How to Grow Asparagus, Complete Growing Guide

what's going on growers it's James Prigioni coming  to you live from jersey today i want to share with   you how to plant and grow asparagus that you  will be eating for the next 20 years let's go before we get to planting the asparagus i want  to take you over to a patch that i planted about   five years ago and we've been harvesting asparagus  are perennials which means that they'll come back   year after year without you planting them and  one of the great things about asparagus is that   they're one of the earliest perennials or even  veggies to be ready to eat in the spring which   is awesome because the asparagus are packed  with vitamins and that's exactly what we need   in the early spring after that long winter  so asparagus are one of my fresh favorite   things to eat fresh when it's from the garden it's  completely different from the stuff from the store   when you get the asparagus from the garden like  this one we can cut it down you know just uh about   at soil level maybe a little lower and then you  can eat these things fresh just like this without   even cooking them they're packed with water  and packed with nutrition an incredible flavor   i like to snap them just like this and see  that not stringy like the ones in the store   and i'm telling you these things are sweet like  candy and we just take a bite right into it so sweet so good no reason to cook it completely  different than the stuff you get at the store   but let's go over there and start getting  some of these planted and into the ground   so we can eat them more in the future tuck  loves eating these things too asparagus are   one of his favorites to come out and snack  on they're kind of like peas uh around here   it's tough for them to actually get into the house  and even cook them because we're always snacking   snacking on them when they're fresh out right  here now let's get to planting out our asparagus   and asparagus will grow well in zones three  to zones eight when it comes to growing your   asparagus you wanna make sure you pick a good  location because this is the spot it's going to   be for the next 20 years so you want to make sure  you get it in a spot that it will perform well   it likes the full sun it can tolerate some partial  shade like where i showed you in the section where   i'm growing mine get some partial shade there  but full sun the ferns and the roots will grow   more vigorously and they'll have less chance  of disease it's also a good idea if you want   to stick the asparagus on like this outside of  your garden essentially because if you put it on a   spot that is the outside it's going to be growing  all year so it's going to be easy to work around   and to walk around you don't want to put it  in the middle of your garden and constantly be   you know stepping on some locations and  bubbling into it that's not what you want at all   when it comes to the soil asparagus like to grow  in light soil that heats up quickly in the spring   and they like soil that drains well because if  you don't have soil that drain well the asparagus   roots will rot and that's the opposite of what  you want so when it comes to timing it's best to   put your asparagus in in the early spring and the  best thing to do in my suggestion is to order a   one-year-old crown from a reputable company  and the one-year-old crown is good because   it'll get you to harvest quicker if you try to  plant them from seed which you can it's going to   take a whole extra year so if this is your first  asparagus patch i suggest you grow them from   from roots from crowns and order them from a good  company this way you could jumpstart your bed and   get some harvest pretty quick because this is a  perennial so we're not going to be able to get   the harvest necessarily the first year this  is an investment when it comes to the roots   you should try to get them in the ground as  quickly as possible once you order or receive   them but if you can't you can do what i did here  i just put some cocoa some wet cocoa in and then   just left the roots in there just so they stay  moist and don't dry out too badly on me i have   three roots here that i'm going to plant so we're  going to get those in you can even soak them right   before you plant them to help get some of that  moisture in but we're going to plant them in the   bed in a section right here i'm going to show you  uh the best technique what i believe to plant them   and we've got three crowns and they all need to be  spaced about a foot and a half to two feet apart   so we need about four feet so what i'm going to  do with this section we've got five feet here   to here just gonna section that out and then  we're gonna dig a a ditch essentially 12 12   inches wide and about six to eight inches deep and  we're gonna do about five feet because that's uh   that's gonna you the spacing for the three crowns  of asparagus that we have so i'm going to get this   uh section dug out and then i'll show you what the  next step is and i'll explain more as i progress   why i'm doing this and i also have some soil that  i made right in front here and we're going to be   back filling a lot of this stuff in as time goes  on so i'll mix some of it with this soil that i   made so we can get some good organic matter mixed  in and overall just help the nutrition in the   plants we're going to keep digging this out and  uh again the most ideal time to do this would be   the early spring but i was just in there eating  some asparagus the other day and i said i need   to get some more asparagus in because they're so  dang good so we're just gonna plant this now and i   think it'll still grow really well so we want six  to eight inches we gotta go a little deeper still there we go trench is all good about it's about  80 inches deep which is what we want and 12 inches   width which is perfect next what we're going  to do is start getting these asparagus roots in   and the asparagus fruits if you've seen me plant  strawberries we're going with basically the same   method so what we want to do is take these roots  we don't want to just lay them flat like that   we're going to build a little mound with some  compost and some soil like we did for the for   the strawberries like this we're going to get a  little mound then we're going to take these roots   and drape them over the mound like this  what this is going to do is to help spread   the roots out you can see in all different  directions like that which is exactly what   we want and then we're gonna get about a foot  or so foot and a half take some more compost   and we're gonna make another  mound and do the same thing so again these mounds kind of work to you know  push the roots all in different directions   and i'm going to make sure i water these in well let's go like that we got one more could  even throw some cocoa in here this is some   nice organic matter it's inert so it's not  