Spring is in the air - Asparagus

Darn, darn, darn! – this is the publishable version of what’s running through my mind as signs of Spring pop out everywhere to warn the gardener that burgeoning new life waits on no laggard’s schedule…

So here stands the asparagus plot, with all the old dead fronds still standing about from last autumn – these should have been cut down months ago and compost added to feed the new growth underground.

I like asparagus; once a good plot is established, it looks after itself for twenty years or so, and fills the cook with joy each Spring as we harvest the nutritious shoots of these edible ferns. I don’t actually water it very often, and it just plods along producing a brief burst of nutritious food year after year.

I should be more grateful, I expect – after all, it gives me my once-a-year chance to get out the antique scythe I keep in the shed, simply because I’ve always wanted one. A few swings, and the old ferns are down and out of the way, and the scythe goes back to the shed for another year.

And sure enough, I’ve mown down a dozen good asparagus spears, which I will contritely hand to the cook to drop into tonight’s supper or put straight back into the compost bin to feed some future crop.

Ah well, at least the chooks will be happy – I’ve moved a year’s worth of compost from one of our four Geyde bins onto this accessible bed, and this is alive with worms; the chooks will turn the whole lot over and plough it in without doing any damage to the sturdy asparagus shoots. One less job for an over-run gardener to do…