Micah Nilsson

Douglas,
Thanks for the "asparagus journal", it sounds like you've grown it in a few situations. My setup here is similar to your current setup, raised beds over a gravek area. I'm hoping they continue to do well once I have cleaned them out and put in the new bed. It will be great to have the home grown strawberries, too, I am excited about that!

I have a horseradish battle going on in one of my herb beds, that is a tenacious plant! Live and learn,

Thanks for chiming in!

Rebecca,
Thank you for sharing your experience- this is great info & just what I needed to hear about!

I only had a couple turn out to be female, out of about 25 crowns. Since this is a sudden project when the bed fell apart, I don't have the females marked, but it's ok, there weren't that many and I liked the look of the berries. My whole project is not ideal or well planned, they will be stored for a few weeks while I get the new bed together, and I don't have any young strong friends to help dig! But hopefully they will recover & be ok next year.

That must be so beautiful with the spring flowers, what a great idea. I am interplanting the new asparagus bed with strawberries, the other expensive food I could eat unlimited amounts of.

Nancy,
These are some good ways to think about the dividing question in the future, thanks. These are a modern type, I think, a purple one that I bought crowns of bareroot from either Johhnys or maybe Territorial. I think the bigger ones were the ones that gave the best spears, from what I remember about their locations in the bed & where I harvested from. I'll go though & find the ones with the best looking points starting up and use them. I'm expanding the bed to almost double the size it was, so I should be able to use many of them.

Leora,
That sounds like an amazing patch you have there! What a gift your family created for you so long ago.

I don't give my patch quite as much manure probably, but I do top is twice a year with chicken manure, plus compost and other amendments. And I did know about letting the fronds grow, I've made sure to do that every year. I want to get the division & replanting part right, I know that is probably super important for the future of the bed.

Thanks for your insights!

Hi everyone! So my expensive cedar raised beds I bought didn't last 6 years, and I need to replace them. It also seems like my asparagus bed could use some division so I'm doing that too. But I'm not sure which of the roots I'm finding are the best options to re-plant?

I have huge crowns, some with what look like 4-5 growing points, I think these are the original ones I planted. I also have smaller crowns that seem to be offshoots & babies of the originals. Is it best to plant these smaller, younger ones, or to divide the bigger ones & re-plant them? I have more than I can grow, so I can afford to be picky with what I re-plant in the new bed. I'll reach out to friends too, and see if anyone wants some for their gardens, I'll try not to waste the extras.

There are also lots of random sections of root, they don't seem to have growing points, but can these become asparagus, too? Not sure what to do with them.

I've attached pix of one of the big clumps with my hand for scale, one of the small ones, and the random roots.

I'd also love any advice on how often I need to do this division. The bed is more root than dirt, which is probably why they didn't yield much last year. I love asparagus & want to do better!