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Planting asparagus berries

 
Mike Haasl
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I have some female asparagus, despite the nursery saying they were all male  Now I have some pretty red berries on a few plants.  I'm imagining I could plant them in my food forest.  But I'm confused about depth.  When planting crowns I believe you put them 8" deep or so.  When an asparagus plant drops a berry, I doubt it burrows 8" deep on its own.  

Has anybody had success planting them and how deep did you put them?

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Mike Barkley
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I've tried many times with ZERO success. Not even one tiny sprout.

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Stacy Witscher
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They have just been growing where they fall for me. I haven't had a lot of volunteers succeed but a few have. But my climate is very different from yours. Interested in seeing what others have to say.

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Mike Haasl
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I've had a couple volunteers as well.  Weirdly enough, they pop up 100 feet away from my established asparagus...

I'll wait a few weeks before planting them so if anyone else has any suggestions for methodology, I'm all eyes.

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Mike Barkley
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I should mention that I've only tried in Texas. Not exactly asparagus climate but they grew from crowns fairly well. Ramping up a new patch here in TN. It would be great if they would start from seeds. By far my favorite fresh veggie. Not store fresh, garden fresh. Huge difference.

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Steve Mendez
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Four years ago our small asparagus patch produced two big bushes with lots of red berries. I bundled up all of the dried material (male and female) and piled it up on a spot of bare ground near the compost. The following June when I cleaned up all of the debris, there were about 30 2" high asparagus plants growing where the pile had been. I dug up about 10 of the little plants with plenty of soil around each one and planted them in the patch and kept them moist all summer. Most of them survived and they produced some small asparagus shoots this year. None of the ones out by the compost survived with no care.
I can see only two berries on the dried bushes this year.  
 
Sarah Koster
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Mike Jay wrote:I've had a couple volunteers as well.  Weirdly enough, they pop up 100 feet away from my established asparagus...

I'll wait a few weeks before planting them so if anyone else has any suggestions for methodology, I'm all eyes.



This makes me wonder if a bunny rabbit helped... and if perhaps the digestive process aids germination.

You can see with only one eye open, but you'll probably run into things and stub your toe. The big picture matters.

 
Mike Haasl
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Sarah Koster wrote:This makes me wonder if a bunny rabbit helped... and if perhaps the digestive process aids germination.


Good idea but I'm thinking not.  The parent and the volunteer were both within my fenced in garden.  The only seed eaters in the garden are voles, birds and humans.  We do make and spread compost so that could be how it moved, but it grew in a path, not on a bed where we'd normally put compost...

I believe rabbit digestive systems kill any seeds that go through them which is one reason rabbit poop is a great garden amendment.

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Mike Barkley
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You know you're a permie when ... you get excited about someone else's asparagus berries.

Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.

 
Tereza Okava
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I have planted asparagus from seeds (twice now!). Can't get crowns where I am. The seeds came in a commercial packet and I just assume were the black seeds inside the berries. They did take a ridiculously long time to sprout, but I wonder if keeping the berries a season in the fridge or something after drying might help.
 
Mike Haasl
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Last year someone gave me some asparagus starts in little 1" pots (from a nursery).  Each little pot had a dozen baby asparagi that I teased apart and planted 8" deep.  I only covered them with 2" of dirt the first fall and then covered them the rest of the way in late winter when they were dormant.  About half made it so I should have a good patch in a couple years.

I suspect that the nursery put one berry in each pot and the seeds sprouted giving me the 12 per pot.

Since they're a temperate climate perennial plant, I'm assuming they need a winter in the ground before they sprout (cold stratification).

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Marco Banks
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I've planted thousands of berries and seen hundreds of plants grow from them.  So many that I can't hardly yank them out of the ground fast enough.  They are almost like a weed.  Planting berries is the easiest way to propagate new plants.

At the end of the season, there is always a big tangle of those leggy, messy asparagus vines.  I hate that messy look.  (I run a tight ship in my permaculture food forest -- Molison might not approve, but I see no problem in keeping things tidy).  After cleaning it up, it makes a pile of asparagus branches that's 5 feet tall.  I giant mess of branches, all covered with red berries.  If I'm looking to start new crowns, I'll strip the branches over the top of a wheel barrow and collect the seeds by the hundreds.  Then I'll plant them about 2 inches deep or so in the location where I want my asparagus nursery.  Sometimes I'll just broadcast them and then rake them into the top couple of inches of soil.  I don't know the germination rate -- maybe 10%?  20%?  But with that many seeds, there are so many new crowns that start to grow that I can't hardly give them away.

In the asparagus patch itself, there are dozens of volunteers every year.  Some I leave, but most get pulled out and tossed in the compost.

