Kitchen Garden Forum

hi everyone

Need some advice on growing asparagus. want to set up a bed but know idea about best way etc. Should i buy crowns or what? what sort of yield do you get from one plant?As you can see i havent a clue . Only know you have to wait about3 years to eat it.

Seedling

Hi Seedling. I'm not a great expert but have ventured into asparagus growing myself recently, so here is my experience.

Whatever you do, do not buy pre-pack asparagus crowns from the garden centre. They are usually from Taylors Bulbs and are cheap rubbish. A fellow plot holder tried them last year on our site and they made puny growth. I got crowns from a proper seed company and got pretty good growth year 1.

You can usually get growing plants from the garden centre later in the spring. We had them at work and they looked good but were costly (£2.99 for a 1L pot £5.99 for a 3L pot).

If you start with crowns you can harvest a few spears year 2, but the main harvest starts year 3.

I've also grown some plants from seed and they were very easy with almost 100% germination. I got promising growth year 1. As crowns are a year old to start I will have to an extra year to harvest from these plants, but if you wants lots of plants and you have the allotment space to spare, this is a much cheaper way.

The main advice I was given by the old boys on our site was no amount of ground prep is too much, so really lash on the organic matter and dig it in deep, whichever option you go for. The plants need full sun and the best drainage you can give them. An annual mulch of well rotted manure this time of year is also advised.

Sue

oops - forgot to say - the old boys said to be able to cut a couple of times a week for 2 people, I needed a dozen plants. You cut for 6 weeks only, so 12 plants gives 12 asparagus dinners.

Sue

Hello,
We ordered from http://www.asparagus-in-kent.co.uk/growyourown.htm for delivery and planting out in April 2006.

The crowns were every bit as good as the description on their website suggests and were a joy to unpack and plant out. We chose Gijnlim for our new bed.
Our order was for, I think, 90 crowns..but I note their minimum seems to be 10..?

Somehwere I have a few photos taken at the time of planting out...if I can find them I'll post them up.

They have grown on well and we sneaked a very gentle pick of some in spring 2007.
I hilled up the shoulders of the bed a week or so ago were they had erroded by the wet and then top dressed with a thin layer of well rotted manure...so we'll see what this year brings forth...

Clive.

The bed shown contains 3 rows...

..and it is colleague, head gardener, Paul working while I stand by and operate the camera

If the camera info saved is correct it was 5th April 2006..

Clive.

Thanks Sue and Clive . Very helpful advice. will look around at crown prices and decide what to do- seeds or crowns. butter and black pepper at the ready.
Seedling

Go for crowns seedling, and a modern hybrid at that. In the second year yuo can harvest lightly and go for it in the third.

Try moles seeds, for prices they will be about the best value.

Thanks Piglet. Long time no read. Hope you are ok
Seedling

I grew mine from seed. Year 2 I had around 20 spear to eat.
Into year 3 now.

None of this sophisticated trenching: no rooom. Just a big patch closely packed and covered in compost.

thanks madasafish. I think mine will be the same. Sqaushed into a raised bed. as long as it still grows. How far apart did you plant them ?

Seedling

Seedling hi, I have a 10 by 4 foot bed and grow two rows of Asparagus. The minimum was 10 plants so I shoved them all in!! One row of Ginjilm and one row of Jersey Giant.
Two problems, neither too worrying, one is that the soil has sunk over the years and needs a topping up. I tried my first batch of home made compost and had an explosion of weeds which took some taming! The second is that I have to erect posts after the harvesting has finished so that I could wind string around them to hold up the foliage during the summer.
I dont know how many meals I get, I do however eat a lot of them raw while pottering about - well it makes a man peckish.

Enjoy

>seedling about 5cms apart!

Works ok.. 5 cm of compost in winter and some chicken pellets in spring and lots of spears.

Partially shaded by a 150 (?) year old hawthorn, but well drained. Never dries out . Heavy soil.

I think we might give it a try.

We have space in two small raised beds that we are not doing anything with, and as we live so near to Evesham we should be able to get good stock.

I've always been a bit scared of growing it, thinking it is 'difficult'. But I'm braver these days, and will give it a try...

Neither my fine young man nor I have smelly pee after eating asparagus, does this really happen or is it just a myth, giving folk another opportunity for toilet humour?

Only a certain proportion of the population has the smelly wee reaction to eating asparagus. I can confirm that after enjoying a meal of asparagus most of us have noted a certain "castrol GTX" whiff when next going to the loo - but what the heck!

On a different note, what do you think is the best top dressing for the asparagus bed? I've got garden compost, or partially rotted chicken manure with wood shavings. I thought I might put down a sprinkle of Growmore, topped with garden compost and then put the chicken/wood shavings on more as a mulch.

Also I get a lot of slug damage if I don't go out every night and catch the pests - what do you do? We've got thrushes and hedgehogs around so I don't use slug pellets in open beds.

Have you tried the Chase Organic seaweed meal? It seems quite effective for me.

mike