[ceri green]

hello everybody 

i planted asparagus this year, and there are a few very pathetic looking shoots coming through (and its taken ages!)
i know that you can't crop in the first year, but is there anything i should be doing? ie cut these shoots off, leave them alone or what?

[Yorkie]

This is the Info section page on asparagus, don't know if it particularly answers your question but it may help - i don't grow it so can't help specifically, sorry

http://www.allotment-garden.org/vegetable/aparagus/index.php

[SnooziSuzi]

Ceri,  Leave these shoots for this year (and possibly next year too if you can bear it).

The plant needs these ones to grow and become ferns so that next year there will be more and stronger shoots.  If you must have asparagus next year then I'd only take one cutting from each plant and let the rest grow on in order to build up the plants resources in the roots department.

I planted my crowns (3 yo) last year and the shoots were, as you say, thin and very pathetic looking.  This year they look more like what you would buy in the shops but I'm leaving them til next year before I take a harvest from them.

Whatever you do, keep Mid summers day in mind and don't harvest any after this date.  This allows the plant enough time to build up its resources ready for the following year.

[Salmo]

Leave the shoots to grow up. They will need supporting. If they are blown over it can damage the crown. Cut them down in the Autumn when they turn yellow

[Kristen]

Hopefully they are all male plants, but if you get any that form seed heads I would take the crown(s) up - seedlings all over the bed will become a problem.

[DD.]

Not if you cut off the ferns when they go yellow & still have the berries on.!

[Kristen]

True!

I've grown some Asparagus from seed this spring.  (Bed not ready, and where I was planning to put them is growing Spuds to "clear the land", and I now read that Asparagus after Spuds is not good ... so they may be in a nursery bed for another year yet).

Q: I was planning to ditch any Female plants (I bought the packet of seed before reading about F1 all-male varieties )  Would you keep them and just be rigorous with cutting tops down instead?  Statistically half of them will be Female ...

[DD.]

I grew 39 crowns from 40 seed I planted, got them from an adjacent plot holders off his plants.

True quite a few are female, but I have the space to cope with them. I get thinner spears off them, but they still eat as well and I cut the foiliage down before the berries drop. 

I started the seeds 7 years ago, been eating the spears for 4 and we now have asparagus in some form or other about every day for 2 months of the year!

[Yabba]

I've grown some Asparagus from seed this spring.  (Bed not ready, and where I was planning to put them is growing Spuds to "clear the land", and I now read that Asparagus after Spuds is not good ... so they may be in a nursery bed for another year yet).

B**ger, I hope you're wrong because I've just sown a bunch of asparagus seed ( going in a nursery bed ) and then going in the spud bed next year, there'll be leeks going in before the asparagus goes in though ... and there's a good chance my nursery bed will be under a shed sometime next year :-S

I'm going to be ditching/passing on any females that I get though, assuming I don't get 100% females from the seeds

¥

[Kristen]

"I hope you're wrong because ..."

Joy Larkcom's "Grow your own Vegetables":

"To avoid pest and disease problems, don't make asparagus bed on ground previously used for Asparagus or potatoes"

I didn't know that the two were related, or shared pests

Perhaps its a misprint?

I'll have a little Google I think ...

[Kristen]

Google not helpful (or I couldn't phrase my question well enough).  All I could find is that Asparagus and Potatoes are great companions for Soup, Flan, Tart, ... 

I found a companion-plants site which said that Asparagus and Potato should not be companions, but no description of "Why"

[ceri green]

thanks everyone for your advice...i'll just leave them and try my hardest to resist next year too lol!

However, some of your replies raise other questions....what's wrong with female plants then?
as far as i know, the ones i planted are a male variety (i think), but if any are female what does this mean as far as future crops goes?
if seedlings appear is this bad? and how will i know that they are seedlings and not shoots from the plants that are already there?


and.... berries?

i didn't realise asparagus was so complicated until after i'd bought the plants....i just thought you planted it and hey presto loads of really cheap asparagus! i spose that's why its expensive in the shops..................

[DD.]

As females have berries, a lot of their energy goes into their production, they only have quite thin stems compared to the males.

The seedlings will be very fine, almost invisible when they germinate, personally I've not seen any & I've got quite a few female plants. If the bed is hoed & any female berrie cleared in the autumn, you won't see any.

[gobs]

Not much really for the home producer, they just go on producing seed or wanting to so the crop - the shoots you want to eat -  are less.  I've never found any seedlings either.

I never heard about this potato and asparagus problem, which means nothing, but they are defo not related.

[sheridal]

I planted some asparagus back in the beginning of march, but they haven't come up yet.  They weren't the best specimins ever, but they were very cheap. 

I have some that I planted last year and they are thriving on the same plot.

My question is that if they haven't come up by now, are they likely to, as I have other stuff that I could plant there

Thanks