I remember as a kid visiting my uncle's farm in South Dakota, where they had hundreds of asparagus plants along a drainage ditch, and another huge patch of asparagus planted amid trees in a shelter belt.  He'd planted them from seed years before.  Anyone who wanted to come out in the spring and look for spears was invited -- you go pick it.  For the asparagus growing in the trees, every fall he would dump a load of cow manure back in that space with the manure spreader.  The asparagus along the drainage ditch didn't get fertilized at all.  We had as much asparagus as you could pick.  In the fall, to clean it all up after frost had knocked the plants back, he'd just drop the bucket on the front end loader and skid it over the top of the asparagus patch, scraping the old tired spent vines off.  If he wanted to plant more, he'd take those vines (covered with berries) and sew them somewhere else in the shelter belt.

"The rule of no realm is mine.  But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, these are my care.  And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if anything that passes through this night can still grow fairer or bear fruit and flower again in days to come.  For I too am a steward.  Did you not know?"    Gandolf

 
Mike Haasl
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Thanks Marco, so 2" deep it is.  I'll put them in a bunch of spots in my food forest and we'll see what happens....

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Mark Stout
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I have new asparagus from hybrid asparagus all over my back to eden garden, since these are from a hybrid variety will they amount to anything?
 
Mike Haasl
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My guess is that they will be a decent asparagus.  Hybrids are just a cross of two varieties so when they start to uncross or have babies the genetics changes but still stays pretty similar to some combination of the hybrid or the parents.  I'm not an expert though...

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Mike Barkley
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My general thinking is that no asparagus is a bad asparagus. If it wants to grow I would let it.

Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.

 
Jon Sousa
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I picked my asparagus berries and found that they each contained 3-5 seeds. I have dried them out and have questions:

How long should I wait to plant them after drying?

Should I expose them to cold (refrigerate) for a while before planting them?

Reading this 4 year old post, it seems like a subject few people know a lot about.
 
Jay Angler
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I'm further north than you Jon, but I've had asparagus berries start from the berries just dropping on to some decent soil. This has happened more than once. That said, once I intentionally moved the berries to another location further away and nothing sprouted. I've been meaning to try that again, so this thread is a good reminder to do so.

I've never researched what the pros do.

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bruce Fine
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im thinking that in nature birds probably eat the berries, birds have very keen instincts to eat what grows at just the right time. then after going through the bird they are dropped wherever with some natural bird fertilizer surrounding the berry. ive never grown asparagus from seed but in my way of thinking if I had a bunch of the seeds I would try planting with a minimal amount of good rich soil over them, maybe try some at 1/4" depth to 1/2"  then try a few at 1"

this is interesting subject for me.

found this written by someone who knows what they are doing. what is interesting is they say

"from seed is quite possible under the right conditions."

this leads me to believe it may not be so easy to have success. not like growing beans , squash or marigolds.  but it can be done

https://www.ufseeds.com/asparagus-seed-to-harvest.html
 
Mike Haasl
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I chucked berries around my garden in the fall one year.  Now the damn things are growing everywhere.  I'd keep it simple and just fling them where you want asparagus.

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Mike Haasl
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Ha, this was my original thread :)

Reading back through it.....  The ones I planted 2" deep never appeared so that didn't work.  The baby plants I teased apart to plant almost gave me something big enough to eat this year.  So the seeds randomly spread around grew better and faster than transplanting.

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Jacquelyn Lynn Howdeshell
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How and where can you get or buy the red berries.  I would like to grow asparagus.  I just need some berries.
 
Mike Barkley
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Local garden centers sometimes have them. Or try this. I have grown from seeds like this.  https://www.rareseeds.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=asparagus

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Christopher Weeks
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This is clearly a higher-intervention approach than what this thread is about, but I've had great luck stratifying and germinating in damp vermiculite and then planting them out to a nursery bed to move the crowns a couple years later into their final position.
asparagus-in-vermiculite.JPG
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first year in nursery bed
 
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If you can't find berries locally, most seed suppliers sell asparagus seed direct. Baker Creek and Strictly Medicinal both carry it. The stratification approach Christopher mentioned works well, just takes patience. I've had better luck with cold stratification for 4-6 weeks before sowing than just direct planting.

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Another way is to find someone with a bunch of asparagus (hopefully at least one female plant) and ask them for berries in the autumn.

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I haven't yet intentionally planted them, but I've had some grow into plants from berries that fell.  It gets so hot here now in the summer, that I think I"d have to water them a bit for them to survive and grow up.

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Asparagus grows wild along roadsides around here. I have dug up wild roots and planted them. Looks exactly like my purchased and tastes good. I have also stripped the berries from wild plants and scattered them around. I think some of my asparagus may be from that.
 
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I bought asparagus seed to plant this year and was also given some from a local lady who collected them from her plant. I sowed them in 'seed snails' on the windowsill, so maybe 15 deg C with a little overnight fluctuation, but not too cool. The local seed germinated really well, the bought seed not at all. Maybe the store bought seed has higher dormancy and would need vernalisation, but fresh seed was fantastic.

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