Whoever said that good things come to those who wait, might as well have been talking
about asparagus.
Sure, for most of us, the wait for asparagus need only be as long as a trip to the grocery store.
But the saying doesn’t refer to acceptable things, or better than nothing things.
It’s about Good things, sometimes even upgraded to great things.
And if you’re in the mood for some great asparagus, then much like other vegetables,
you need to grow it at home and enjoy it fresh from the garden.
Or so we’re told.
Because truth be told, we’ve never actually grown asparagus ourselves.
And the primary reason is because, from first planting to first harvest, home grown asparagus
takes at minimum 2 to 3 years.
And for relatively new gardeners, that feels like a lifetime.
But here’s the thing.
It recently occurred to me that we’ve just begun our 4th growing season, which means
that if we had planted asparagus during our first of even second year, we’d already
be eating some today.
So perhaps the more productive saying is actually the rebuttal.
That some things may come to those who wait, but only the things left behind by those who hustle.
Or in other words, if we ever hope to eat some great asparagus, we’d better hurry
up and get planting.
Sure, waiting is important, but we still have to do the work.
However, that actually brings me to the second reason for why we’ve not yet planted asparagus
in our garden.
You see, from what we’ve read, the process can be pretty complicated.
For example, typical advice tends to sounds something like this: first you need to dig
a long trench, some say up to 3 feet deep.
Then you add layers of compost and manure, sprinkle in some lime, and mix the soil back in.
Once they’re planted, we’re told to add top dressings of compost tea, and side dressings
of organic fertilizer.
And for the first couple of years, don’t forget to keep it well watered and weed free.
But all of this work is justified, because anything worth doing, is worth doing right.
And asparagus is a perennial, which means that once established, it can steadily sprout
scrumptious spears, spring after spring for several decades.
Seriously.
Plus because it’s a perennial, we’ll never get another chance to dig them up and till
in more nutrients, so the first planting is our one and only shot.
But hold on, as our regular viewers already know, we follow a strict no-till policy in
our garden.
Meaning that none of our soil is ever amended with tilled in fertilizers or composts or manure.
Sure, we’ve experimented with a number of different techniques, but nearly all of them
have been intended to emulate the processes found in nature.
And lately, that’s mostly meant simply covering the soil with organic plant-based mulch and
letting the rest take care of its self.
So why go to all this extra work for asparagus, if we wouldn’t for tomatoes, or zucchini, or corn.
In fact, this brings to mind another old saying.
Just because everyone else is doing it, does that mean it’s right?
Well, I think the obvious answer to that question is…
Maybe.
But there’s really only one way to find out for sure, and we do have a reason to be
confident in our natural approach.
You see, earlier this spring, while walking through our forest, Paula happened to stumble
upon this asparagus plant just growing wild in the middle of the woods.
And as it turns out, it’s not alone.
In fact, wild asparagus is surprisingly common in these parts and can often be found growing
in ditches, fields and forests.
All without the help of humans, or tillers.
And speaking about wild edibles, another plant that grows effortlessly here in our unamended
soil, is wild strawberries.
In fact, our field is absolutely covered in them.
All you can see in early spring are the leaves and flowers, but in another month or so, they’ll
be bursting with a bounty of beautiful berries.
And as luck would have it, both strawberries and asparagus are considered to be excellent
companions, when interplanted in the same bed.
Which meant that, for a couple of gardeners who do their best to take cues from nature,
no more hesitation was required.
So in this video, let’s take a look at how we finally planted some asparagus and strawberries
for ourselves.
First things first, we needed to decide on a location.
And if you’ve been following along for a while now, then our garden layout should look
pretty familiar.
We’ve got a dedicated location for our garlic, for our potatoes, and for our corn, and then
we have a mix of hugelkulture mounds and Ruth Stout beds for everything else.
But there’s always been one bed left empty.
Right here.
You see, we’ve had number of plans for this spot over the past few years, but nothing
ever felt quite right.
That is, until now.
But unfortunately, because we were never sure what we wanted to do with this bed, we simply
did nothing.
Meaning that it’s still covered in thick sod, made up of grasses, clovers, and wildflowers.
Ideally for this experiment, it would have been nice to have laid out a thick layer of
mulch last fall, so that we might have some bare earth to work with now, but no sense
in dwelling on missed opportunities.
Besides, we’ve dealt with this type of situation before, so we knew just the technique to expose
the soil.
If you recall, when building our expanded garlic beds, we found that an easy way to
convert an unused field into a growing area was to simply flip the sod and shift it sideways.
The end result was a series of raised beds, made up entirely of top soil sandwiched around
decomposing vegetation.
So this time, we decided to do the same thing, but with one minor difference.
Since we weren’t looking for raised beds, after digging out the first section of sod,
we would set it aside.
