Some info and a question:
Info: I have some asparagus seed (UC157) that has been in my fridge for 10 years old. Put it on paper towel kept damp 3 weeks ago and have more than 50% sprouted with more looking probable. Wow!
Question: I also have some mature plants fron the same original batch of seed, that I want to divide & move at the end of the season. Any advice on this, and on how soon I can reasonably harvest from the relocated plants, would be welcome.
Thanks, Alexander Miller.
If you are over 50 or like to eat asparagus, I would just eat the sprouts and buy serious rhizomes.
If you have runty little shoots to plant, you might save a year or two.
We have done both and it was a waste of time.
When we moved out to the country, we bought the biggest, most expensive rhizomes we could find and ate a few nice big stalks the first year. After that it was more than we could eat ever since.
I just took some pics of our asparagus patch for a future Photo of the Week. We have been harvesting for about a week now (Northern Illinois) and stop on June 1 to let it build up for next year.
This is without a doubt the crown jewel of our garden. We pig out on the stuff and pickle what we can't eat. It is a waste of good asparagus to freeze it. We have omelets for breakfast and roast it for dinner and tonite it was asparagus cheese crepes.
Can't wait for breakfast,
js
|If you are over 50 or like to eat asparagus, I would just eat the |sprouts and buy serious rhizomes.
Haha - you must be expecting a short life. I'm 70. Im very happy with the plants I've raised from seed, and hope to enjoy raising more. To each his/her own, I guess.
| It is a waste of good asparagus to freeze it.
We consider it a waste to do anything other than eat it raw. Can't imagine what it would be like after freezing then thawing. Yuk. But to each his/her own.
So what do you know about dividing and/or moving mature plants?
Could you be just a tad less conspicuous in front of the drooling masses?
- Bill Cloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
I'm headed to your house to eat!
Right. I raised ferns from spores and it was years before they were big enough even to put out.
How long did it take from seed say.... 3/4" shoots?
I agree but can't convince my wife of that but she came up with the method of roasting in butter in the toaster oven which is a mighty fine alternative.
Absolutely nothing other than, don't mess with a good thing.
Ours is not spreading very much but jest seems to get denser each year.
js
I had an asparagus bed for about 30 years. The heavy rains in the winter of 2004-2005 caused the plants to rot. However, they dropped seeds. We picked our first crop from the seedlings this year.
If you divide a clump, you should treat both the relocated plants and those kept in the original location as if they were freshly planted from bare-root crowns. If your winters are severe, wait until spring; otherwise, divide in the fall or winter. Plant them in holes or trenches with the crowns about 6-8 inches below normal ground level. Cover the crowns with about 2 inches of soil, leaving the remaining soil mounded next to the planting hole with the hole unfilled. When the shoots appear in the spring, slowly add the mounded soil back into the hole without covering the growing tips.
Do not harvest that first year. In following years, harvest until the new shoots become thin. In the second year, you might harvest 4-6 weeks. After then, the harvest period might be 8-10 weeks.
|Right. I raised ferns from spores and it was years before they were big |enough even to put out.
Spores? I've used roots (rhizomes?) & seeds but I don't know beans about spores.
|How long did it take from seed say.... 3/4" shoots?
That's 3 to 4 inch, not three quarters, haha? A year I think but of course you don't harvest them for at least a couple of years. If you plant seed you'll be just a year behind where you would be if you planted one-year-old roots - duh :) or two years behind two-year-olds which is what I think most nurseries sell.
|Ours is not spreading very much but jest seems to get denser each year. I do too; AND I'm spreading quite a bit.
|I had an asparagus bed for about 30 years. The heavy rains in the |winter of 2004-2005 caused the plants to rot. However, they dropped |seeds. We picked our first crop from the seedlings this year.
They self-seeded? Nifty!
Thanks for the info on dividing & re-planting the roots. What can you tell me about the actual technique of dividing: Where & how to cut, what size divisions etc. Or will it be obvious when I dig them up?
I'm on Vancouver Island - zone 7 trending towards 8.
Alexander Miller.
