Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Starting Asparagus from Seed

There is a kick ass gardening blog, I've got it linked in the blog list but wanted to comment on it here too.
here's the blog, the part about starting asparagus from seed.

Garden of Eaden


It is one of the best gardening blogs I've seen.
Simple instructions and Simon answers questions and seems like a cool guy.

I have been thinking a lot lately of things that I could plant for food that are perennial and would come back every year. Fruit trees, berry bushes, artichokes, asparagus...etc.
I love asparagus and wanted very much to start some from seed as it is way cheaper and you get a lot more plants that way.
I decided also to use hybrid seed for this project as it is not an annual that I'll be harvesting seed from year after year and I wanted the biggest bang for my asparagus buck so to speak.
I've planted the Mary Washington, and have some now, but the production from it is quite low and I wouldn't want to have to count on it in the event of an emergency situation.
So, I found some Atlas F1 hybrid asparagus seed on ebay that a professional grower was selling from his planting this year and had left over. Another cool guy, he sent me extra seeds to make sure I had 100 plants.
I'm going to end up with way more plants than I'll have room for so I will most likely sell the extras.
Asparagus, if you can grow it in you area, is a wonderful early spring vegetable that should be in your garden.
These will produce for 15-30 years so someone will be enjoying these years after I'm gone!
Simon talks in his post about direct sowing but I'll have to plant in pots as I don't have a free bed for them yet and will have to come up with more room somewhere. LOL
talk about putting the cart before the horse!
I'll plant the seeds, then when the little plants get up high enough, set them out in their permanent bed.
Since asparagus has a shallow root system, I'll use some of neighbor Dave's weed cloth and put it down on the ground and build a frame for the bed and fill the bed with good weed free dirt to give the plants the best possible start.
This is my plan.
I'll take some pics to post as the project progresses and let you see how it's going.
Anyway, hope you girls are thinking about gardening.
It builds character!

love,
mom

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