It’s About Thyme
by CHRIS WINSLOW
One of the first garden chores for late January and early February – or just as soon as the ground can be tilled – is to set up an asparagus bed.
This extremely tasty vegetable requires a sunny location with good drainage. Since it is a perennial, I always suggest that people think of asparagus officinalis as a border plant that you can put on the edge of a garden, or along a fence line.
Grown from seed, asparagus can take a number of years before it reaches maturity and a harvestable size.
To shorten this time, it’s common for gardeners to plant ‘crowns’ that are two or three years old.
People new to this crop often ask me how many they should plant. Under optimum conditions a 20-foot row (or the 100 square feet of a 10’ x 10’ raised bed) will yield about 10 pounds each spring. Twenty crowns is just about right for a family of four.
To create your asparagus patch, till liberal amounts of compost into the ground. Add blood and bone meal, and some slow-release organic fertilizer (5-12-15) at the rate of 10 to 12 lbs. per 100 square feet or 20 foot row. The 12 percent phosphate will encourage strong root growth.
Rows should be 4 feet apart. Plant your asparagus crowns in furrows 6” to 12” deep and 12” apart. Cover the crowns with three to four inches of soil. Later in the season, add more soil to fill the furrow to level. This will help with weed control.
Allow the plants to grow for a year without harvesting. Spears that emerge the following spring can be harvested when they reach a height of six to eight inches. Continue to harvest new spears until the diameter gets smaller than 3/8 inch or about pencil size.
The bed should then be allowed to rest, and to re-grow new top growth. This is the time to feed the plants with an organic fertilizer high in nitrogen. Cottonseed meal (6-2-2) or feather meal (12-0-0) both work well.
After the harvest, cover the asparagus bed with at least three inches of compost mixed with mulch, and keep the bed watered well throughout the heat of summer. Care through the hot months will insure a bountiful harvest the following spring.
Happy gardening everyone!
