An Early Harvest

Asparagus season always sneaks up on me.  I never seem to know when to expect the asparagus to start growing.  Then one day a child will come running into the house to tell me that we have asparagus growing.  Good thing the kids notice these things.  When left unharvested, asparagus can grow 5 to 6 feet tall.  Seriously.  Of course, by that time it is much to hard and woody to eat so it's just a waste. 

Asparagus tends to grow very quickly.  You have to harvest it pretty much every day.  When it rains, it grows even faster.  It rained a bit last night and this morning.  Today I found at least twice as much asparagus ready than I find on a normal day.  A few of them were damaged from too much rain or had gotten too tall and were starting to get woody.  So the chickens got a few today.  I am so grateful to the previous owners for planting the asparagus since we never would have put it in ourselves. It takes 2 to 3 years before you can harvest from the plants.  But every year after that you tend to find a larger harvest because asparagus is self propagating and tends to spread easily.  Which means we haven't had to buy any asparagus since we discovered the plants.  That is something that makes me very happy.