it’s time to lift and divide my asparagus.
i’ve never done it before despite having a crop for thirty years at my old place. we used to just pick a few spears in spring and then forget about it.

i didn’t find any asparagus ‘pips’ that p. bennet talks about.
the two far flung plants didn’t need any dividing at all.
the biggest plant had colossal roots that i had to sever using a sharp spade. i then chopped the root mass into three – each segment having a new sprouting shoot – i’ve no idea what is the right thing to do.
it’s done – better soil – more space – hopefully more productive plants.

You beat me to this Pepe, but I have a different question and I’m very new to growing it. It is old enough to start harvesting, but mine has sprouted now and wonder if it’s too early? We’ve had so much rain in the last month so I wonder if it’s caused it to sprout early?? I’d only just cut back all the dead fronds a week ago.

I gotta drop back in later…gotta get back to work :(

Muschee said:

You beat me to this Pepe, but I have a different question and I’m very new to growing it. It is old enough to start harvesting, but mine has sprouted now and wonder if it’s too early? We’ve had so much rain in the last month so I wonder if it’s caused it to sprout early?? I’d only just cut back all the dead fronds a week ago.

I gotta drop back in later…gotta get back to work :(

my asparagus is sprouting too – and the books say august is OK for the first shoots.
my reading says we cut the ferny bits off too late – we should have done that earlier when they turned yellow.
…and we should be removing the old (nutrient depleted) mulch and piling new compost on top of the plants.

good to hear perth is getting back to decent rainfall – you might have a good year – fingers crossed.

Hasn’t appeared here yet but I saw a quite long shoot in Canberra early in July.

roughbarked said:

Hasn’t appeared here yet but I saw a quite long shoot in Canberra early in July.

how deep are yours buried?

I’ve grown asparagus since the 1980s. Originally I planted 20 crowns because I was young and naive and didn’t realize that would be enough to feed the whole small town we lived in. So we fed the whole town. We moved from that house when the bed was about 15 years old and the lady who bought the house has reported that it is still very productive. The earliest spears I harvested were in the last week of July one year. Mostly not much until about late August though. We always had waaay too much asparagus through September, October, November (gave it away to anyone who would take it) and then I stopped cutting, sometimes squibbing a bit into the first week or 10 days of December. Although usually we felt pretty long and green by that time. I think way back then they would have been Mary Washington asparagus.

We moved to this house 10 years ago and I started a new bed. Unfortunately I put them where they didn’t get enough sun, so I had to start again a couple of years ago. This year I will be cutting half the spears. They have started….we had two spears each last night with our dinner! (Lemons are in season, chooks are laying, and Mr buffy had been to the Warrnambool butter factory, so we had the most excellent Hollandaise sauce with them)

I have Mary Washington, Fat Bastard and purple asparagus here.

I am in South West Victoria.

Oh yes, the cutting down and mulching thing. I wouldn’t be too worried about when you do it. Late is fine. I only did mine a couple of weeks ago and there were already some spears thinking about coming up. My chooks have shredded paper litter in their nests, which I gather up along with the poo. I bag this and I just put a thinnish layer over the asparagus bed after I’d cut down the fronds, and then I covered this with rotting pea straw (pea straw haystack was not tarped, we’ve had flooding rain, peastraw is degenerating beautifully!) I’ve never bothered to remove mulch, just added on to the top. It doesn’t seem to matter if the crowns are fairly deep, and anyway the mulch and stuff rots away to not very much.

(I seem to have written a novel)

buffy said:

I’ve grown asparagus since the 1980s. Originally I planted 20 crowns because I was young and naive and didn’t realize that would be enough to feed the whole small town we lived in. So we fed the whole town. We moved from that house when the bed was about 15 years old and the lady who bought the house has reported that it is still very productive. The earliest spears I harvested were in the last week of July one year. Mostly not much until about late August though. We always had waaay too much asparagus through September, October, November (gave it away to anyone who would take it) and then I stopped cutting, sometimes squibbing a bit into the first week or 10 days of December. Although usually we felt pretty long and green by that time. I think way back then they would have been Mary Washington asparagus.

We moved to this house 10 years ago and I started a new bed. Unfortunately I put them where they didn’t get enough sun, so I had to start again a couple of years ago. This year I will be cutting half the spears. They have started….we had two spears each last night with our dinner! (Lemons are in season, chooks are laying, and Mr buffy had been to the Warrnambool butter factory, so we had the most excellent Hollandaise sauce with them)

I have Mary Washington, Fat Bastard and purple asparagus here.

I am in South West Victoria.

Oh yes, the cutting down and mulching thing. I wouldn’t be too worried about when you do it. Late is fine. I only did mine a couple of weeks ago and there were already some spears thinking about coming up. My chooks have shredded paper litter in their nests, which I gather up along with the poo. I bag this and I just put a thinnish layer over the asparagus bed after I’d cut down the fronds, and then I covered this with rotting pea straw (pea straw haystack was not tarped, we’ve had flooding rain, peastraw is degenerating beautifully!) I’ve never bothered to remove mulch, just added on to the top. It doesn’t seem to matter if the crowns are fairly deep, and anyway the mulch and stuff rots away to not very much.

(I seem to have written a novel)

Yes, but it was an intriguing read…

Is there really a variety of asparagus called Fat Bastard?

http://hugoandelsa.blogspot.com/2010/07/fat-bastard.html

good tips there buffy.

i have harvested two shoots as well – and as you say – they produce almost immediately after being transplanted.

i have a total of eight plants – i will see if that provides for a family of 2-3.

Should be plenty. Although, if you each want half kilo servings every couple of days…maybe not!

But you should get 4 or 5 spears each three or four times a week for three to four months of the year.

buffy said:

Should be plenty. Although, if you each want half kilo servings every couple of days…maybe not!

But you should get 4 or 5 spears each three or four times a week for three to four months of the year.

Well based on that my single asparagus plant should provide me, the only asp’ eater in the family, with enough :)
It has shoots coming up now.

Dinetta,
There is a fat bastard asparagus, and boy is mine fat! spears almost two fingers thick, and I’ve only had a couple of light pickings (this is only year 3 froma seedling) and a delightfully sweet variety it is. Mine from diggers tube stock. I believe it is a cross-bred variety, which has a more prosaic name, but some smart soul gave it the FB moniker.
I can’t remember the exact breeding details, but it involves crossing the sexes of a variety in strange ways. more info here http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~asparagus/program/male.html
T

Templeton said:

Dinetta,
There is a fat bastard asparagus, and boy is mine fat! spears almost two fingers thick, and I’ve only had a couple of light pickings (this is only year 3 froma seedling) and a delightfully sweet variety it is. Mine from diggers tube stock. I believe it is a cross-bred variety, which has a more prosaic name, but some smart soul gave it the FB moniker.
I can’t remember the exact breeding details, but it involves crossing the sexes of a variety in strange ways. more info here http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~asparagus/program/male.html
T

Thanks Templeton :) I’ve been away for the weekend