advantage that once the turf has been skimmed off, there shouldn’t be much of a
problem with weeds. That said, the soil underneath grass can often be fairly
compacted, which can make digging harder. I am a bit old fashioned when it
comes to digging new beds, and often opt for double-digging. Essentially this
means that the soil is dug over to a depth of two spade depths rather than the
one that goes with normal digging. This eases soil compaction further into the
soil, and allows the introduction of organic matter deeper into the soil.
First, mark out your bed. I decided to plant 20 crowns, and
dug a bed approximately 8’ by 4’6” (about 2.6m x 1.5m). Starting at the edge of
your bed, use a spade to strip off two spade-widths of turf off the entire
length of the bed. Put the turf to one side. The aim is merely to skim off the
turf and its roots. You don’t want to take too much soil with it. Then dig out
the soil from the entire area from which you have removed the turf. Put the
soil to one side, preferably near the other side of your planned bed, as this
soil will go back into that side of the bed. A builder’s hippo bag is ideal for
containing the soil. Then add some organic matter into the bottom of the
trench. I use 6X for this – which is essentially well-rotted concentrated
manure - but you could use normal manure, garden compost or even leaf mould.
Fork this into the bottom of the trench. Remove any large stones or other
debris that you find. There’s no need to worry about every pebble from this
second layer, just the larger ones. In the second layer, you will probably
start to get into the subsoil, so you might find a lot of sand or clay, or in
my case, a mix of sand, clay, chalk particles and flints, all debris that
washed off the South Downs during the last ice age.
Once you have forked over the bottom of the trench, add a
bit more organic matter, then skim about a spade-width’s of turf off the next
length of your bed. Place the turf upside down in the bottom of the trench. Use
a spade to break it up a bit. The turf will rot down in the soil providing more
useful organic matter. Then work along your new line, digging the soil out and
placing it on top of the turf that you have just skimmed off. It doesn’t matter
if the earth is quite cloddy at this point, you can break it down later. In the
interests of growing straight asparagus, pick out any large stones, bricks,
broken bottles or and other debris that you find. You might find something
interesting – I’ve found clay pipes, bullet casings, bottles and uniform
buttons whilst digging over gardens. Then add more organic matter, fork over,
and start a new row as described above. When you get to the final row of your
bed, add the turf that you skimmed off the first row, followed by the soil that
you dug out the first row. Add some more
organic matter to the top of your new bed. The time spent picking stones out
can feel a bit tedious, but it is worth it.
If you have left plenty of time to prepare your asparagus
bed, you can leave your bed like this for a while, as a combination of frost,
wind and rain should start to break up the soil a bit. Once you get close to
March, start breaking the clods down into smaller lumps of soil, removing
stones as you go. I use a cultivator for this, which is one of those tools
gardeners used in the old days, a bit like a pitch fork with curved prongs, but
which don’t seem to be made any more.
At about this time, remember to order your asparagus crowns.
Then dig two shallow trenches, each about 12” wide and 8” deep at either side
of your bed. Leave a small mound down the middle of each trench. If you do this
before your crowns arrive, you will be ready to plant them once they arrive,
which is better for the crowns.
Planting the asparagus
crowns
When they arrive, the crowns look like some sort of
prehistoric sea creature. Spread their roots out, and place them across the mound
in the middle of each trench, about 12” apart. Cover them with about 2” of
soil, a bit of organic matter and water in well. Once you start covering the
crowns it is particularly important not to get large stones in the bed. I used
a garden sieve to remove any stones from the top soil. A few weeks after
planting the crowns, you will suddenly see spindly asparagus spears appearing
from the bed. Cover these with a couple more inches of soil (preferably sieved
to remove stones) until they are covered again. Keep covering them in this way
until the trench is full. I found that once the spears started growing, they
grew pretty fast, and needed more soil pretty regularly. Water well.
At this point you will see lots of enticing asparagus spears
in your new asparagus bed, and have to resist the temptation to pick any. By
summer, the asparagus spears will have become huge fern-like fronds. On exposed
plots, these fronds may need some support to protect them from high winds.
Remove any weeds that grow in the bed by hand, taking care not to damage any of
the asparagus crowns. In autumn, the asparagus fronds will die off, at which
point they can be cut back, and the bed mulched.
The following year, you will once again have to resist the
temptation to pick any asparagus, but the year after that you can pick it for
up to six weeks. In following seasons you can pick the spears for up to eight
weeks. Each autumn, the asparagus fronds should be cut back once they have died
off, and a mulch applied. The bed should be weeded regularly, as asparagus
doesn’t do well with competition.
Eating
There’s much to be said for cooking asparagus simply –
either steam or blanch it, and eat it with vinaigrette, hollandaise or melted
butter. It is also good raw in salads, grilled on a barbecue, and makes a fine
risotto. For something slightly different, try my recipe for asparagus fritto misto.
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