Purple Asparagus... in a few years

Last weekend we took advantage of the ridiculously glorious weather and started to dig.

We dug in the garden to pull out old odds and ends (like shards of pots and packing peanuts!), we dug asparagus trenches and Heath dug out a nice big hole for our new Kwanzan Japanese Flowering Cherry tree. How could we own a house in Washington, D.C. without one blooming in the spring? To learn why, check this out. It was a bit of a challenge to fit in the Honda Civic - the trunk was, well, in the trunk...and branches reached all the way up to the rear view mirror.

Next on the list was garden clean up. The idea was to remove any junk from the existing garden to make room for our veggies. We dug, turned the soil and hit a lot of clay. We have A LOT of clay. Sometimes its only 3 inches down, while in other spots its more like 8 to 12 inches. It's thick - you could throw a pot with it. Now I understand why are there so many brick homes in the region!

Then came the asparagus trenches. I'm a little concerned for the sheer amount of clay surrounding these trenches. While I did mulch all around and mixed in sand and fertilizer and soil, I'm not sure it will be enough for the asparagus plants to make their way up surrounded by dark, red, sticky clay. The asparagus trenches (three of them) are about 2 1/2 feet long, 18 inches wide and about a foot deep. Each trench has two plants. We dug them along the fence near what will be the garden.


The roots we bought are one year old, which means that our first harvest won't be for two more years! We'll be patient though. After both of us read the chapter about asparagus popping up out of the ground for the first main harvest of the season in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, we were sold on the concept. The book is obviously a recommended read and an inspiration for much of our garden.

On to the aasparagus variety...Purple Passion Asparagus. They are meant to be, "Larger, sweeter and tastier spears than the more common green types." Unfortunately, the purple stalks turn green when cooked. We ordered ours from Gurney's. I was very excited when the box arrived, but it was a few weeks early. They've been waiting patiently in my sun porch cupboard for the planting and are now in the ground! Now we wait to taste....in two years....hopefully.