I have a question, we ordered some asparagus seeds from Gurney's, and it says that they have to be kept in damp peat moss for a week I believe, before they can be planted...is this true, or are there peat moss alternatives(because peat moss isn't readily available here, and quite expensive when it is)?
|I have a question, we ordered some asparagus seeds from Gurney's, and it |says that they have to be kept in damp peat moss for a week
I would guess the advice about peat moss is just to ensure the seeds don't dry out once germination has begun. But any means you have of keeping them damp will do fine. Pre-soaking in (say) a saucer of water for a few days or a week would get them off to a good start but shouldn't be strictly necessary.
The asparagus seeds I recently bought - from Territorial in Oregon - suggest planting indoors in 3 inch peat pots "to avoid transplant shock," (ie plant the whole peat pot when setting out) and they say outdoor sowing of seed is not advised.
The other, 10-year-old seed I recently started was first put on paper towel & kept wet/damp until the little roots began to emerge - in 2-3 weeks - then planted in a potting-soil mix in little plastic pots which I keep moist. They're in a greenhouse but I think they'd be OK outside (protected from birds & critturs) so long as there's no frost.
Obviously you have to be very gentle when planting the sprouted seeds; especially if the roots have begun to knit into the paper towel, so a plain dish of water is safer. I like doing it this way because I get a kick out of seeing the little roots grow - and I can tell which seeds do/don't germinate before I plant.
Good luck. Alexander Miller.
Ok thank you very much. We have an unopened package of peat pots somewhere, and I didn't pay attention to the size, but I think they might be 3inch. They're definitely not 'big' ones. I shall start soaking the seeds right away. I live in Oregon too(Klamath County), and a greenhouse is pretty essential. Though my chocolate mint and aloe vera seem to do just fine with windowsill locations.
You have to dig deep to get the crown. It will be a mass of shoots and roots. You should be able to pull it apart after you rinse the soil away. If you divide in the early spring, you don't need to keep a lot of roots; just be sure to trim away any broken roots. (It's almost like dividing bearded iris, except iris grows at the soil surface.)
Actually, asparagus don't need to be divided. However, your original message indicated that you want to have some growing where none is growing now. Given the heaviness of my own soil and the depth to which I would have to dig, I would prefer to go to a local nursery and buy a package or two of bare-root plants instead of dividing. They are not very expensive.
Ok I feel REALLY stupid now. I have come to realize that it was artichoke not asparagus seeds. We did have asparagus seeds, I'm just apparently operating at half capacity at best...still have the asparagus soaking though, and will do the same with the artichoke seeds if I can find them...
|Ok I feel REALLY stupid now. I have come to realize that it was artichoke |not asparagus seeds. We did have asparagus seeds, I'm just apparently |operating at half capacity at best...still have the asparagus soaking |though, and will do the same with the artichoke seeds if I can find them... |
Haha, very good - but you didn't have to admit it!
I should warn you that when the asparagus shoots (not the roots which are white & "sturdy") come up they are almost impossible to see - about as thick as a hair and quite dark in colour. At least that's how my latest ones look - just one very flimsy inch-high thing I can barely make out against the background of the soil. Have to hold something light behind to see them.
Don't know anything about artichokes. Alexander
[...]
Hey, Bill, put me out of my misery.
I tried to look up "cloribus" in my battered old Latin dictionary, but no luck, and no Latinist, I. I assume it's a declined form? Of what?
Por favor?
Persephone
O Gott, o Gott, As promised, a new mistake. Coloribus gustibus non disputatum ( Of colors and taste, you can't dispute). People like what they like and it isn't open to logical debate.
I got tired of typing it, so I just cut and paste it now. Of course it just had to have a typo in it. Well, hopefully, that is my humility lesson for the day and it is out of the way now.
Thanks for the catch.
- Bill Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
Latin words free.
This Latin dictionary program, (WORDS for the PC - DOS, Windows
95/98/NT/ME/2000/XP, OS/2, LINUX - and Mac OS X - console version), takes keyboard input or a file of Latin text lines and provides an analysis/morphology (declension, conjugation, case, tense, etc.) of each word individually, the dictionary form, and the translation (meaning).Have Fun
Bill
The link to Peter Lewis' site is dead. I've downloaded Matt Neuberg's file, but don't know where to go from here. Can't have much faith in a site that spells Mac as MAC.....
The message
from William Rose contains these words:
Not quite. Your Latin grammar is even worse than your Latin spelling.
De coloribus et de gustibus non est disputandum.
Castigat ridendo mores.
Janet
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