Asparagus

We love asparagus at our house. So I thought I'd have a go at growing it.

I planted some asparagus "crowns" the other day. I didn't know anything about planting it until I bought them from the garden center and the manager told me what to do. I was disappointed to hear, though, that I will have to wait a year to eat anything even though spears will appear this year. Apparently you need to allow the root system to get established first. The good news is that asparagus is a perennial plant and these crowns could last for 10 years.

After I made two trenches, I made mounds inside each trench. I spread out the roots on top of the mound. Then I covered the roots with the dirt. I placed markers (old ice cream sticks) at each place so I will know where I've planted them. Lastly, I added mulch on top to discourage weeds.

So now I water and wait.

The raised bed before planting. This bed had tomatoes and squash last year.

The first trench only took up about half of the raised bed area.

The asparagus crowns came in a bundle of 10.

One crown has lots of roots.

Within the trench I made mounds for each crown.

I spread the roots out over the mound.

Both trenches had five crowns.

The trenches were covered up with mulch.

This mulch was fairly coarse with larger pieces of wood chips.