Tsu Dho Nimh wrote:

"Angela Coffey" wrote:

I discovered some asparagus in one of my side gardens that has been growing
way too long to harvest it. I read somewhere that if you let it go, it'll
turn into a feathery fern looking plant, and that's exactly what these are
doing. Do asparagus ferns start out as an asparagus stalk?? If I let it
keep growing, will I have an asparagus fern eventually?

Different species, same genus:

Asparagus sprengeri = decorative "asparagus fern"

Asparagus officinalis = ediblegarden kind

The garden kind makes a nice fluffy temporary hedge in the summer

Tsu


When I had asparagus, we used to harvest it until about the end of June.
After that they have to generate the ferns in order to provide food to
the roots through photosynthesis. However, if one shoot got too big we
just cut it and threw it away and another came along soon to take its
place. If it wasn't really really big, we just peeled the tough outer
layer and ate it anyway.

I have heard that if you don't harvest the asparagus in the spring and
let the ferns grow until sometime in August, you can then cut it down
and start harvesting new shoots. I've never tried it. Anyone know if it
works? If so, you could harvest half your patch in the spring and half
in the fall.