It has been one crazy month. Lots of landscaping – hence the steady hum of static on the blog. Every spare moment has been allocated to breaking ground, building beds, seeding, transplanting, watering, weeding, moving soil, gravel, and rocks, building compost, and harvesting. It’s been a gloriously busy month after a long winter and heavily snow-laden spring. Thankfully much of the work has been ‘infrastructure’ related, and will not be so laborious and time consuming in coming years.
This morning my day was made by the first sighting of asparagus. The first spear poking through. This is a plant that I intend to have a significant presence in my yard. This is also a plant that requires much patience. Each year, I intend to start more from seed and transplant – until I’m happy with the yield. I love asparagus. It’s up there in the ‘favorite veg’ competition [there is no such competition, they’re all special in their own way]. I intend on the ‘forest garden’ component of my yard to have its share of them.
I’m almost done seeding for a while, so should have more time to write soon.
9 Comments on “Pausing to Appreciate Asparagus”
I love asparagus, and so does my li’l one. Where did you get the seeds Kevin, and how labour intensive are these? I would love to grow our own next year.
Just ate some raw asparagus from the garden today. Awesome. Can’t wait to read some more posts from you Kevin!
Michelle – asparagus from seed is easy, but it takes an extra year to harvest than it would if you were planting crowns. Only place I’ve found the seed: Vesey’s. Asaparagus are permanent residents, but are low maintenance and extremely rewarding.
Marcus – really like your blog!!
It is exciting to see life after such a long weary winter. Cindy and I have been calling each other out of the house with each discovery of some plant sprouting leaves or buds. Our Honey Berries first blooms showed yesterday!
Thanks for the compliment!
I see, thanks. I am looking into it now – my husband is a keen gardener, and was asking me what veg I’d like him to grow.
My grandmother grew two long and huge rows of these on her farm and I would play in the tenrils in the fall – waaay over my head. We could hardly keep up with them… well, we just couldn’t, she had so many. It seemed as if she did absolutely nothing, and up they came every year. What’s the secred?
:)
PS – just made asparagus soup today with the stalks I keep breaking off and freezing instead of throwing away – had a big batch and with a little garlic and a leek, whipped up a batch of yummy!
Love when I can make a soup out of what most people throw out!
:)
Valerie
I spent 4 years waiting for my asparagus to come up strong and then gave up. It always seemed to come up too skinny and then die when we had an unusually cold night early in the season. I am jelous of yours – it looks so good! Maybe I will try again in a few years. Your garden photos all look great. Seeing everything coming up in our yard this year is making me so happy!