Around this time closing twelve months, Brian and I decided to update the asparagus crowns in our secondary asparagus mattress, the one just out of doors the fenced part of our garden. The first set of crowns we might installation in that mattress, way back in 2014, had been a large unhappiness, generating subsequent to no longer anything for the first few years and finally now not some thing at all. So while we went to the Belle Mead Co-Op to inventory up on mulch and noticed some asparagus crowns for sale, we grabbed a batch and planted them.
Unfortunately, the emblem-new crowns proved no greater efficient than the vintage ones. True, you're not alleged to actually harvest any asparagus the primary year you plant it, but there should at least be some shoots to show that it's far alive, and we failed to see any. We guessed that we would possibly waited too long to shop for them and plant them; by the time we were given them, they had already been sitting in the bins on the co-op for over a month, so (a) we did now not have a bargain of a choice left to pick out out from, and (b) they'll have been beyond their top. Or probable (c) it come to be too overdue inside the season, in order that they did not take very well.
Regardless of the reason, we decided not to make the same mistake this year. As soon as April rolled around, we headed out to the co-op to pick out some new asparagus crowns and get them into the ground early. This time, we had three varieties to choose from, including a purple variety that was supposed to be particularly tasty and another that was touted as a highly prolific producer. However, as soon as we read the label on the Jersey Giant crowns, which said "Also performs well in heavy clay-like soils," we knew that was the variety for us. Getting loads of asparagus or extra-delicious asparagus would be nice, but our top priority was making sure that we got some.
Yesterday it was a bit too wet for gardening, so we waited until today to get the new crowns into the ground. First, we weeded the bed, then Brian excavated the trench he'd dug for the crowns we put in last year. He lined it with compost, then laid out the new asparagus crowns in the bottom, about a foot apart. The instructions on the packet thoughtfully noted, "The roots will grow no matter how they are placed in the trench," so he didn't worry too much about spreading them out, just put them in and added a couple of inches of dirt on top, as required. He didn't water them right after planting as instructed, since it looked like rain was imminent, but it hasn't actually started falling yet; if there's nothing coming down by the time we're done with supper, I'll run out and give them a quick once-over.
Since we only had room for eight crowns in that bed, Brian decided to stick the other two in our old asparagus bed on the south side of the house, which has also been underperforming of late. (We have harvested about a dozen spears from it so far this year, but they were all really skinny.) He didn't want to disturb any of the existing plants that were still producing, but there was a section on the far right of the bed where nothing at all had popped up for a couple of years, so he dug out that section and tucked the two new crowns in there, one in front of the other.
If this variety is everything it's cracked up to be, and if we actually managed to get these into the ground soon enough this time around, we can hope to start seeing shoots from these new crowns over the next few weeks. All we have to do is keep an eye on them and and add more dirt as they grow, until the trench is all filled in. Then we can hope that by this time next year we'll actually have at least a few spears ready to harvest, and a proper crop two years from now.
