Asparagus Bed

The trench, notice our solid clay soil--we're going to have to work hard on amending the soil.

The layer of horse manure.

The layer of compost.

The asparagus crown.

After planting--I let my crowns sit out for too long before planting and they had already sprouted. I ended up having to cut off the first stalk, but the new stems and ferns are developing beautifully. I'll get some current photos tomorrow.

I put the asparagus bed in a few weeks ago. I LOVE asparagus and all of my kids will eat it, it is a perennial and requires very little work once established, it is one of the first vegetables to harvest in the spring, it is very hardy and should do really well in this climate. The only draw back is that it takes a few years to get going so I wanted to make sure and get it planted this year. I planted 20 1-year old crowns in a 30 foot trench/row about 18 inches apart.
First we (well, my husband mostly :-) dug a trench about 8-10 inches deep and about 18-24 inches wide. In the bottom of the trench I put several inches of horse manure, topped with several more inches of good compost, topped with a bit of soil. Then I planted the spidery looking crowns, topped with more soil, and mulched with some old straw. In our case, we planted 20 crowns in a 30 foot row. It seems like a lot but that will still only give us about 10 lbs. of asparagus per year when it reaches maximum production. That is why asparagus is so expensive--it takes a lot of space and time to grow.