Grow Asparagus
You love Asparagus! You decided to grow Asparagus in your garden. Good for you. Well done.
Now what? Well, your Asparagus is happy that you love it, but do you know how to put it to bed for the Winter? It really is simple. Follow these few simple steps to ensure a good harvest every year.
Collect Seeds
This step may not be needed if you have all male plants. What? you didn’t know that the plants are male and female? It’s ok, gardening is a journey. You’ll pick it up fast! The female plant is the only one that produces the seed berries. If you find that you have plants that produce berries you may want to collect seeds to share with friends or grow more plants. The female plants may produce less stalks for your kitchen table so if you don’t care about seeds you can remove the berry producing plants from your garden to make room for other higher producing plants.
Thanks for the info. I’m planning to add asparagus this year.
What do you do with the leaves in the spring? I’m guessing they wouldn’t be 100% decomposed, or would they? Do you just let the asparagus grow up through any remaining layer of leaves, or do you remove some of the remaining leaves? Thank you
I just let it grow up through the remaining leaves.
Can I put a landscape tarp over the top of the leaves so they don’t blow away? WE get high wind here in Wichita ks.
I see no reason why this wouldn’t work. Take it off in the Spring so the new sprouts can come up 🙂
I do mine a bit different. Starting at one end and working to the other I cut all the canes down going in one direction, which is the usual direction my winds blows. All the canes are hilled over the bed, then I cover the canes with a durable deer fence netting and put down a few rocks to hold the netting down. Come early spring I pull the netting off, pick-up the now fragile-easy -to-break canes which have released their food energy back to the soil & berries. The berries are now started seedlings and I compost the remaining canes. You can gently bring up the seedlings that grow like a carpet and pot them up.
Beautiful description! Thank you 🙂
I’ve had asparagus for a couple of years now. I read somewhere of another reason to cut stocks in the fall: it prevents some disease (don’t ask me now which one! fungus??). Not sure if some areas are more prone than others? (Texas vs. Manitoba?!).
I will, though, have to try planting some seedlings! Do you know when they should be started? Do they have to be dried first and how?
seeds
Everything is very open with a precise description of the challenges.
It was truly informative. Your site is extremely helpful.
Thanks for sharing!