Asparagus is a very popular garden vegetable, but since it’s a perennial it will take up room in your small garden, even though your harvest lasts only one season per year. The good news is that your asparagus plants can be productive for as many as thirty years and the harvest will increase every year!
Start with two year old crowns, male plants are most productive. This is what the crowns look like.
Growing and harvesting asparagus is a balancing act. You want to enjoy a good harvest, but you also need to make sure you don’t deplete the strength of the plants. If you stop harvesting too soon, the plants will send up big ferns and put a lot of energy into the roots. The next year the spears would be thick as a thumb and after that – a big toe! Once your asparagus are established, your goal is to keep continuing your harvest for a long time so the plants don’t get too big.
The trick for the best results in a small garden involves plant spacing and harvest timing. Plant them five inches apart and six inches deep. Spread the thick roots out carefully and cover with soil. Use the pattern shown here to get five plants per square foot.
This is MUCH closer than most gardening manuals recommend, but there are several reasons why we do it this way. First, in our raised bed gardens we have very deep, fertile soil, so each plant doesn’t need as much room.
That’s why I plant them so close together originally. We want them to crowd together and compete for nutrients and not become gigantic. What a wonderful problem to have – a long harvest period for your tender, tasty asparagus!
The first year they’ll send up skinny little shoots, which aren’t very good for eating. Let them grow up into ferns which will soak up the sun all spring and summer and send energy into the roots.
By September your asparagus should be bright green ferns three to five feet tall. You may see some red berries as well. Once the weather starts to cool down your ferns will start to turn a bit brown and die back. Cut them off at the bottom and throw the ferns away. If you let the berries drop to the ground, you’ll have tiny little asparagus plants starting in your garden next year, so feel free to dispose of the ferns in the trash unless you have a hot compost pile.
After their first year, they’ll use their stored energy to send up thicker spears – starting with pencil thickness. These are great to eat – tender and tasty! Use a sharp knife to cut them off below the surface before the buds start to open out into the beginnings of branches. Every time you cut a spear, another will pop up to take its place. If you harvest too long you’ll deplete the plant’s energy, so go easy the first year. Enjoy those thin shoots for 3 – 6 weeks.
The next year is when you’ll be getting a significant harvest of pinky or finger sized shoots. Harvest them for a longer period so they don’t store up too much energy for next year’s crop.
From then on you’ll harvest for longer and longer periods to maintain the balance between harvest times and spear sizes. Enjoy!
Eric Eitel is a farmer, father, personal trainer and owner of Instant Organic Garden Southern Maryland, a business that builds raised bed gardens for homeowners, schools, restaurants and businesses. He gives talks and teaches classes on how to make gardening easy. 443-771-3003 eric@instantorganicgarden.com www.instantorganicgarden.com
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