Asparagus is one of the easiest crops to grow and, once established, will crop for many years with fairly minimal attention. In my opinion, it’s also one of the tastiest vegetables, and the benefit of growing your own is that you can pick it as you need it, ensuring it is as fresh as it could possibly be.
Another positive is that it is one of the earliest vegetables to crop, starting in late April, if the weather is warm, and continuing to late June.
The most common way to establish asparagus is to buy “crowns” that arrive in late winter, looking like large gangly spiders. Prior to buying the crowns you should prepare the bed. Asparagus will crop for over 20 years, so make sure you choose a good location. Ahead of planting prepare the bed well, making sure it is as free of weeds as possible, with plenty of manure dug in. As for most vegetables, asparagus prefers a freely draining soil, so I planted mine in a raised bed.
My asparagus bed is about 4m long by 1m wide, and provides ample asparagus, almost a daily crop. If you don’t want to eat asparagus every day in May and June perhaps plant a smaller area!
Once the crowns are available, plant in trenches about 20cm deep, with plants about 50cm apart, and rows about 1m apart. Cover with loose soil. In the first year, do not crop at all, just let the asparagus grow into ferns. In the second year, a few spears can be harvested, but not after the start of June. In the third year, harvest from late April until late June. Try and harvest the spears when they are about 30cm tall. Any taller and they start to turn into ferns and get tough. To harvest, simply slice off at the base with a sharp knife, just below the soil.
The base of asparagus can be woody, and not pleasant to eat. So, to prepare for cooking, snap the asparagus stalks in two, and use the upper tender part for cooking and either discard or make soup from the woody bases.
Once cropping is stopped in late June, allow the asparagus to grow and it will grow into about 1m tall ferns (see photo)
Photo – a small forest of asparagus to the right of the polytunnel
Do not touch the ferns until they go yellow and start to die back. At this point, you can cut them back to the soil. Once this is done, I usually cover the bed in mulch or compost. Grass clippings can be used, as can spent compost (e.g. from used growbags). Grass clippings are good at suppressing weeds and rot down over winter. You can add a surface feed of manure at this point as well. I’ve used pelleted chicken manure mixed with the mulch.
The main pest that will trouble you is the asparagus beetle. It’s a pretty beetle, about the size of a ladybird, and coloured black, red and white. Unfortunately, their larvae eat your asparagus causing dried out inedible spears. They climb up the asparagus spears to mate and lay eggs. You will start to notice them on warm days in late May. You can spray, but an effective alternative to spraying is to regularly patrol, pick them off and squish them. Be aware, they drop off the spears and hide in the soil if they sense you near them. It is also important to remove any damaged stems, and burn the ferns when you chop them down in late autumn to control the asparagus beetle.
Photo – Asparagus Beetle – Pretty, but also pretty annoying.
Slugs can be a problem in early May, so use your preferred method of slug control. Once cropping starts in earnest though even the slugs can’t keep up!
If you want a slightly more exotic crop, grow your asparagus in darkness (cover with a large pot) and you will get white asparagus, which has a slightly different taste to green asparagus.
Photo – Large tubs being used to grow white asparagus
And that is it! Keep it weeded, mulched and fed in late autumn, squish those pesky asparagus beetles, and you will have asparagus for over 20 years.
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