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On The Rewarding Awesomeness Of Home Grown Asparagus

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by Lisa Giroday, Sandra Lopuch and Sam Philips | Asparagus! Yeah, we’ll spare you the urine jokes, even though they’re hard to resist. Like fiddlehead season, the asparagus season is extremely ephemeral. In fact, when we took some photos for this article, the ones harvested were about to go off, and are much longer and spindlier than they should be when harvested. But fear not, more shoots emerge…

What happens if you leave the shoots to keep on growing, you ask? Well, they become the most beautiful, fern-like fronds that your garden has ever seen. We like to plant ours in a patch amongst strawberries, as asparagus has a tall, upright growth and strawberries keep close to the ground, making for an aesthetically pleasing and delicious combo patch. Yes, you can have it all.

Asparagus is one of those veggies that many food growers in Vancouver don’t grow, mainly because it takes a few years of maturing in the garden to reach the edible stage, about 3 years from seed to harvest. You can, however, buy organic rootstock from a nursery that are typically 2 years old and have asparagus in the next year or two. As many of us move house fairly often, we don’t always invest in growing it. For those with the space and a quasi-permanent home situation (or an under-utilized space begging for some greenery and sustenance), asparagus is an exciting spring crop and one of the early spring delicacies in the garden. Because it’s a perennial (comes back year after year), it’s the gift that keeps on giving with little maintenance. It can live for 20 years, even longer.

If you’re botanically curious, Asparagus officinalis is a plant species in the genus Asparagus. Interestingly, it was once classified in the lily family like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have since been divided, and the onion-y plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and asparagus in the Asparagaceae

Growing asparagus: Now’s a good time to transplant asparagus, and rootstock is becoming available at nurseries as we speak. Asparagus loves full sun. If you can, growing about 12 crowns will keep a happy two-some in weekly harvests during peak season. Be sure to plant each crown a foot apart. In the first season of the crowns producing, be sure to allow the spears to leaf out so the foliage can feed the developing roots for future production. Yes, this means no or little harvesting. An exercise in patience, it is, but it’s well worth it. Keep your asparagus happy and watered, and add a layer of compost in spring and fall – it’s a hungry veggie! Also, if you plant your asparagus crowns at varying depths, they’ll emerge at staggered times for a more continuous harvest. On a side-note, great asparagus companions are tomatoes, basil, and parsley.

So get out there, cut or find some spears, poach some eggs, turn on the grill, and grate some Parmigiano-Reggiano for a to-die-for dish of asparagus before it’s too late!

THE VICTORY GARDENS ARCHIVE

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Victory Gardens is a team of local urban farmers for hire. Lisa, Sandra and Sam help transform tired or underused residential and commercial green spaces into food producing gardens. Their goal is to challenge the way communities use space and to participate in the change needed to consume food more sustainably. For the rest of the growing season, they’ve hooked up with Scout to share some cool tips and tricks on how to get the best from of our own backyards.