Asparagus: Connover's Collosal and Precoce D'argentuiel

[meizzwang]

I've grown Asparagus almost my entire life, but almost in every circumstance that I tried growing it, by the time the plants had reached maturity and were big enough to harvest, I'd have to move somewhere else! I've planted Asparagus plants in 4 different locations, waited several years each time, and NEVER got a chance to get any significant harvest from ANY of those attempts until somewhat recently! We eventually bought a house and have been here long enough to see all that effort of babying asparagus come to fruition for the first time. From seed, it took 4 years before we were getting about 25+ lbs of asparagus per spring season! There's so much that we ended up sharing much of it with many of our neighbors. It's a nice crop to have because:
1) once established, you feed and water it, it's not very high maintenance
2) The beds are harvestable for maybe up to 3 months per season and can last decades if well cared for.
3) Asparagus is expensive, especially if you want organic, and the quality at the stores is so poor compared to what you can produce at home. At least here in CA, Much of what we see in stores comes from Mexico.

What I've also learned is that purchasing bare root Asparagus just isn't worth it in my opinion. I would end up spending $50 on just the crowns alone and it would take years before you saw your first harvest. From seeds, you spend $8 total and can produce the equivalent of $100-$200 worth of crowns in just 5 months!

I've tried a lot of the fancy jersey hybrids, Millenium F1, as well as Erasmus F1 (a new purple variety) and quite honestly, nothing so far beats Connover's Collosal and Precoce d' Argentuiel in terms of yield! Jersey Knight and Jersey Giant barely produces 1-2 spears during the harvest season per mature plant, and during the summer, they'll only produce 2-3 fronds per plant, it's really disappointing. This is under my Mediterranean climate here in Northern California, results may vary.

Under identical care, Connover's Collosal and Precoce D'Argentuiel will produce 5+ fronds per plant and will push out multiple spears of asparagus per plant during the harvest season.


Here are seedlings that were started under grow lights indoors (Precoce D'argentuiel and Connover's Collosal). I started them July 1st, and the picture was taken Dec. 1st. The secret is to get them to a decent size indoors under lights before you harden them off outside. 5 months after sowing, this is what they looked like. When I dug them up to move them to their "final grow area" (they were occupying my precious fenced, deer-free space, which is limited) , most were the size of the crowns you'd get at the nursery, some were even bigger! I had trouble getting them to go dormant the first year, they kept growing even though we were having freezes. Maybe the long photoperiod indoors messed them up? I also was feeding them heavily with chicken manure during August/September:

Here they are year 2 from seed, going dormant. I had been "browsing" spears throughout the grow season but the harvest wasn't yet significant:


By year 3 (not shown), we were getting several harvests during the spring, each time enough to feed our family.

By year 4, the asparagus bed produces far more than our family can eat each harvest. It's a great problem to have because none of my neighbors, all of which are hardcore veggie growers, have big enough beds to produce a significant harvest in their gardens! For scale, the plants pictured below are between 6-8' tall, they're really big!




In late winter/spring of 2024, I had harvested this bed so many times for so many months, I thought it may have set the plants back or killed them, but they all came back and are growing really strong now! Keep in mind, these plants are very well fed, well watered, and loved LOL If your plants aren't super strong or established for many years, you probably won't want to harvest them too many times the first few seasons, otherwise it can kill or set them back. This is what it looks like a few weeks after the very last harvest, you can see all those stubs from spears being harvested during the spring:


I hope this thread inspires others to try asparagus seed rather than buying dormant crowns. I can't promise you that the varieties that did well here will do well for you in your climate, but I can say that growing asparagus is a long term project, and seeds really won't take that much longer than starting from crowns if you push them. You also end up with way more plants since buying crowns can get very costly.

[Wildcat82]

Nice time lapse photography.

I've always had good luck with asparagus seed. Probably 100%germination.

[KateL]

Thank you for this- I've been considering starting asparagus from seed - our bought crowns (two all male F1 varieties) have been in the ground 3 or 4 years now, we have weeded, watered, fed the soil with homemade compost each year..... The stems are still so few and so puny we've not harvested a thing! The garden originally belonged to my husband's grandparents, and in their day, asparagus would grow along one path "like weeds" ! Thanks for the photos, You've re-inspired me to find seeds.

[KateL]

I have bought seeds. Going to have a go at planting this season, even if it's a bit later than ideal, they should have a good chance at getting established, and the seeds were not expensive.
Interestingly, although our climate here in south-west UK, is very different to SoCal, the varieties available were also Connover's Collosal and Precoce D'argentuiel. Plus another- Mary Washington. So I have bought all 3