I am growing asparagus for the first time (from 1yr-old crowns) and I'm
thinking that the bed is getting a bit out of hand with some 'spears'
over 6ft tall and all 16 crowns producing vigorous shoots growing at
all angles! (Do they need staking?) I have resisted the temptation to
cut any for the pot but I need to know what to do next, and when.
Should I cut them back or just leave them to die back?

I must say that either asparagus is easy to grow or I am more
green-fingered (or fortunate) than I thought. I have also been
delighted to discover that none of predators hereabouts, including Mr
Rabbit, has shown the slightest interest in my asparagus, so I can add
it to my list of veg which can be grown without protection (among them,
tomatoes, parsley, parcel, chives and garlic).

On Aug 21, 1:04*pm, Stan The Man wrote:
I am growing asparagus for the first time (from 1yr-old crowns) and I'm
thinking that the bed is getting a bit out of hand with some 'spears'
over 6ft tall and all 16 crowns producing vigorous shoots growing at
all angles! (Do they need staking?) I have resisted the temptation to
cut any for the pot but I need to know what to do next, and when.
Should I cut them back or just leave them to die back?

I must say that either asparagus is easy to grow or I am more
green-fingered (or fortunate) than I thought. I have also been
delighted to discover that none of predators hereabouts, including Mr
Rabbit, has shown the slightest interest in my asparagus, so I can add
it to my list of veg which can be grown without protection (among them,
tomatoes, parsley, parcel, chives and garlic).

I can't claim to be much of an expert, but what I do with my asparagus
is to leave them alone to die back by themselves. When the stems are
yellow and dryish, I clip them back in late autumn to tidy up the
area.
They are easy enough to grow, and I believe you are right not to have
picked any in their first crop. However, I have made the mistake to
crowd mine somewhat - lots of other stuff a little too close to them.
Consequently, the ground around them ends up overly compacted by foot
traffic to other parts of the veg patch, which is not good at all. I
have had tiny crops because of that - at least that is my own home
spun diagnosis.
I hope, at some point, to re-organise them in an area which will be
given over entirely and exclusively to them for the next 20+ years -
which I've been told was their scale of longevity.
They have to be the most delicious of all veg, though. To me, barely
steamed, they exemplify the flavour of the colour green :-)

Cat(h)

"M" wrote in message
...

....

I must say that either asparagus is easy to grow or I am more
green-fingered (or fortunate) than I thought. I have also been
delighted to discover that none of predators hereabouts, including Mr
Rabbit,

nothing has touched mine, although i have heard reports that foxes will
chew them.

I have to fence mine to protect them from the chickens, who have
sophisticated palates.

Mary

They have to be the most delicious of all veg, though. To me, barely
steamed, they exemplify the flavour of the colour green :-)

Cat(h)

and without meaning to be vulgar, gives the urine the most awful stench, but
only a certain percentage of the population can smell it! (I happen to be
one of those, thought I was dying the first time I ate it....)

On 2008-08-21 14:48:18 +0100, M said:

Grrr, although I grew mine from seed they are only approaching six feet
after 5 years. I haved staked some (with the stick well away from the base)
to stop them snapping off. I cut mine down when they go yellow and dispose
of the growth as its supposed to harbour asparagus beetle.

Does that mean you don't harvest all your crop? I had imagined that
everything would be eaten before it grew beyond a foot... Or does the
plant produce some inedible shrubbery?

Stan The Man writes
On 2008-08-21 14:48:18 +0100, M said:

Grrr, although I grew mine from seed they are only approaching six feet
after 5 years. I haved staked some (with the stick well away from the base)
to stop them snapping off. I cut mine down when they go yellow and dispose
of the growth as its supposed to harbour asparagus beetle.

Does that mean you don't harvest all your crop? I had imagined that
everything would be eaten before it grew beyond a foot... Or does the
plant produce some inedible shrubbery?

The crop is also the means of the plant producing food to keep itself
going! You have to stop cropping mid season (1) to allow the plant to
grow well enough to replenish the crown and replace the lost food which
went to produce the spears you have eaten. Ideally you want it to grow
enough, not just replenish, but also to increase the crown size for more
spears next year.

(1) Traditionally Pershore Fair, so I'm told, around mid summer day.
--
Kay

You can't harvest every shoot, you have to leave some of it to grow on, to carry out photosynthesis to feed the roots for next year.

On 2008-08-22 10:31:13 +0100, K said:

Stan The Man writes
On 2008-08-21 14:48:18 +0100, M said:

Grrr, although I grew mine from seed they are only approaching six feet
after 5 years. I haved staked some (with the stick well away from the base)
to stop them snapping off. I cut mine down when they go yellow and dispose
of the growth as its supposed to harbour asparagus beetle.

Does that mean you don't harvest all your crop? I had imagined that
everything would be eaten before it grew beyond a foot... Or does the
plant produce some inedible shrubbery?

The crop is also the means of the plant producing food to keep itself
going! You have to stop cropping mid season (1) to allow the plant to
grow well enough to replenish the crown and replace the lost food which
went to produce the spears you have eaten. Ideally you want it to grow
enough, not just replenish, but also to increase the crown size for
more spears next year.

