Asparagus plants 2020: Ready, set ...

Meteorological spring has sprung and the asparagus season will soon be here! I can’t wait!

Asparagus officinalis, commonly called ‘Sparrow Grass’ is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant that is endemic in coastal parts of the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy It produces stout edible stems called ‘spears’ from which grow feathery leaves.

Asparagus spears contain iron, vitamins and folic acid, and have diuretic properties. Long prized for it’s delicate flavour, there is actually a recipe for cooking asparagus in De re coquinaria (On the Subject of Cooking), believed to have been compiled in the first century AD.

I am a big lover of asparagus spears. I eat them raw and cooked. Just-picked asparagus is a delight.

September 2019: One of my asparagus beds. At the end of the spring cropping season, I leave asparagus spears to grow freely and form feathery leaves as the plant builds up resources for the next year’s cropping.

I currently have 4 main asparagus beds, each containing multiple plants of different varieties, and a few pairs of plants dotted about here and there as ornamental edibles amongst rose bushes and other flowering plants such as Cosmos bipinnatus. I think asparagus plants would be great in sensory gardens. The stems can grow to a height of 1.5m and will eventually need to be supported. I am a big fan of growing ornamental and edible plants together.

All of my asparagus plants are now mature now and produce more spears than I can keep up with over a 6-8 week period from mid- spring. It is advisable to leave asparagus plants to grow freely and NOT to harvest any spears for first two years after planting. The plant needs time to put down roots and strengthen itself for future years of cropping. After year two, harvesting is then phased in increasing until you can harvest all of the spears during the cropping period.

Once mature, asparagus plants are relatively fuss-free. Slugs and snails, as well as the asparagus beetle can be a problem. The beetles can strip stems of leaves and severely weaken plants for the next cropping season.

To get the best out of my asparagus plants, I try to keep the main beds as weed free as possible. I do two things to get my asparagus plants ready for the season:

Weed the beds by hand. Hand weeding is necessary as I don’t want to damage the plants. Some gardeners burn the dried stems and weeds off with a blow torch. Too risky for me!
Mulch with organic farmyard manure in winter to discourage weeds and help retain moisture.
Apply fertiliser such as fish, blood and bone in early spring.

Then, they’re good to go.

Once the cropping season begins, I tell you, the more you cut (low, just below the soil-level base), the more they keep coming! I get so many spears that it sometimes gets to a point where I allow friends to help themselves.

I just sit back and I’m always amazed when they pop up. Speaking of popping up, the spears can seem to pop up over night sometimes (they probably don’t!). One moment you have bare ground, then the next, you’ve got dwarf spears bursting through and gaining height at an amazing rate!

Towards the end of the season, it is important to leave some spears to uncut so that they can undergo their full growth cycle and build up resources for the cropping season in the next year. The advice is to allow the foliage to yellow before cutting down for the winter. I actually leave the dried stems in place for the winter as markers to help me avoid damaging the plants or emergent spears when weeding in close to the cropping season. Some collapse and act as a mulch. Good for wildlife shelter too. I remove them in early spring.

I found three stubby emergent spears while weeding yesterday! Two had been attacked by slugs and/or snails, but the sight of them reminded me that the asparagus season is truly on its way - and possibly a little early!