Asparagus

Asparagus gone to seed

Looks a lot like asparagus you
would eat until it fans out

Finally found some time to get some gardening done! Just in time for the end of the season... oh well, better late then never!

The first thing I got to doing was planning out where we're going to put some steps from the back of the shop into the garden. Part of that is moving some plants first. The raspberries I have to wait until they stop fruiting (because we want to eat them!). Even though waiting another month would probably be the best for these asparagus, I have the time now & they are pretty strong healthy plants, I'm sure they will survive.

Transplanted
I cropped then down so they are
all ready for winter

The trick with transplanting the asparagus was digging up this massive root-ball! It took half an hour and then a strong back (hubby) for the largest one. 

Mommy! Look at all the worms!!

Asparagus takes 3 years to grow from seed into something you can eat. So if you're starting from scratch you probably want to go buy some 1 or 2 year old crowns from the nursery. Otherwise that is a long time to wait.

We didn't have a chance to eat any of the asparagus this year, they'd already grown too big by the time we moved in; but we should have a really good crop next year. I let all the big guys drop their seeds already, and cleared the area underneath so the seeds have somewhere to grow. Now I'll thin whatever grows in the next few years. Allowing the asparagus to get to this fern-like state is also pumping nutrients down into the crown, so the plant will have lots of energy to produce stocks in the spring.

I've re-planted my crowns at ground level instead of in a trench because we are going to build a raised bed along this edge of the garden for the asparagus. (I haven't really decided yet if we're going to do the rest of the garden in raised beds.) They need some old manure thrown on them, and we've got lots kicking around! So in a few weeks I'll have the box built, and we'll bring the old manure over.