At the old house, I always wanted to plant asparagus, but I balked at the time you had to let it grow before you could harvest.
"Three years," I grumbled. "Who wants to wait three years before eating asparagus?"
Well, considering it was readily available at our weekly farmer's market during that time, it wouldn't have been a hardship. We bought it and ate it anyway.
And three years would have passed. Hell, eighteen years passed in that house.
So this year, I bought a pack of 15 asparagus crowns from an organic online gardening place. (Couldn't buy less than that, thought I was skeptical that I wanted 15 plants). Then I read the planting instructions and realized I couldn't have 15 plants, unless I wanted to dedicate 3 whole raised beds to their planting.
I gave away 10, planted 5, hoping for the best. Since my beds are raised, I can't plant as deep as recommended. But gardening is an experiment, so I ... experimented.
Lo and behold, many weeks later, there are two little stalks of asparagus waving over the soil. BTW, I didn't keep the bed wholly for asparagus. I planted lima bean starts in each corner with a trellis, so hopefully they aren't intruding too much. Nobody gets that much space in limited real estate. They'll have to fight it out.
2 comments:
Ha! I bugged my husband to help me find a place to plant asparagus the first 3 years we were in our "new" house, then gave up. This spring he set up a new bed, protected from deer, and I insisted. "It takes too long," he said. "It takes 2-3 years!" he said. So I pointed out that if we planted when I first wanted to we would have been eating garden-fresh asparagus for 16 years. I have 4 plants, looking healthy for their first year.
Good luck with yours. I bet you could plant a fair amount of annual veggies this first year. I don't think they take much space until they get established.
mmmm yummy
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