For a brief moment in the spring, asparagus is perfect for eating.
The Garden at 485 Elm hosts two asparagus boxes: Purple Passion, planted in 2021, and Martha Washington green, planted in 2022. The first couple years, a handful of stalks came up. Every season, there are more delicious spears.
In late-mid-May, some of the spears are starting to get spindly. They’ll flower, but for now, they’re still tender and delicious. We harvest stalks that are larger around than one’s little finger. We leave behind any stalk growing on its own, as the middle one above, so it can continue producing. The bunch growing to the left of it needs harvesting. Gardeners snapped off the gnarliest ones, leaving behind two or three of the most beautiful stalks to propagate.
Here, the asparagus team leader tells how to select spears to harvest while ensuring that these perennial plants continue to produce. Then it’s just a matter of grabbing a stalk 4″ to 6″ in from the ground and bending it until it breaks. It will snap off at the right place.
Fresh asparagus spears are delicious right out of the ground.
If you can stand to wait until your next meal, a good peel and just three minutes of steaming produces sweet, tender, succulent spears. Even the fat stalks twice the width of a thumb peel and cook up to perfection.
But harvest asparagus in that short window before it’s done for the season. Once the plants flower, leaving them be (except for watering, weeding, and lopping dead tops) will ensure an even better crop the following spring. Yes! Asparagus flowers! I didn’t know either.