going to really do anything besides help hold   some moisture but still good one more mount here there we go now we have the asparagus in next  what we're going to do is we're only going to   be covering these roots with about two inches  of soil over the top so i got this mixture of my   native soil and the compost i know it needs to be  watered and i'm gonna water it as i put it in but   we'll get about two inches of soil over top here  and the reason we're only putting two inches of   soil is because first we're going to put two  inches then in about two weeks you'll see the   asparagus starting to pop up we'll pile two more  inches on top of that then two more weeks after   that we'll pile two more inches and then we'll  get back level the idea is that we don't want to   just take all eight inches of soil and throw it  on top of the roots it's gonna be a lot of it's   gonna take a lot of energy and a lot of you know  nutri a lot of it's to take a lot from the plants   in order to get those new asparagus to pop  out through eight inches of soil if it only   has two inches then it can move through that  and then we'll continually add those two inches   every two weeks so to start it off we  only want to cover these with two inches this is another reason you don't want to put  the bed in the uh in the middle of your garden   because you're gonna have a ditch for a little  while but in a few weeks it'll be covered up i   want to water this in pretty thoroughly you'll  notice when i was making those uh those mounds   that the soil was pretty dry so we want to make  sure this is nice and saturated and when it comes   to watering this for the first two years you're  going to want to order this relatively often   because we want to really build healthy roots  and a big root system so that we can produce   a lot of asparagus in the future and again we want  to make sure we're planting this in a section that   drains well because if there's a lot of sitting  water these asparagus roots will rot and that's   the last thing that we want asparagus also like a  soil that's pretty sweet so we need the ph to be   above six closer to seven it would be more ideal  so if you have a soil ph that's really low you can   add some dolomite lime and that'll help sweeten  up your soil looks like tuck wants a little drink we'll give them some water and this guy's gonna be happy because in a  few years he'll be able to eat his asparagus   there we go our asparagus are planted now  throughout the season they're gonna pop up   and start growing and then when the fall comes  for your asparagus what you want to do is allow   these plants to continue to grow through the fall  and as deep into the winter as they can as long   as they remain green when they're green they're  photosynthesizing they're taking an energy from   the sun they're converting it and then they're  putting that into their roots that energy and   growing bigger roots which is what we want so we  don't want to cut these down too early in the fall   or the midwinter when they're still green we want  them to be brown and basically dead unless it's a   female so there's male and female asparagus  if you have a female asparagus and you see   that it's starting to form the berries the small  berries on the asparagus plant you can cut that   out right away because we don't want that female  focusing on producing seeds we want it to focus on   producing roots so we can remove that if you start  to see the berries then when fall com winter is   here and everything's dyed and it's all brown we  could come by cut out all the dead asparagus like   you see right here from previous years and then  what i like to do in the early spring is after   we had mulched it when everything was cut down in  the winter i like to pull back some of that mulch   this way the ground heats up quicker and it gets  us some earlier asparagus and when it comes to   harvesting your asparagus it's a perennial  it's going to take a couple years till you   can actually get some fruit so the first two years  for asparagus you don't want to harvest any spears   instead you want to allow these ferns to grow tall  photosynthesize and use all that energy into root   production then the third year you can start  harvesting some spears over a four week period   so come out here every couple days grab some of  this beers and then after you've been doing that   for four weeks let the plant just produce leaves  and let it grow then the fourth year you can come   out here and harvest over an eight week period and  grab your asparagus which is really nice and then   after that you can just continue harvesting over  eight week period for the next 15 20 years however   long they actually grow which is incredible and  when harvesting your asparagus you what you want   to do is come out here grab one see this one's  getting a little older because it's starting to   separate but it's still okay and we either can  crack it down at the base or we can cut it so   we're just gonna crack it down there at the base  just like that we don't want to pull it out or   anything because we don't want to be damaging any  of the roots so we can just eat it just like this and i'll tell you there's nothing like  eating these fresh asparagus like i mentioned   it you can't even compare it to the stuff in the  store it's like night and day it's like well a lot   of other stuff you can't complain compare tomatoes  you can't compare asparagus it's like bill models   and says if you want to eat organic food you got  to grow it yourself that's today's video growers   thanks for watching i hope you enjoyed it i hope  you got something out of it i hope you take the   time to get out there and get some asparagus in  the ground it's one of my favorite perennials   that's constantly just giving back more and more  every single year basically and if you do do it i   promise your future self will be thanking you for  the next like like two decades or something if you   guys enjoyed the video though hit the like button  hit the subscribe button share with your friends   don't forget to check out the merch down low and  remember whenever you're on amazon start your   shopping with our amazon affiliate link before  i let you go i just wanted to thank one of the   new channel members judith roth thanks for being a  part of team grow me and tuck really appreciate it   and uh we hope overall that you're enjoying the  channel and having as much fun with the videos   as as as much fun we have making them basically so  james to talk back to you again real soon we out!

Channel: The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni

Views: 592,529

Keywords: asparagus, how to grow asparagus, how to plant asparagus, how to harvest asparagus, how to, gardening, organic gardening, how to gardening, how to garden, how to plant, how to grow

Id: XHiYG1Q2SBs

Length: 12min 30sec (750 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021