Want to know a secret? Asparagus does not grow better or faster if you plant expensive two-year-old crowns, or even one-year-old crowns. Reason: they have been dug up, the roots chopped, dried and neglected, if not by the supplier, then by you.
Two-year crowns will give you a small crop in two years time. One-year crowns will give you a small crop in two years time. Asparagus seeds, planted now (that is NOW. This week. Not later in summer but in the full flush of spring), will give you a small crop in two years time. Plus it will probably be a better crop, as there are more superior varieties of asparagus available from seed than there are for crowns. The seedlings will also survive drought far better.
This is a lesson from hard experience. We planted seedlings, one-year and two-year old crowns before the 1995 drought. Two years with almost no rain later, nearly all the seedlings were alive, and making use of all the fertility suddenly available in the newly moist soil. They even gave us a crop – skinny, but delicious.
Hunt out seeds online now. Look for ones that aren't called "Mary Washington". Hybrid or heritage, they are all good, although Fat White is perhaps my favourite. Actually, "Mary Washington" is good too – there is a reason why it's an old standard – but the more varieties the more flavours, textures and slight differences in cropping time.
Sow now, or even, if you must, all through summer, though if you plant them too late you will have to wait till to transplant them till next season. They need to be at least a finger length or they may get lost among the weeds, or mulch.
Plant with care into a big hole, at least half as wide again as the length of the roots, outstretched. Admission: I have never dug a hole quite big enough for any of the asparagus I've planted. I always cram them in, with the roots slightly downwards not outstretched, which is the best way to get maximum shoots, fast. Water in well.
Cover with wire netting if the lyrebirds/brush turkeys/cooks may scratch them up; mulch lightly and scatter on old hen manure or other organic fertiliser on top of the mulch, not below. Water every week; feed every fortnight. You want to buzz these darlings along. The more you feed and water, the sooner you'll get a feed.
Your asparagus crop is ready to eat when the shoots are as thick as a finger. Keep picking the shoots all spring, until they begin to turn skinny, then leave them alone to fatten up for next spring. By "leave them alone" I mean keep mulching the plants, watering them, feeding them. Lush growing asparagus needs an enormous amount of feeding and watering. But once they are established they will survive, if not thrive, with several years of neglect, drought and even a semi-trailer running over them.
And they are good. Not as transformingly good as corn plucked straight from plot to pan, or a sun-warmed, home-grown tomato. Asparagus can actually tolerate being cut, chilled and transported far better than many veg. But not infinitely, nor for nearly as long as most supermarkets pretend. If the stems are in any way dehydrated or shrivelled, but especially if the tips look moist, then you don't have asparagus, but vaguely asparagus-like yuck. Farmers' market asparagus will be good, as long as you keep it in the fridge and eat it within two or three days. But on the other hand, once you eat that farmers' market asparagus it will be gone.
If you have asparagus growing in the garden, new shoots will poke up every day or two, for weeks or months, crunch, munch and glorious. All that from a couple of packets of seed and two or three summers of cosseting. As long as you plant now.
How to kill an aphid
You can kill an aphid with a Kalashnikov, but only if your aim is really good. Otherwise use your fingernails. Aphids scrape easily. They squish easily too. Run your fingertips over them and you get deceased aphids pretty quickly. Nor do aphids like feeding among their squashed brethren. Crushed aphid is a pretty effective repellent.
Unfortunately it can also be repellent to gardeners . Spraying aphids keeps them at arms length. It doesn't matter what you spray. As long as it doesn't kill the plant, it will probably kill the aphids. Even hairspray works, though I legally can't recommend it as no one has thought about registering hairspray as an aphid control. I have even killed aphids with Easter egg chocolate squished into a dull brown liquid, though this can burn tender leaves on hot days. Nor has liquidised Easter egg chocolate been registered for aphid control either.
The most effective, cheapest and ugliest way is to use glue spray: 1 cup white flour, 1 cup boiling water; mix; add cold water till it's sprayable; strain out sprayer-clogging lumps; spray; then wash the sprayer at once before it too glues up. The aphids – or caterpillars or any other small pest – will be glued up. The plant will be a yucky mess, but you can hose it down the next day, or wait till the glue flakes off, taking the pests with them. The local birds may also realise you have the slowest moving pests in the neighbourhood and that aphids taste even better in batter.
And they will definitely soon be deceased.
This week I'm:
* Listening to the shrike thrush attack its image in the bedroom window while other more provident birds clean up the cobweb around the windows to secure their nests.
* Eating asparagus, asparagus, asparagus, both ours and purchased.
* Waiting for the melon seeds to emerge in the seedling boxes before transplanting them to a garden bed.
* Wondering if the parsnips are going to grow more root or should we eat them all now before they go to seed and toughen.
* Hunting out all the seed packets that will expire by Nov 2014.
* Picking camellias. Hint: choose "mid to late" bloomers and they'll flower from midwinter through to spring, while the early ones will give their all in autumn.
