Planting Asparagus and Grapes

It is time to plant asparagus and concord grapes.  Both of these plants only need to be planted once, early in the year.

Asparagus plants grow naturally in Utah along the Jordan River, however they can also be grown in gardens.  They are one of the few perennial vegetables and will grow for 20-30 years.  When full grown each plant will produce about 1/2 a pound of spears.  They are also one of the first vegetables to come in each year, and are apparently best if eaten the same day they are picked (obviously I don't know about that, I'll let you know in a year).  Unfortunately when you plant crowns you cannot pick any of the spears for a year (and then for a shorter season until the next year) so as to give the plant time to gain enough energy for the next year. 

We received the crowns.  You then need to soak them in water for half an hour.

 
When preparing the soil to plant we added super phosphate (0-45-0) as asparagus uses a large amount of phosphate, and given how long they live this is the last chance to till the soil.  In the end we planted 18 crowns and can't wait for them to come up.

Peter loves eating concord grapes, most people use it for juice.  We planted 12 grapes around our chicken coop. 

 

We hope that these will grow up the fence and provide shade to our chickens as well as providing us with grapes, juice, and (using the pulp from the  juice) fruit leather.