I had to settle for this photo, at least you can tell that it's asparagus... I think! The emerging shoots are really slender, and the camera just couldn't quite focus on them properly. Let's hope they fatten up a bit for a good photo.So... asparagus. This is Mary Washington, and I have exactly 18 of them. And not really a good idea of where to put them. I am not sure how much their success will be assured here in Brisbane, after hours and hours of googling I did notice that poor Mary doesn't necessarily fare so well outside her preferred temperate zone.
But the seeds have sprouted and that seems to me a fortuitous beginning, and onwards I shall press on. Ha, plant on.
So... full sun? Dappled shade? Morning sun? Afternoon sun? Winter full sun and summer dappled? You name it, I can offer it.
The question is, what would Mary want?
19 comments:
Hi Ali, those pictured are just the fronds...you need to let them bush up , the 'real' asparagus will come in thick stems from the ground, not all ferny like the ones here...good luck with it, I have lost mine I think I cut it back, and it died back and never poked anything out of the ground again.. :(
Hi Ali, you are such a renegade! It will be interesting to see if if Mary finds this trait attractive.
Ooooooooooooooooooooo lovely! I've only just stuck in one to see if I can resist harvesting it for 2 YEARS!!!! What variety did you plant?
How cool is this, just this morning I had just been unsuccessfully googling *asparagus seedlings* so that I could see what my (unlabelled and mixed up!) asparagus seedlings will look like when/if they germinate.
Time to check the gardening blogs and you've answered my question, awesome!
Good luck with them I hope mine will germinate soon, I have the same variety too. :)
Ali ... welcome to the world of Asparagus! It does do well in Briz, I've grown Mary and my current one is the heritage Connover's Colossal. Jacqui at Jane Street has some nice purple ones. Have a waltz through the BLF site, search for posts and photos, there are some. Lots of us grow it.
Your seeds have just sprouted, so you need to let them grow on for at least a year before you plant them in their permanent position. When a bit more mature, the boy plants will produce the fattest spears and the girl plants get removed (or you just muddle along with both like I do). 'Cept when you've got both, you get seeds ...
When you buy crowns which can be done these days but not when I planted mine way back when ... they are 2 years old and expect to get some spears the next year once they are settled in. I suggest that you take each one out of the communal pot, put it into a decent-sized pot and keep it well fed and watered then next spring (2012) plant them out.
They love the sun or so it seems - mine thrive on the western side on top of the slope, clay underneath but built up a bit. I rarely water them. Once or twice a year I clear-fell and whirr the stems up in my small mulcher. The mashed-up stems go back on the bed sometimes with some compost or Organic Extra and the new growth is harvested for a few weeks then I let the stems have their wicked way and make more food for the crown for next time.
Fresh green Asparagus stems from your own garden are divine raw and delightful lightly steamed with some olive oil salt and pepper. Oh and I let the stems grow up to about 1 to 2 feet before I snap the stem off where it snaps easily. That way I get a lot more Asparagus for each stem than if I just cut them off at a few inches long.
I love growing asparagus, and got the two year crowns, about two years ago. the ones with the seeds (must be the females) have very skinny shoots, I also have a purple one that I started from seed and have just planted out this year. do be aware that they need to have lots of room around them to grow.
I have wild asparagus popping up all through my orchard. We always get several feeds from them each year and mine thrive on neglect. They are in rich, fertile soil that gets water but I don't ever do anything to them as such.
Good luck with your Asparagus-growing enterprise. Here in the UK few people would contemplate growing it from seed, since 1-year-old crowns are readily available. As you know, there are lots of posts on my blog about this crop, so you may get some help from my efforts in this field... All my books say that Asparagus prefers full sun - but that's UK sun, not Australia sun which is probably a bit more pwerful!
Oh thank you Mark, and yes, there is full sun and then full sun! I saw the seeds and bought them on a whim. I guess it's going to be a lesson in patience too :) And don't worry, I have been searching your blog for tips!
Deb I hope that mine thrive on neglect too! That's my kind of plant :)
AA, thanks for the tip - how much room per plant would you say? I'm glad they grow up your way, that gives me hope for mine! How much sun do yours get?
Elaine you champion, I wish you were my neighbour, I'd be at yours every time I came across something new! I will go and look at BLF, and I am so glad to hear that you grew Mary - did you like them? What size pot would you recommend I keep my seedlings in for the year?
Meeka, we can have a little asparagus harvesting party in around 3 years!
Mrs Bok, we will resist together... I am so not going to be able to resist with grace!
