Have you ever had the pleasure to harvest fresh asparagus straight from the garden and eat it on the spot?
Once you have them established, they will crop yearly for about eight months and they live and produce beautiful Asparagus Spears for more than twenty years.
That is a lot of result over a long period of time without the work that most other vegetables require.
They do clump to a reasonable size and with such a long lifespan it is best to select a spot where they can remain undisturbed.
Some of ours are about 60 centimetres across and if you allow them to establish that size you will get great tasting produce and a very hardy plant.
The hard part – no snacking on those spears for the first two or three years. This allows them to really establish and get a great root base.
There are several ways to start them, including from seed.
You can also start with seedlings or crowns. Crowns will get you an earlier result but will have a higher cost to purchase. Spring is an ideal time to plant here in the Scenic Rim.
Asparagus requires a winter chill to enter dormancy, but our local winters are often too mild for this natural process.
To compensate we manually induce dormancy by cutting back the foliage in late autumn or winter and reduce watering. This helps mimic the plant’s natural cycle and encourages strong regrowth in spring.
They like a rich soil and if you want lots of edible spears they need feeding. We fertilise ours in late August or early September and then again in November. We use either organic chicken manure pellets or our compost. We keep them well mulched to keep the moisture in. They are hardy with pests and disease.
Asparagus lie dormant in winter and the new spears will start to emerge from the ground in late August or early September. Between myself and allowing those who join us for our farm tours to sample, they rarely make it to the kitchen.