Then, the second section would get flipped into the hole left from the first, the third
would get flipped into the hole left from the second, and so on, all the way to the
end of the bed.
Then finally, the last hole would be filled with the first section that we had set aside.
Now at this point, I’m sure some of you will be wondering, how is this any different
from simply tilling the area?
Well, that’s a question that probably deserves an entire video to itself, but the quick answer
is that though this is labour intensive and certainly disruptive to the soil, the hope
is that it will still be far less destructive than the alternative.
You see, healthy soil isn’t just some mixture of minerals and nutrients.
It’s an entire ecosystem of animals, bacteria, fungus, and plant roots all working together.
So by flipping the sod, rather than chopping it all up with a tiller, we hope to keep some
of that system intact.
Plus, many of the grasses and perennial weeds propagate through rhizomes, which once cut
into pieces, can each multiply.
So tilling actually has the potential to make that problem even worse.
Of course, flipping the sod still cuts those rhizomes too, but to a much lesser extent.
At least, that’s the theory.
So once our plan was decided, we quickly got to work, cutting the sections of sod, flipping
them over, and continuing on to the next.
This was of course a fair amount of work, but for the most part, it went pretty quickly
once we hit a rhythm.
The only things that really slowed us down was the removal of large stones, the gentle
relocation of worms, and tackling the occasional REALLY large stones
But, after all of the sod was flipped, we were able to clean up our mess and rake the
soil smooth.
Ok, now let’s talk about planting.
We decided to space our asparagus roughly every foot and a half down the center of the bed, and
then the strawberries between them, but on alternating sides.
And this was because of the ways that both of these plants spread.
From what we’ve read, over the coming seasons, the asparagus will eventually send up new
shoots to fill in this entire row, and each year the strawberry plants will send out runners
to establish new “daughter” plants which we can hopefully convince to situate themselves
on the opposite side of the bed.
Then, after a couple years, if the mother plants become less productive, we can replace
them with the granddaughter plants, and so on.
The asparagus came from the nursery as a bundle of bare roots all held together with an elastic.
It looks like a bit of a tangled mess at first, but with a bit of patience, they can be easily
separated into individual roots, also known as crowns.
Next, we dug a large hole, about 6 to 8 inches deep and did our best to spread out the crown evenly.
Oh and looking back, I didn’t do a great job in the close up, but it’s also suggested
that you form a small mound of earth under the crown so that the roots can be splayed
out in a more natural downward angle.
After that, just fill in the hole so that the entire crown is covered in about 6 inches of soil.
As for the strawberry crowns, they look nearly identical, except slightly smaller.
And when planting them, be sure to dig the hole just deep enough that the top of the
crown sticks out of the soil slightly once the rest of the roots are covered.
That means that the two plants will mostly occupy a different depth of earth, making
them less competitive with each other for space and resources.
And once they become established, the same will be true above ground as well.
Because in future seasons, the asparagus should send up its spears first thing in the spring,
and then by the time the strawberries get going the spears will have already formed
into tall ferns above them.
So once we figured out how to plant the first couple, the rest took only about 15 minutes.
Then as usual, we covered the ground with a thick layer of old hay, and then all that
was left was an initial watering.
But also as usual, we left that up to good ol’ mother nature.
And that’s it.
But now one question remains: Would we recommend that you try this out as well?
And the answer is yes and no.
No, because, well quite frankly, we don’t yet know how this will turn out.
So it would be pretty irresponsible for us to suggest that you follow our example.
But on the other hand, in a more general sense, we would absolutely recommend that you occasionally
challenge the conventional wisdom.
Maybe not if your livelihood depends on it, but if you can afford the risk of a possible
failure, then absolutely, I say give it a shot.
We never grow unless we try new things.
And we never learn unless we’re willing to make a few mistakes.
And besides, again we already had a successful example in nature, so at the very least, complete
failure seems pretty unlikely.
But I guess only time will tell.
So we’ll let you know how it all works out, in about 2 to 3 years.
But in the meantime, thanks for watching.
Oh, sorry, one more thing.
It turns out that it took about two months for me to finally get around to putting this
video together.
So, sorry about that.
But luckily, that gives me an opportunity to add in a really quick update.
First of all, as a baseline, the wild asparagus has now fully matured into a tall fern in
the forest, and if we look back to the garden, our domestic variety has done the same, albeit
at a much smaller scale.
However, while the wild strawberries have already produced an abundance of fruit, so
far, in the garden, they’re a bit of a no show.
No signs of growth whatsoever.
So, I guess we’ll have to give the berries a bit more time, but worst case, 1 out of
2 ain’t bad.
And we’ll let you know if that score changes.
So again, thanks for watching, and waiting.
And we’ll see you soon.