My Asparagus Jungle: A Permaculture Success Story!

Asparagus For Everyone!

This is right now!

Who would have thought that when one of my nursery friends, Strange & Co. posted on Facebook that she had asparagus roots for sale that I would be so successful! 50 for $50, I'm sold! Then she was dropping prices because they hadn't all sold and I said how much for the rest? She gave me an incredible deal and I was happy to get 150 roots with a "handful" of small ones thrown in for free...

I prepared my bed in the newly tilled area and had a 75-foot row with two rows in it planned out! So I dumped what looked like a lot more than 150 crown roots into a bucket of water and started placing them in trenches. Soon, I realized there was way more than 150 in this bucket! I built another bed for the extra and quickly ran out of room again and built another bed! We now had 3, 75-foot beds with two rows each and a total of 300 crowns planted! I couldn't believe how generous she had been and made a mental note to bring her some yummy asparagus in two years when they were mature enough to harvest from!

Here is the video I made of planting them and how we made it a permaculture bed!

Fast forward to late August in Georgia and these asparagus crowns are acting like they have been here 20 years! They grew very fast right from the start! Must have been all that composted manure we used in our garden from our awesome goats! They quickly shot up out of the ground, several per crown! They continued all summer to produce new shoots and grow up up up towards the sky! I have never seen anything like it! My other asparagus bed I planted three years ago has only ever had 2-3 stalks per plant!? These are now at 10-12 per plant minimum and still producing new shoots in August!!!????

Can't even see the path anymore!

My friend tells me that we can harvest next spring if they are over 4-feet tall. They have been that tall and taller since before summer even reached us! They really are huge! And the celery under them is thriving from all the shade! I went out to pick celery yesterday for my homemade chicken soup and could barely get through the big fern like fronds growing over them like a protective parent. I parted them and dug down into the soft, feathery leaves tickling my cheek, to reach a lush celery plant and chopped it off at ground level with my big butcher knife.

Much taller than my 5'4" self!

It really amazes me how great this bed has done! My other older bed hardly does anything! Not sure if it's the manure, the mulch our awesome volunteers from the Georgia Farmers Market Association put down, or the quality of the root crowns? Or maybe, it is from the genuine LOVE my friend showed by giving me such a good deal combined with the love and appreciation I have for organic, homegrown asparagus!

Can you feel the LOVE?