The first week of April we found our asparagus growing fast.
The stalks were growing inches each day.
We have had several meals of tender sweet grilled asparagus.
Now we are getting mammoth stalks - the coin between the purple and green stalks is a quarter!
To verify size to you, this is an extra large egg between the stalks. The purple stalk next to the egg literally split open as it grew. It will be interesting to see how these gargantuan asparagus taste. They will be hitting the grill tomorrow night, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt.
About how we grow our asparagus - we let the plants go to seed the first two years so the tops could help feed the roots. Now we are reaping the reward! Our asparagus is planted in raised beds that are 5 feet by 5 feet. In the middle of these raised bed are our fruit trees - one per bed, with the asparagus planted around the sides. We remember asparagus growing wild in the apple orchards and along the ditch banks when we were growing up. So we wanted to give our plants the same type of location. We planted the roots in good organic compost and used an organic cold climate fertilizer.
Sure hope they do this again next year!
6 comments:
I've been debating planting asparagus. I didn't know if it was hard to grow or not. Yours look great--I'd sure enjoy some spears with dinner!!
I love asparagus! Sadly, mine never did that well. :-( I left it alone the first year, harvested a few the second, but in reality it was a failure. I'm considering starting over this fall...
That is some remarkable asparagus! I keep debating whether to put in a bed, but I know I will be moving at some point and hate to leave it behind. Then, again....
You two do know how to grow asparagas! Those stalks look just wonderful. I've never even tasted the "red" kind . . . any different flavor than the usual green? It will be hard to let it all go to seed this year (IF I succeed in getting it to grow) but I know you must do that to let all the strength go to the roots. The company I'm buying mine from said in the second year you could harvest spears that were finger size thick for two weeks but that was all. Hope I have half the luck you have had!
Now that is asparagus! I would get a few big ones, but lots of little ones from my float garden. This year John dug up all of the roots when he had to repair the framing boards that had rotted over the last 14 years. In my small garden it was a lot of space to give to something that produced for such a small period of time. But I did love the home grown asparagus we did get. - Margy
Haven't seen a post from you in awhile. Hope all is well and you are just living life and having fun instead of blogging about it, ha.
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