Gary Woods wrote in message . ..
"Steely Stan" wrote:

I thought asparagus was difficult and fussy, but this is growing like a
weed.

Some years ago, a new "interstate" (multi-lane divided arterial) was built
through some former farmland west of Albany, New York.... for many years
afterward people cut asparagus that grew up through gravel fill in the
median strip! Around here, one can occasionally find "wild" asparagus.
Sometimes it truly is wild, but often it's the remnants of somebody's bed,
long abandoned, just as clumps of overgrown (but still healthy and
blooming) lilac often mark a long-lost farmhouse.

It's sturdy stuff.

(Still waiting for mine to make an appearance in an "official" bed; any day
now).

It's actually a very tough plant, taken as a plant. What makes it
tricky is getting the best crop for human purposes, which aren't
really what the plant itself 'wants'. We're going for nice plump
succulent vulnerable shoots, and it isn't. If female plants are
allowed to seed, the offspring will try to take over the world as all
plants do, and only the nearest to the wild form will do best, so you
get 'reversion'. The 'reverted' shoots taste just as good or better,
of course. As the best beginner's gardening book I've ever seen says,
"Men get obsessed with the size of their vegetables; women are more
interested in what they can do with them."

Mike.