Backyard Asparagus

Europeans have a preference for fat, white asparagus spears, usually canned. I prefer mine green, thin and fresh. White asparagus is not a special kind. It has been blanched by piling soil over the emerging shoots. Light turns the spears green. Diameter, in turn, has less to do with variety than with the age of the patch and when the spears are harvested. Early in the season, spears are fatter. I’ve heard that the fattest spears are produced only for a plant’s first few years of productivity, from primary buds. A well prepared bed can be productive for 15 years.

I like to eat asparagus, but until I visited Tom and Victoria Schneider’s garden a few years ago I had not thought very much about how to grow it. It was the end of March, and the Schneiders’ five year old asparagus bed was putting up big, fat spears. Tom Schneider picks all the shoots until they diminish to the thickness of a pencil. That’s almost two months of a delectable gourmet treat, which no doubt makes the initial work and wait worthwhile.

Asparagus is usually planted in the form of dormant crowns, available at garden centers in early spring. But the best time to prepare a new asparagus bed is now, when soils are at their most workable. Our climate is not the best for growing asparagus, since wet winter soil can cause the roots to rot. The plants prefer deep, rich soils that drain well in winter. The surest way to achieve that is to build a raised bed. Steve Solomon, creator of Territorial Seed Co. and author of Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, suggests it should be four feet high and wide, but many gardeners grow asparagus successfully in beds lower and narrower than that.

Books recommend that you plant asparagus on the west or north side of the garden so that it will not shade other crops. Tom Schneider‘s bed is up against a south facing fence. “One of the things I like about that location,” he says, “is that it catches the early spring sun and warmth. Also, after harvesting is over and the ferns are growing, I can rope them up against the fence to keep them out of the path, and out of the more productive areas of the garden.”

Start by building a raised bed, with or without boards, of purchased sandy loam or your own good, weed-free soil. Work in as deeply as you can an inch or two of compost, a pound of dolomite lime and a pound of rock phosphate or bonemeal per 10 feet of row. Cover the new bed with more compost or leaves, and perhaps with a tarpaulin to keep it dry over the winter. Since an asparagus bed is a long term proposition, it should start out free of all perennial weeds and be weeded religiously thereafter.

Recommended planting times vary from February to April, taking into account the condition of the soil. There is no advantage to planting the crowns early in cold, wet soil, because they won’t grow until the soil warms, and they are more susceptible to rot if exposed to cold, wet soil too long. In spring, work in a cup and a half of complete organic fertilizer per ten feet of row. Dig a wide trench no deeper than 5 or 6 inches. (Deeper planting was suggested at one time, but research has shown that the deeper planting reduces the yield.) Space the crowns about a foot apart in the row and spread out the roots. Backfill the trench part way; add more soil as the shoots extend.

The crowns you buy will be a couple of years old, and it will be a couple more before you should harvest anything. Let all the shoots develop into tall, feathery ‘ferns’. By the third year after planting the shoots should be thicker and more numerous, and you can harvest them for about 3 weeks, snapping off the shoots at soil level.
In a wet climate like ours, Shneider and others suggest that the top growth should not be allowed to winter over. Cut down the ferns in November or December and mulch the row heavily with manure or compost. Asparagus will not do well if the pH is less than 6.0, so every few years you will need to add another pound of lime per 10 feet of row, in fall. After the spring harvest, fertilize with 1-2 cups of organic fertilizer per ten row feet. Asparagus is a heavy feeder!

ABUNDANCE

I looked at the Shiro plum tree in our garden, its branches literally encrusted with fruit like some kind of parasitic infection, and thought of Tom Schneider. Tom and his wife Victoria are experienced gardeners with an interesting history. Among other things, they spent 15 years living off the grid in Haida Gwaii (formerly known as Queen Charlotte Islands, BC) where they learned about foraging from the Haida people. I met Schneider one April a few years ago for the purpose of foraging for wild nettles. On the way back we stopped in at the Grassroots Garden on Coburg Road, and shared in a delicious lunch prepared in the outdoor kitchen from Grassroots produce by a young chef named Laura.

More recently, Schneider shared with me some thoughts about serious food gardening; that is, growing food as a substantial contribution to one’s own sustenance. He told me he has come to believe that gardening is “a 1/3-1/3-1/3 effort. Soil preparation and planting is one third of the effort. Watering, weeding, and growing is one third of the effort. But I find many folks when they plant don’t adequately plan for the final third of the effort, which is getting the food they grow from the harvest basket to the plate and fork.”

Schneider asserts that the sheer magnitude of the harvest in the summer and early fall can take the joy out of gardening for new gardeners. ”Before you put a seed in the ground, you need to develop progressive strategies, whether it be for eating fresh, freezing or canning. Or simply finding somewhere to put produce you can’t use today, like a second refrigerator or a root cellar or some other cool space. You need baskets to harvest into, flat surfaces to sort the harvest, maybe space and equipment for canning and drying. And budgeting time for these tasks that will get the food to your plate is essential.” Schneider’s rule of thirds is not just about planting, it’s a way of life.

People vary in their approach to feeding themselves year round. Some put more effort into preserving the summer harvest of fruit and vegetables, while others put more emphasis on always having something growing in their garden beds. Back in August, Schneider pointed out that the period between Aug 15 and the end of September is the most important of the planting season. “What a person does during those six weeks will determine what the garden will produce for the next six months, when fresh stuff is more expensive. Having fresh cilantro at Thanksgiving, and crops to protect with those simple hoops we use (see Head Start, Eugene Weekly, February 11, 2010) depends on not being overwhelmed with the final third of getting the summer's abundance to the table or freezer. Zucchini is cheap now in the Farmers Market or at your local farm stand.”

So perhaps, rather than trying to keep up with zucchini in August, you should have been making space in the garden to sow cilantro or winter chard. And I should have been clearing out a bed for winter salad greens and another bed of kale, instead of fretting about what to do with an overabundance of Shiro plums, which are not my personal favorites. And another thought: should I even keep that plum tree, and spend time picking plums just to give them away? Or would it be better to use the space for a freestone Italian plum I would really enjoy? Surely part of that final third of the effort should assure that you don’t waste precious space and water on things that your family won’t eat.

So plant things you, your family and friends enjoy. Plant only as much as you think you can use and have time to harvest and process. Spread the harvest out by making smaller plantings progressively, or by planting fruit and vegetable crops that mature at different times. Plan an early start by making at least a couple of raised beds that will warm up fast. You can sow peas, radishes and salad greens as early as February, and that space will come available again in time for warm weather crops.
And while most of us will never have an outdoor kitchen like the one at Grassroots Garden, it sure would make harvesting easier and cleaner to have a table and outdoor sink, however primitive, for sorting, trimming and preliminary cleaning. Next to the compost area, perhaps.