A Fruitful Harvest
Recently, we went out looking for our favorite ditch weed – asparagus. This was an early season hunt and the first asparagus we found this season.
When do you start finding the asparagus? We generally pay attention to the height of the grass which should be 6-8 inches tall before the Asparagus starts. By the time the grass is knee-high, the asparagus should be popping out like crazy.
Also, we notice that about 2/3 of the trees are showing green in and around Western Glenwood Springs. Additionally, lilacs are shooting out small green leaves.
For early season Asparagus, target the biggest plants… it seems that those stands of asparagus that have thick stems and tall stalks are the ones that push up first. The smaller/shorter ones should start in a week or two.
Trusty Indicators
Are you asking yourself where to look? Well… the trick here is to find the dead and dying asparagus plants in the summer and fall… mark the spots then go back and look there for the fresh shoots in the spring. Old dead asparagus can be tough to spot if you don’t know exactly where to look. Often you will find clumps along farm fences and near irrigated ditches. They are hearty fellows though and sometimes grow in the most surprising places!
As always, being too dry is the bane of foraging. Let’s hope some rain comes regularly.
Here you can see the fence-row and the grass and nearby trees.
Asparagus Twins
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Just to followup, 20 days later… we had 10 more days of dry, a bit of rain, and now a week of cold cold weather. After the first nice rain there was a good push of primo asparagus that slowed down with the cold. As of March 28th the Asparagus has barely started and seems like it might be another week out with all the cold in the forecast. We have had a hard frost and another coming soon… that has killed off about half of the little asparagus shoots here in Glenwood, by my estimate. no worries… more will replace soon.
Remembering my grandfather’s farm in SW Colorado, he planted asparagus along the fence post and row. Think he did that to avoid it getting turned under when he plowed the field. In spring following a wet winter, we’d have creamed asparagus on toast. It was a treat for everyone except a pucky eating 4 year old. The soggy bread turned me off.