How to Plant Asparagus

Asparagus costs a fortune at the store, but it's easy to grow. It makes a beautiful edible plant along fences. A little work and some patience will keep you supplied with beautiful asparagus for ten to fifteen years.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• A sunny location
• Asparagus crowns (roots)
• Compost or manure
• Shovel

1. Pick an area along a fence or wall, or in another part of your yard where there is full sun. Make sure that the tall asparagus ferns of summer won't shade anything else that needs full sun.
2. Dig a trench one foot deep and one foot wide. Make the asparagus bed as long as you like, or space separate trenches five feet apart. Combine the removed soil with half as much compost or manure-enriched topsoil, a 2 to 1 ratio. If your soil is heavy, add 1 part of sand. Reserve this soil mix.
3. Mound two inches of soil mix in the bottom, the entire length of the trench. Soak the trench well and let settle overnight.
4. Place your Asparagus roots (crowns) one foot apart on the top of the hill. Cover them with three inches of soil mix and water well again.
5. Keep the soil moist, but not soggy, at root level. Continue adding soil mix as the plants grow. Keep growing tips of plants uncovered.
6. Don't harvest the first year. You are building the roots for the future. Allow plants to grow into ferns. Cut dried, brown plants to the ground in late fall or early winter, except in snowy areas.
7. Start harvesting in spring. Cut the asparagus stalks at or below ground level at a 45-degree angle. Harvest only until stalks become about pencil-size, then stop cutting. Cultivate, adding compost or other fertilizer, and water deeply. Follow this procedure every year and your harvest period will increase.

Tips & Warnings

• Your local nursery or garden center can sell you the asparagus crowns, and will tell you the best time to plant them in your area. (Fall in some areas, spring in others.)
• In cold winter areas, allow the plants to stand all winter. The plants will hold snow, and help protect the roots from freezing.
• Ask about "all male" varieties, which produce more stalks because they don't use their energy to produce seed.
• Water infrequently, but deeply.
• Once the spears start becoming thin, stop cutting.
• Hand pick asparagus beetles, blast them with a water spray, or use row covers to protect your plants.
• Clean up debris in fall.