Hazel, if Mary doesn't like me, then it's compost for her. Let's hope that Mary understands this...
And Suzanne you gloriously good looking young thing, how did you kill yours? Cutting at the wrong time? I found all the advice on cutting them down very confusing, it hurt my brain.
Ali, Asparagus needs quite a bit of room. The crowns are a sort of compact rhizome with at least pencil-thick peg roots, no tap root. And do those roots know how to hold onto Australia! I tried to move mine ... huh! an end-loader would have been useful. So I am talking about 2 feet across, so allow at least that much room between plants when they do go into the ground.
Keep them in about 6 inch pots for now and as they grow, go to the next size. Mary W tasted just like Asparagus! ;-) It is soooo different to the canned crud. A Tasmanian-born friend introduced me to fresh Asparagus back in the 70s and I've had some growing more or less ever since in 3 different gardens.
I don't know how you can tell the gender of the plants except by pendulum and I didn't try that. You could dig out the females at a later date if you (or your boys) have the strength for it, or just enjoy thinner spears and remove the fronds with the developing berries (little round jobs) lest you are taken over by Asparagus however delightful this might be.
Elaine, you are a veritable font! I am getting quite excited about Mary :)
Right, a big bed hey... do they become invasive? They don't need to be planted together for pollination, do they?
Ali I am north of Brisbane and mine are doing well. The most important thing is to have deep rich soil. About 30 cm deep for the long roots. For the first few years in the ground just let the fronds grow and die. Cut off the dead fronds and add compost and mulch. After about 2 years you can take 1/2 the fat spears and every year a few more but you have to be careful not to take too many.
Oh thanks Fiona, that's great advice. Nothing that I was googling was making sense on the cutting down of the fern fronds. I didn't realise that they died down - it certainly makes things easier!
What kind of position do you have yours in?
Pollination is not what you want Ali! That's how you get berries on the female plants - the bees do their thing. The spears we eat are the stems.
Some years Asparagus dies down, some it doesn't - depends how cold it is. This year the first new shoots are not even appearing so the plant has had a decent rest, more than any other year since they've been in the ground. Don't wait for them to die down coz next thing you know, new spears are appearing. I clear-fell to induce a sort of winter rest.
There's some info on BLF from Scarlett which suggests that if you start cutting the second year after being planted out, you get more spears than if you leave them longer. It's a bit like I told you about the lettuce - within reason the more you cut the more you get. Cutting the spears sparks the plant into action, so for the first cutting just take one or two spears from each plant and that's all for that season.
Asparagus only become invasive if you let the berries ripen to a cheery red and then drop their seeds. Other than that, they are well-behaved. The 'Asparagus Fern' which is a spiky pest is a relative, it has little thingies on the roots which will make new plants. Edible Asparagus is not like that and it's not spiky, either.
We've only just got ours planted - a friend gave us a single pot when we started the garden and somehow Pete magically turned it into seven separate plants, which then sat in little pots for the better part of a year while we tried to find a place to plant them, and then we finally did plant them in a little bed next to the driveway. They're skinny things - I keep thinking it will be seven years before we get to eat them, but I think I'm confusing them with the avocados.. ;-)
Celia if either my asparagus or my avocados take that long I'll be pulling them out! Next to the driveway sounds like a fabulous idea, how are they going there? I think I have found a nice place for them. I was thinking that seeing as they are a permanent fixture, I should put them somewhere that I never use.
Elaine I have an awful asparagus fern that creeps over the fence from the neighbours, and try as I might I cannot kill it. It wants to twine its way up one of my banana plants. I like the idea of cutting them the second year - I have never been one for waiting for good things to come!
You'll be harvesting them not next year, probably not the year after (unless you sneak one or two spears accidentally-like), but the year after you can harvest every spear that pops its head up from September to November, before you should let the fronds grow out to replenish the plant. Lots of mulch every winter, and other than that they're -really hardy. (Wallabies love them - devastated mine but I don't suppose you have that problem.) I plant the males and the females - the female spears are skinnier but just as tasty. But if you're short of room, you can weed out the females when you find out which ones they are when they set little red berries next year, and replace them with more baby males.
Mine get full sun from Midday till sunset. They like a bit of lime and a ph of 7+.
Oh thank you Fiona, I was concerned about our harsh summer sun, we all know that all suns are not equal!
Linda, thank you :) No wallabies here that I have ever seen, so at least I won't have that problem with them. When you talk about harvesting from September to November, is that for Queensland (I am in Brisbane)?
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