[Peas let my pumpkins grow]

Last summer (if you remember what that "s" word means) I was finally persuaded by my auncle to taste asparagus cooked on a BBQ and covered in butter .....Mmmmm :happy:

I was already planning to grow some at the lottie especially for his house hold but now I'm thinking I want some too and 3 crowns of connivers colossal might not be enough. Also it will take 3 years for a good return so I'm going to buy some one year old crowns to hopefully speed things up by a season. The connivers colossal was a random selection before I'd done any research so I wanted to get some advice before investing in any more.

Now to the actual question : what variety should I go for? Here's my short list

• Guelph millennium
• mondeo
• pacific 2000
• Gijnlim

There doesn't seem to be a great deal left in stock on the usual websites, I guess I must be a bit late in getting organised. I've looked at a place in Kent but the minimum order is 10 and I don't want to give over that much space. These ones  are on a fruit tree specialist site. I'm going to have another look around the local garden centres and then hopefully with some forum advice make a decision then.

Thanks in advance 

[gavinjconway]

Just to let you know you will need an absolute minimum of at least 20 crowns to get a few family feeds..
Considering you will get 20 odd spears per plant once in full swing thats only a maximum of 20 feeds for two people.. So a family of 4 will get 10 feeds..

About varieties - I'm new to Asparagus in this country so cant help you. However I have Connivers Collosal, Mary Washington and Jersey Knight (male plant)..  (I used to have a patch with about 150 plants when I lived in Zimbabwe)

[JayG]

All the varieties on your list are all-male except Pacific 2000.

All-male varieties usually have the thickest spears and also avoid the potential problem of the plants seeding themselves all over the place.

Gavinjconway is lucky to get 20 spears per plant per year - mine are at least 7 years old (several varieties) and I would say 15 is the best mine have ever achieved.

I'll let you do the maths as to how many plants would be sufficient for your needs! 

[gavinjconway]

Hi JayG - 20 per plant... I'm going by our hot climate in Zimbabwe and also from Johns article on the forum..  http://www.allotment-garden.org/vegetable/aparagus/index.php

Ok so PLMPG in that case you gonna need more than my 20 ....

[Peas let my pumpkins grow]

Hmmm guess I'm going to have to allocate a little more space to them than I realised .....or ill just move to Zimbabwe  :happy:

So if I underestimate my skills and go for 50 plants at 10 spears each that's 500 spears and 25 lots of 2 person servings. Maybe I won't share that many of them 

Male only sounds like the way to go then JayG, i dont want to be chasing them all over the place. Bright side though if I'm going to have so many that means I can try out quite a few different varieties.

John recommends glinjim in that article so I guess I'll start with that, Mary Washington and jersey knight will be added to my short list and ill go from there!

[Salmo]

This is the right time to plant 1 year crowns. The growers will dig them now before they sprout and put them in a chiller so they are available to plant up to about mid-May. Those from a grower are better than the bagged up ones in garden cantres which tend to be dried out. Whichever you get  you should give them a good saok before planting. I have Gijnlim which I bought from the Kent people and they are excellent. Gijnlim are Dutch hybrids and are male sterile, they can be picked lightly the Spring after planting.

[Trillium]

Don't worry about getting too many spears of asparagus, worry more about not getting enough. Although an easy plant to grow you can lose some to digging critters, some just kicking the bucket for no good reason, pests chewing on your harvest, or some silly sod stepping on them.

If yours do come into too large a harvest, you can always trade for needed veg or flowers, eggs, etc.