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B4—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 12,1983
Do you relish fresh asparagus in
spring but can never afford all
you’d like to serve your family?
Why not beat the high prices of
store-bought asparagus by
growing your own? It’s easier than
you think, and a planting, once
established, provides tasty spears
every spring for as long as 20
years.
The fastest way to get asparagus
into production, according to Ted
Torrey, Burpee vegetable
research manager and home
gardener, is by planting healthy,
one-year-old roots. Sometimes you
can make a light cutting the second
year after roots are set out, more
the third year, and an ample
harvest from then on. (This is
about two years faster than
planting asparagus from seed.)
Mary Washington is a time
tested asparagus variety that
produces thick, straight, dark
green spears tinged slightly purple
at the tips. The flavor is delicious
and the yield heavy and depen
dable. Plants are resistant to
asparagus rust.
In recent years, hybrid varieties
of asparagus have been in
troduced, and Brocks Imperial is
outstanding. The extra-strong
plants start producing shoots
earlier in spring than other
varieties and also keep on longer
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Asparagus
into early summer. Spears are
extremely thick and heavy, yet
stay tender and tasty. They are an
eye-appealing medium green with
less purple tinge than Mary
Washington.
Asparagus will be producing in
your garden for a generation or
more. The best place to plant it is
in a sunny bed at the north or west
side of your vegetable garden,
where it won’t be disturbed or
shade other vegetables. The
feathery, fern-like foliage that
follows the harvest season grows 4
to 6 feet high and makes an at
tractive background or can screen
an unsightly view.
If you don’t have a vegetable
garden, you can still enjoy home
grown asparagus. Plant it along a
fence. You’ll be picking succulent
spears in spring, and later the
attractive green tops will soften
the severity of the fence. You can
also plant a row of asparagus at
the rear of a sunny flower border,
but you’ll need to leave a little
access room to reach and pick the
shoots in spring. After the harvest
period, the tall foliage will enhance
the beauty of the flowers growing
in front of it.
Whatever the location, you need
to prepare the soil well for your
long-term asparagus crop. Its
success over the years depends a
great deal on initial soil conditions
Luke. Nothi
from getting
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really
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and fertility. First of all, soil
drainage must be good. Asparagus
cannot stand “wet feet" very long
after a heavy rain. Try to choose a
place without this problem, or correct
it by incorporating sand or cinders m
early spring, as soon as the ground
is workable. Next, dig the soil to a
depth of 8 inches or more and
remove stones. Work in generous
amounts of compost, peat moss or
well-rotted manure; also add a
balanced vegetable fertilizer
according to soil test recom
mendations or manufacturer’s
directions. At the same time, add
ground limestone if your soil tests
lower than pH 6.0 on the acidity
alkalinity scale. Asparagus thrives
in neutral to slightly acid soil.
Now you’re ready to plant
asparagus roots. Allow about a
dozen for each member of your
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family to have enough asparagus
during the harvest season to serve
a couple of times a week, with
some overage for guests or to
freeze.
Space rows 2% to 4 feet apart.
Dig trenches 6 to 8 inches deep and
12 to 15 inches wide. Set the roots in
the bottom of the trench, with the
crowns (centers of the roots)
facing up and 15 to 18 inches apart.
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Spread out the roots, octopus
fashion, as far as they will go.
Cover them with 3 to 4 inches of
fine soil. Fill in the trenches
gradually, as the shoots grow.
Water deeply if the soil is very dry.
It’s very important to control
weeds during the growing season,
especially the first few years when
the asparagus planting is getting
established. A pre-emergence
weed killer can be used in early
spring; check with your local
county agricultural Agent for
latest recommendations.
For the rest of the season,
cultivate the asparagus bed
shallowly and often to remove
weeds while they’re small. Be
careful not to damage the
spreading asparagus roots or
emerging shoots. A better and
easier method of weed control is to
use a mulch (covering over the
ground) of straw, salt bay, wood
chips or some other organic
material; the mulch must be loose
enough to allow asparagus shoots
to emerge, yet will smother or
shade out sprouting weeds. These
materials also benefit growth by
adding humus to the soil as they
decompose.
Early every spring, and again in
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midsummer, apply a balanced
garden fertilizer to the asparagus
planting. Water deeply during long'
dry spells. In late fall, when the
tops of the plants have turned
brown, cut them off at ground level
and add them to your compost pile.
In areas with severe winters,
mulch the asparagus planting with
well-rotted manure, hay peat moss
or compost after the ground has
frozen.
Do not cut any asparagus the
first season the roots are set out
and none the second, unless the
shoots are at least Ms inch in
diameter. If they are this thick,
then you can pick and savor
asparagus from your garden a few
times, but don’t overdo it. The
plants still need to make as much
top growth as possible to become
fully productive for the rest of their
long life. The third year, you can
expect to harvest asparagus for
about 4 weeks. After that, the
asparagus season will last for
about ft-8 weeks, from midspring
until diminishing spear diameter
indicates it’s time to stop picking
and let the top growth develop.
Spears should be 7 to 10 inches
long at harvest time and you can
either cut or snap them off at
ground level. Use them as soon as
possible after picking or store
them for a short time in plastic
bags in your refrigerator. To
serve, steam spears until tender
and drizzle with melted butter or
hollandaise sauce. Use leftovers in
soup, casseroles or cold in salads.
Also remember to freeze excess
asparagus. It will taste extra good
“fresh” next winter.
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