Plant No-Pamper Perennial Produce

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The chief enemies of asparagus are beetles and rust. Both can be avoided to a degree by cultivating only strains of the plant- such as Martha Washington, Waltham Washington, or New Roberts—that are resistant to such problems.

As time goes on, you'll sometimes notice that seed stalks appear on your asparagus plants during either early or late summer. This is generally because you've planted poor varieties, the temperature is too high, or your bed lacks fertility and/or water. Remove the seed stalks by cutting them off at an angle with a sharp instrument as close to the base of each plant as possible.

And, if you really want your asparagus patch to bear bountifully year after year after year, you'll take the time to bed it down each winter. Some gardeners advise cutting off all the plants' summer growth before spreading three inches of mulch over the bed. Others most notably Ruth Stout-say, "Just leave the stalks where they are. Like everything else, they'll die when their time comes, so let them rest in peace. Besides, they add a certain amount of organic matter to the mulch you spread around the asparagus patch."

There are also two schools of thought about sprinkling a little salt on your asparagus bed before tucking it in for cold weather. Some folks swear that the idea doesn't hurt the asparagus but does help control the weeds that grow around them ... and others just swear when the idea is mentioned. Take your choice.

You can also take your choice when spring rolls around: Some gardeners prefer to pull the mulch back from their asparagus plants so the sun can warm the earth around them faster and encourage their early growth. Others -especially those who've seen late frosts ruin their early produce-simply leave the mulch where it is and let each year's new growth of asparagus find its way up through the covering.

And that growth-sooner or later-will come up! Try (if you can resist the temptation) to avoid harvesting any of your succulent asparagus spears until the plants are three years old (if you originally put out one-year-old sets, they'll first be ready to cut the second spring after they went into the ground). And don't make more than three cuttings the first season. After that you should enjoy an extremely liberal six-to ten-week-long (the cooler the season, the longer the plants will bear) harvest each and every spring for 20 or more years.

Gather asparagus spears when they're four to eight inches tall, just before the scales on their tips begin to open. Always harvest in the morning and, to avoid damaging other nearby sprouts, gently pull the shoots from the ground by bending each one across your index finger with your thumb.

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