GROWING ASPARAGUS

• There is a common myth that a bucket of saltwater will do wonders for your asparagus patch but just because asparagus is salt tolerant doesn’t mean it loves it. I mean, I’m Brussels sprout tolerant. But a bucket of alpaca poo or well-rotted manure would be welcomed.

• Growing from seed? Put the seeds in individual pots in the first season and then plant them as one-year-old crowns the following spring.

• Prepare your asparagus bed well in advance. It’s going to be there for a while so it is worth putting time in to get it right. Dig your row 30cm deep and the same width. Fill the bottom with a mix of sandy soil, compost and well-rotted manure.

• Asparagus likes slightly acidic soil, so if your soil is highly acidic, add a few handfuls of lime. More alkaline? Add some garden sulphur and mix it in well before you plant your crowns.

• Place your crowns in the trench 20cm apart. Cover them up until the trench is around 10cm from the top with more of the soil and compost mix. In the first winter, fill in the trench.

• Leave your bed the first year. In the second spring you can start picking and you’ll get a good three or four weeks of picking spears before it starts to run to ferns. From your third year on, you’ll get a harvest period of around seven to eight weeks.

• Keep the water up to your bed during the growing season and pick daily as it becomes fibrous if left to grow bigger.

• Eat daily too as once picked it starts losing its natural sugars.

• White asparagus can be grown by covering purple asparagus with black plastic or mounding it with soil. It is very sweet and popular in Europe.

• You will know when to stop cutting the spears as they start getting spindly. Don’t over cut it – leave the spears to go to ferns as these provide food for the crowns to produce next year’s crop. • When the ferns start to die off in autumn, cut them back to just above ground level and cover them with a good layer of compost for the winter.