It might provide a little context to show what the place looks like before we plant, each spring. More than a tad dreary, to be sure, but a blank canvas for what’s to come. At this point, I hadn’t had time to hide most of the ugly chain link fences that came with the place with a few reeds.
I had moved the few flower bulbs popping up into their relegated corners to make room for veggies. The occasional early marauder could be spotted working their dark machinations.
Spring 2014. Decided to try growing asparagus, which is something I’ve had my eye on for years. I suppose I could have tried it in a giant container before I had my own earth to plant in… but that doesn’t seem like the right approach for a longterm perennial. Asparagus grow as bundles of roots which send new shoots up every spring. If cared for, supposedly they can thrive for decades. So, off to YouTube I went in search of some advice from seasoned asparagus growers, which it turns out are in short supply in my neighborhood.
I soaked each crown in advance of planting. Each is a bundle of roots growing out from a single whitish bud, which is really a pre-asparagus shoot. I ordered 10 crowns, five for each side. You can see one of the root buds forming little white shoot, somewhere around the middle of my index finger in this photo.
