Growing Asparagus

• Save time when growing asparagus by planting 1-year old asparagus crowns.
• Select a spot with good drainage.
• Dig a trench and plant the crowns 15-18 inches apart.
• Cover crowns with 2 inches of a 50:50 mix of native soil and Miracle-Gro® Performance Organics® All Purpose In-Ground Soil. Repeat each time the crowns sprout, until the trench is filled.
• Beginning a month after planting, feed regularly with Miracle-Gro® Performance Organics® Edibles Plant Nutrition Granules.
• Avoid harvesting your first year as the asparagus gets established.

1. Start with Dormant Crowns

Although asparagus can be started from seed, the plants take 3 years to mature, so it is usually grown from 1-year-old crowns. However, the plant can be productive for 10 years or more, so it's worth the wait. You can start planting and growing asparagus as soon as the soil is workable in late winter or early spring. How much your family enjoys asparagus determines how many plants you will need. A good start is 10 plants for each person. If it's a family favorite or you plan to freeze some for later, you'll want to plant more.

From there, create a mound in the trench and place the crowns 15- 18 inches apart, spreading the roots over the ridge. Similar to how you would plant individual plants in ground, create a 50:50 blend with the native soil removed from the trench and aged compost-enriched Miracle-Gro® Performance Organics® All Purpose In-Ground Soil, then cover your asparagus plants with 2 inches of the soil mixture. As you see the crowns sprout a few inches, add more of the 50:50 soil mixture until the trench is filled.

This fertilizer does double-duty by feeding the soil microbes so they can go to work making nutrients even more available to your hungry asparagus plants. Miracle-Gro® Performance Organics® soil and plant food work beautifully together to bring out the best from your plants, encouraging them to thrive and produce a huge harvest. Don't forget to water to keep soil consistently moist, and encourage moisture retention with a 3-inch layer of mulch.

4. Enjoy Your Asparagus Every Year

Don't harvest your harvest during the first year. Just let the plants grow to give the crown a chance to become well established. You can start lightly harvesting your asparagus during the second year. In the spring, remove the old fern growth - the thin leaves that grow above the stalk - from the previous year, and keep an eye open for the new spears to begin emerging. For the following years, maintain the bed and harvest only the spears thicker than a pencil. At the end of the harvest, be sure to allow some spears to grow into ferns; this replenishes the nutrients for next year's spear production. For more info on growing a vegetable garden, check out our article on How to Make a Vegetable Garden.