It’s out first year of growing asparagus on Plot #59 and whilst we won’t be able to harvest anything until the 2018 growing season, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the plants’ development and we’re pretty pleased with what we’ve seen so far.
Every crown bar one sprouted not long after planting, and the majority of the spears shot up to around three feet in height. Unfortunately they were all quite spindly – new growth, we assume – and got blown around in the high winds back in May – we put in a decent wind-break in what we thought was the prevailing wind direction, but of course the wind has been blowing from the other end of the site this year – so some of them are a tad more horizontal than we’d like.
Recently, all twenty-nine viable crowns have been sending up fresh shoots though, so it looks like they’re establishing nicely. It’ll be time to feed them soon, to give them a bit of a boost – one fellow grower on another plot recommended Super Phosphate, but I’ll double-check that before I go ahead – and it’s very important to keep on top of the weeding, to minimise competition.
Here’s that flush of second growth, across the three varieties:
