I planted some crowns this year and I have the first ferns out and beautiful.
Am I supposed to cut the ferns before the winter or do I leave them alone?
Any special care is necessary or just leave them alone and enjoy asparagus next season?
The session "growin A - Z" does not go into caring for the plant details.

I always leave the ferns on until around sometime in Feb. when I am pruning fruit trees.Course you are farther south and may want to cut them earlier, it really doesnt matter. About your enjoying asparagus next year. Don't cut next year unless you have spears that are at least as big around as a pencil and then be selective and only cut a couple from each crown. Then the third year you can cut freely.

Leave the ferns alone & let them die back on their own. They're what's nourishing the root system.

In addition, as Leafspot pointed out, do NOT harvest any spears next year. Those crowns you planted can need anywhere from 2-3 years to build up enough strength to withstand harvesting. You knew that when you planted them, right? Spend next spring's harvest time reading up on how to grow & maintain a flourishing asparagus bed - lol!! Doing it correctly from the start can have you harvesting wonderful homegrown asparagus for 50+ years. Doing it wrong & impatiently can have your bed petering out in just a couple of years.

My asparagus bed is somewhere between 30-35 years old and produces approx. 35-50 lbs each year and has for years. It's not a large bed measuring 3' by 25'. When I planted I put in 12 plants and it was like Breezy said about 4 years before it produced really well. My only fertlizer is by covering it each year, usually in Janurary, with 3"-4" of manure.

Some of my Asparagus fronds have turned a yellowish color while some are still green and may be still feeding the roots, so I'd not cut the fronds down yet. Usually the winter snow, here, will knock them flat. However in North Carolina you may want to cut them down sometime in February so they are out of the way of new growth.

quote:

between 30-35 years old and produces approx. 35-50 lbs each year and

wow!wow!

Good stuff here! I planted crowns 3 years ago and thought for sure I'd be harvesting this year (3rd yr). Nope. Still not enough to bother with. I'm hoping next year they'll get goin'! My ferns are turning yellow, but I usually just leave them till spring.

I do have one female plant in there (has red berries). I've read that crowns should be all male and that female plants are bad... but I'm thinking leaving ONE female in there isn't bad, is it?? I picked some berries which are full of seeds... so I'm going to try planting them and see what happens (won't plant them directly in the bed though... plan to start them inside).

Any suggestions/experience with the female plants? Is having one going to negatively affect my bed? I figured it might help it spread... but not sure.

As I stated before my bed is somewhere between 30-35 yr's old. I started the bed from crowns I dug from a bunch of asparagus along a roadside. I had no idea what variety or weather they were male or female. Their are both in the bed now and my harvest is great so I don't think it matters whether their are female plants mixed in.

I have one asparagus bed which was planted by my grandfather around 1940, was left to fend for itself after maybe 10 years, (overgrown field, brush=hogged once a year) until 2002. I have gradually weeded it out clean again, it has mixed male & females and produces fabulous thick spears! Better than the bed of new "all male" variety I have since planted. The babies crop up all over the garden depending where I've piled last year's compost heap, I move them where I want them.