April is when your gardening should go in overdrive. Spring fades into summer very fast, but you have just enough time for a spring season, if you start now... What about having the most delicious, easily-grown, expensive to buy vegetable at your door-step, year after year? Try asparagus, you have until the end of the month to plant it.

Asparagus used to be found in most local family gardens. In 5 or 6 years I have grown it around here, I have never seen a sign of insect predation or disease. It is a vigorous plant which turns into a beautiful 6 foot tall, fern-like plant in summer and fall. And it can grow as it does in my garden right against a line a tall trees, with plenty of shade. As a perennial plant which can last 2 or 3 decades, it is important to locate it as part of an overall design. Think about it in more than just its food value: it is a pretty landscaping plant which becomes an airy hedge. It also stands up firmly and can be a great support for another summer vegetable or flower: I have had morning glories and bean vines grow atop my asparagus for a great visual cocktail of food and beauty. And last year, I set winter squashes on the sun side of the asparagus and found them to be very compatible visually and culturally. It is also a source of light shade for a row of heat-sensitive vegetables or herbs you may want to push into summer or early fall like cilantro or lettuce. Finally there is no need to irrigate that true wunderkind of the garden.

So let’s put a few plants to work.. Start with disease-free plants which you may obtain from many seed companies. A good source is the Missouri-based, family-owned “Morgan County Seeds” (573-378 2655) . For $19, you will get 50 one-year crowns (plants) which can feed you and a few friends, using a bed of 75 by 4 feet. Or you may want to start your plants from seeds.

Pull out the mulch to the sides and open a 6-inch deep trench down the middle of your bed. The trench should be 4 inch wide at the bottom. Take your crown which kind of look like an octopus, fan its roots out and lay it at the bottom of the trench. Repeat every foot and a half. When all the crowns are laid out, close the trench, cover it back up with the mulch and give it a good shower.

Maintenance of the bed is light. Keep the bed in heavy mulch (around a thickness of 6 inches) and add even more organic matter by growing other plants in the bed. The following spring, refresh the bed in early March by mowing and mulching all the dead organic matter left. Add more mulch to maintain at least 6 inches of cover. Then wait for the exciting time in late March when the first spears make their way up.

Do not cut any spear the first year. Cut lightly the second year, i.e. half the spears only until early May. After that, the bounty is all yours: bundles of delicate flavorful spears grown by you with love. First harvest is around the end of March when fresh food is scarce. At my place, the first bunch is received with squeals of joy (later replayed with the first handful of strawberries...)

It is quite possible that your asparagus will stand when you will have been long departed, maybe as an invitation to continue on...