(1) Traditionally Pershore Fair, so I'm told, around mid summer day.

Is mid-summer the same as the longest day? I am clearly going to have
to continue to exercise some restraint. And you have answered an
unasked question about the number of spears per plant which I had read
would be 20-25 and so I was disappointed to see only 7 or 8 per plant
this year. It seems I must sacrifice to accumulate.

Stan The Man writes

Is mid-summer the same as the longest day?

No. Longest day is 21st or 22nd June, Midsummer Day is 24th June. As a
child, we always used to go to the top of the Worcestershire Beacon to
see the sunrise on 24th June - there would always be a couple of hundred
people there.


--
Kay

"Sheila" wrote in message
om...

They have to be the most delicious of all veg, though. To me, barely
steamed, they exemplify the flavour of the colour green :-)

Cat(h)

and without meaning to be vulgar, gives the urine the most awful stench,

I don't think it's awful. Characteristic, yes.

but only a certain percentage of the population can smell it!

Is that so?

Gosh, I'm one of a percentage :-)

Mary

"Stan The Man" wrote in message
...
On 2008-08-22 10:31:13 +0100, K said:

Stan The Man writes
On 2008-08-21 14:48:18 +0100, M said:

Grrr, although I grew mine from seed they are only approaching six feet
after 5 years. I haved staked some (with the stick well away from the
base)
to stop them snapping off. I cut mine down when they go yellow and
dispose
of the growth as its supposed to harbour asparagus beetle.

Does that mean you don't harvest all your crop? I had imagined that
everything would be eaten before it grew beyond a foot... Or does the
plant produce some inedible shrubbery?

The crop is also the means of the plant producing food to keep itself
going! You have to stop cropping mid season (1) to allow the plant to
grow well enough to replenish the crown and replace the lost food which
went to produce the spears you have eaten. Ideally you want it to grow
enough, not just replenish, but also to increase the crown size for more
spears next year.

(1) Traditionally Pershore Fair, so I'm told, around mid summer day.

Is mid-summer the same as the longest day?

No.

I am clearly going to have to continue to exercise some restraint. And you
have answered an unasked question about the number of spears per plant
which I had read would be 20-25 and so I was disappointed to see only 7 or
8 per plant this year. It seems I must sacrifice to accumulate.

I wouldn't mind 7 or 8!

Mary

On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:31:39 +0100, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:


They have to be the most delicious of all veg, though. To me, barely
steamed, they exemplify the flavour of the colour green :-)

Cat(h)

and without meaning to be vulgar, gives the urine the most awful stench,


Has anyone a scientific explanation of why this happens? What does
asparagus have that nothing else does?

Pam in Bristol

Here in the US, I buy 2 years old roots to plant, and get that much of a
head start on eating them. I harvest it when the shoots are the size of a
pencil, usually that is the year I plant them or the following year. I
continue to cut them as long as they maintain that size, or until the first
of July, which ever is first. Then I let them grow undisturbed until
winter.

I add a general purpose fertilizer after the winter has killed off the tops,
or early spring. Then I water it in a couple of times before they come up
again.

Dwayne (in Kansas)




"Sheila" wrote in message
om...

They have to be the most delicious of all veg, though. To me, barely
steamed, they exemplify the flavour of the colour green :-)

Cat(h)

and without meaning to be vulgar, gives the urine the most awful stench,
but only a certain percentage of the population can smell it! (I happen to
be one of those, thought I was dying the first time I ate it....)

"Pam Moore" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:31:39 +0100, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:


They have to be the most delicious of all veg, though. To me, barely
steamed, they exemplify the flavour of the colour green :-)

Cat(h)

and without meaning to be vulgar, gives the urine the most awful stench,


Has anyone a scientific explanation of why this happens? What does
asparagus have that nothing else does?

Pam in Bristol

Taken from Wiki so don't know how accurate it is, but my husband certainly
cant smell mine! or his own, and I've always forgotten to go and smell his
after....oh dear, what a strange thing to be talking about!!!

The effect of eating asparagus on the urine of some people has long been
known. Marcel Proust claimed that asparagus "...transforms my chamber-pot
into a flask of perfume." Certain compounds in asparagus are metabolized
giving urine a distinctive smell due to various sulfur-containing
degradation products, including various thiols, thioesters, and ammonia.[16]
Derivatives of asparagusic acid are also found in urine. The speed of onset
of urine smell has been estimated to occur within 15-30 minutes of
ingestion.[17] Observational evidence from the 1950s showed that many people
did not know about the phenomenon of asparagus urine. It was originally
thought this was because some of the population digested asparagus
differently to others, so that some people excreted odorous urine after
eating asparagus, and others did not. However, in the 1980s three studies
from France, China and Israel published results showing that producing
odorous urine from asparagus was a universal human characteristic. The
Israeli study found that from their 307 subjects all of those who could
smell 'asparagus urine' could detect it in the urine of anyone who had eaten
asparagus - whether or not they could detect it in their own.[citation
needed] Thus, it is now believed that most people produce the odorous
compounds after eating asparagus, but only about 40% of the population have
the autosomal genes required to smell them.[18][19][20]