Asparagus – 1065 Days & Counting

So we finally finished the raised asparagus bed and got the plants in. Assuming that they thrive we should be havesting lots of asparagus about 3 years from now…totally worth the wait, however hard that might be. For the first two years you’ll get tall, ferny plants with stalks of asparagus that look tempting to cut – but if you give in and cut them the plants will be less productive later on.

A well-maintained asparagus bed can produce for up to 20 years. Once the bed is established it is relatively low maintenance, just weeding, watering and dressing with compost once a year.

We got our asparagus way too early this year so it sat in the pantry for a month. Even though we tried to keep it damp by the time we pulled it out to plant yesterday it was brittle and dry. We showed it to our neighbor who is more knowledgeable and at her suggestion decided not to bother planting this sad stuff. Luckily, she had some extra asparagus plants that needed to be put in the ground!

Asparagus plants look sort of like octopi. They have long, thick roots with little hairy tendrils coming off the roots. The ones our neighbor gave us had quite a bit of mold on them and some of the roots were mushy so I cut them down to about six inches long, removing the mushy roots and cutting above the mold.

Really, planting the asparagus is not difficult. It was building the bed that was hard work. We actually put a raised bed out from the side of the hill, in a spot that gets sun most of the day. Asparagus is most productive when it is getting full sun. It was sort of like building a small terrace.

1. choose a sunny location where you can work the soil 18 inches down & in a space that you won’t want to build on/plant on/otherwise use for 15 years
2. measure the logs (don’t use treated lumber or railroad ties)
3. dig trenches the length of the logs
4. layer of gravel in trenches for drainage & to slow rot
5. place logs in trenches
6. fill in the trench with gravel (slows rot)
7. use rebar to hold logs in place – for the sturdiest way of doing this put rebar on both sides then wire the stakes together so that there is tension in both directions
8. depending on how deep you want your bed stack more logs (we went two high)
9. if your soil is rich and easy to work till it 18 inches down
10. if, like us, your soil is clay, get ready to dig
11. fill wheelbarrow with clay from the bed
12. repeat, repeat, repeat (for us, 15-20 loads) until you have a 10×10 square that is empty of clay down to 18 inches
13. do something useful with this soil (we piled ours up where we need a berm to direct water drainage)
14. fill bed with good soil
15. dig 12 inch deep trenches, 24 inches apart
16. layer each trench with compost, wood ash & bonemeal
17. place asparagus in trenches, 18 inches apart, spreading the roots around a small mounded up pile of dirt
18. mound earth around each asparagus plant, covering it entirely, including the sprout
19. water each plant
20. as they grow continue to cover with soil about every two days
21. water, weed and feed these plants for the next couple years until you can harvest your asparagus