Saturday, March 28, 2015

Asparagus







(This picture is not related to the others, but I keep feeling so struck by how much Lyddie looks like me as a child in this particular photograph that I really wanted to include it.  I think it's her eyes and her forehead, maybe, but whatever it is, I love this photo of her.  Now...to return to our regularly scheduled program)

I really love this time of year when beautiful greens things are shooting up out of the ground left and right, and yet the weeds have not completely surpassed my ability to manage them.  We have two asparagus plants that grow close together in our yard.  They are a mystery and I have no idea about their origin.  Did the previous owners decide to have a small asparagus patch at one time, the only edible plant they would have put in?  Was our property once a field in which asparagus grew?  Did an asparagus root somehow drift from a field at one time into the middle of our property and take root - twice?  

I have no answers.  But I do have delight every year when the spears press through the soil and reach for the sunshine.  It seems to happen overnight.  This year, the first spear I noticed was already a foot long, so we cut it yesterday and examined it.  We have discovered, as you may already know, that raw asparagus has very little scent.  There are two or three new shoots poking up and as one of our garden books showed in a line drawing, there are probably several other shoots underground making their way upward at the same time - a thought which thrilled Lyddie. 

Maybe we should stick a few more asparagus plants in the ground to make a patch large enough that we actually get asparagus enough to eat.  I guess the soil and water and sunshine must be just right, since these healthy asparagus have managed themselves for several years on their own.  I know very little about growing asparagus except that they take several years to be established, like rhubarb, and that they are green because of clorophyll and you can grow white asparagus by depriving it of sunlight, I suppose. Maybe I should study up a little more before making any hasty plans.  

2 comments:

  1. Ir's so neat how things sprout up somewhere and you wonder how it came to be. We one time had a watermelon plant growing in our driveway! :)

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  2. Asparagus! How fun, especially since it sounds kind of random! That sunshine and green grass look wonderful :)

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