Ruud Kleinpaste: Working with asparagus in the winter

To grow Asparagus, you’ll truly need a real garden bed. 

Nice and deep, preferably raised if you have wet soils in winter – at least 20cm above the soil level, but 30cm is even better. I planted my crowns about 7 years ago, bought them at Oderings Garden centre when the crowns were dormant.  

Plant in deep friable soil: mix soil, loam with lots of compost, add some manure (animal excrement) or sheep pellets, and dose with a good lot of lime – Asparagus likes a high pH (around 7 maybe even more). 

Dig it all deep (at least 30cm deep, or more if possible) so that the roots can go wandering down and side-ways with ease. 

I planted my new plants with the roots splayed in all directions of the compass (star-shaped). About 10cm deep, rows about 50cm apart, and the plants spaced around 40cm in the rows. 

They’re covered with friable soil that will warm up in spring, waking the plants and starting their growth. Don’t let the plants dry out in winter – keep them moist but not soaking wet! 

We had a good growth of ferns – let them go. They even produced heaps of bright red berries! And the weeds tried to establish themselves in-between the asparagus plants, but I more-or-less kept on top of them because they are weeds! Not always though! 

A trick: I did get into the habit of inter-planting with thin onions and Egyptian walking onions – let these interlopers find their spot in between the asparagus. In spring the main crop will come up and give us asparagus, but in summer, autumn, and even winter, the onions will take over when the asparagus retreat with their huge flowering and elegant, tall stems ready to go down. And there is no competition amongst that lot of vegetables! 

Now, mid-winter stuff to do: 

Get rid of all the last weeds (as much as you can). I will also cut off the old brown asparagus fern-fronds and take them off the bed, trying not to spill too many red berries – I don’t want any more seedlings/new plants in the asparagus bed as it will get too overcrowded too soon. Best to let the original plants develop for at least three-four years, so they keep producing for a long, long time to come.  

Once the bed is cleared, line it a bit then top up with a fresh layer of organic compost —nice dark compost-y stuff— and some Nitrophoska Blue. Asparagus likes that! 

They also like some animal manure (I got the Halswell Quarry sheep well-trained!) and even some salty (unwashed) seaweed if you can find it somewhere. Just lay that over the top and in spring the spears will burst through the compostables…  

There’s nothing better than fresh asparagus! Followed by fresh onions and other stuff in the bed. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Rude time past is our man in the garden on
Saturday Morning's Morning Road.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, good morning to you Jack. Did I see you
on New Zealand or Australia that show? I saw that?
What a couple of days ago?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Well, what was it? The you and me and Aussie?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And
you know what really struck me, There wasn't Evandale spider
that that really made that, you know, the whole system
stupid with the people. This is one of the most gentle,
gentle spiders in the world. You know. Don't even think about.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
It, do you know? I had a question from the
nine year old the other day. So we had a
couple of days up near Tea Point, just north of Auckland,
just for school holidays. We went to the Tea Point
Reptile Park where they've got all sorts of tortoises and
turtles and alligators and things, but they also have a
whole series of tarantulas. And the nine year old seat

(01:09):
to me, you're just allowed to buy a tarrentula and
New Zealand you're just allowed to have tarantulas. I didn't
really have an answer for him, but I thought, you
know what, rude will have an answer for him. So
are you just allowed to have a tarantula?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
No, no, you're not. You have to have a permit
for that, and you've got to be pretty careful with it.
In that case. Yeah, we don't get any new species
becoming established. But I must say, you know, those tarrentialas
are fabulous creatures, by the way, or so many different species. Oh,
I love it anyway, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well you would have been very played with us. We're up,
but we're too tougher. Thannuis of course as well. And
just you know the number of bell birds and kiddy
doo and you know, incredible peak walker and everything. It's
pretty amazing. We didn't see any taka here this time,
but it is such a beautiful part world.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
So yeah, on the walk you find a takia usually
on the in the bottom there because yeah, yeah, I
take teachers there for the Sir Peter Blake trust you know,
and we go there for we go there, of course
for a whole week with these teachers to do some
environmental stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Is great, lovely, beautiful anyway, ye, anyway, it's.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
A very very quick one. Us. Yes, no, it's this good.
This is good.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
This is the.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Exactly what I do is I prune my asparagus literally,
you know, and get rid of most of the stuff.
And that means that the new materials will come up
again in early spring. That is the way to go
with it. So this is one of the things you
need to do. And by the way, if you do
want to start doing asparagus, now is the time to
get some friable soil really high and and basically put

(02:46):
them fifty centimeters apart and away you go. Honestly, anybody
can do that and it works so well. What I've noticed, too, Jack,
is that there's a little trick that I have Egyptian
walking onions you know what they are? I know you do,
and I plant those in between those asparagus, and the

(03:06):
asparagus have finally stopped. Like now, the walking onions are
actually there to be literally consumed by us. And the
cool thing is there is no competition between those vegetables
and the walking unions, the walking unions, that's right, the
Egyptian walking anyway, there you go walking. So this, yeah, exactly,

(03:29):
you got it. So this is the good thing to
do now to keep something in that particular bed. And
it changes from the asparagus to those unions to those onions.
Sorry onions, What am I talking about? Unions? Here we
go now right, once that bed is cleared, you know,
you've got to make sure it's all done. Lime that's

(03:49):
coming a bit later in the season from now on,
a fresh layer of organic compost and things like that,
and what you then get is a little bit of
nitroposcar blue for fertilizer. That is basically the way to go.
And there's always say there's nothing better than fresh asparagus.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Hey, thank you have a great We can well and
we will catch them very soon. The nine year old,
will we please to hear that it's a permit? Seems
reasonable but nothing too complicated. After eleven o'clock on Newstalks EDB,
we're counting down to kick off on the all back
second test of twenty twenty six in Wellington, plus a
travel correspondent as looking at a few spots outside of Vancouver.

(04:27):
News is next.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Listen live to Newstalks EDB from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,