Asparagus in zone 9?

Grew up in Minnesota where we would eagerly await the asparagus-picking season. And I mean loading up us kids in the car with Mom or Dad or both as the drivers and we would be the spotters. Then off into the countryside road ditches and pick a brown grocery bag full for the next few days of delicious eating.

Just received a Burgess catalog mentioning "Jersey Knight Asparagus". Wanted to order right away! Checked WatchDog and found them to me mostly unreliable. Googled to find Nature Hills also carries this and will send bare root. They had a much more favorable rating in WatchDog and were even answering DG negative posts, trying to "make things right" when orders had gone wrong.

Does anyone have experience growing a particular kind of asparagus in our zone? Would be FABulous if I could grow this in our neck of the woods :) Suggested vendors?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Alas! I think asparagus is just about the best vegetable ever, and have tried for many years to grow it. First in a 9a area (75 miles east of L.A. - very low humidity ) and here in 8b (high humidity). Prepared deep beds, etc., rich soils.....followed all the instructions but had very poor results. Jersey Knight and Jersey King are supposedly almost entirely male plants that do not expend energy producing seed berries, and thus have more and thicker edible shoots. I ordered both of the Jerseys, and also Purple Passion - don't remember the vendor last time (in '98) but think it was Gurney's or Jung's. The bareroot plants were amazing - stocky,well-formed, enormous root systems. By the second year I was supposedly scheduled to have enough to cut for cooking. Well, gorgeous ferny foliage! The plants have been delining since; I'm going to start over next year. I don't think the problem is necessarily heat...some of the finest asparagus anywhere is produced in the Salinas Valley south of the San FranciscoBay area. Winters are fairly mild, and warm summers, but the area does get some coastal fog. Number of days above 86 degrees Fahrenheit may be a factor...I haven't checked the heat zone references on that. The University of California at Davis developed a couple of varieties especially for warmer areas.Don't rememer the names - one had "57" in the title; I tried that one without any better results.

Some years ago I visited friends in Boise, Idaho. We went foraging in the mountains for wild asparagus. Found it, too. This next time around, I think I'll go with the traditional Martha/Mary Washington types. I've also grown asparagus from seed - took longer, of course, but it did as well as any of the others. There has to be a key secret to sucess - let's keep trying. Yuska

Yuska -- Am glad to hear you are not totally discouraged by your asparagus trials. If you are going back to the Martha/Mary Washington types (which I've heard of), will you plant them in partial shade areas to avoid the baking-hot summers? After your comments, it makes me rethink my "place in the sun" for the bare-root placement. Maybe a northwest site with mostly sun?

What do you think?

The beds I have are still the best sites possible at my place. In many locales the hottest part of the day is 3 p.m - here it is always 5 p.m. The beds get full sun until about 2:30 or so when the shade from a pecan and a palo verde begins to fall over them. If we find research that indicates less sun exposure is helpful I'll try rigging some shade canopies (I'm not stubborn - just persistent! lol) Another issue is the foliage over winter. Most commercial growers in the North clear the foliage in the winter...growers in the Salinas Valley do not (they have to send in a dozer type machine to cut swaths for the workers to use when cutting the crop). On the advice of a friend in Kansas (6b) who grows asparagus successfully, I don't cut the foliage back except for the occasional frond that turns yellow. Still much to learn, or maybe yet to be discovered! I think I'll check with the Master Gardeners chapter here to ask if they know of anyone having any success locally.

Good idea, Yuska. If there's a way to do it -- DG has to find out :)

I have no idea about a zone 9 since I am a zone 4, but you can buy good asparagus from Nourse Farms. They have a 100% favorable rating on Garden Watchdog. I have looked many other places and Nourse also has good prices. They carry raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and asparagus. They supply large nurseries and also sell to individuals. You could call them for advice about zones. noursefarms.com

LLinda -- 100% favorable! Wow! Will look them up and find out if they have suggestions for zone 9. Thanks for this great tip.

Moments later...

Uh-oh. Their site says asparagus thru zone 8. That's what I was wondering after reading Yuska's comments. Either we keep experimenting or wait for a zone 9-tolerant asparagus to come along. OOOh I miss picking asparagus!

May have to set my sights on another fresh veggie delicacy :)

Well, here I go again off on one of my experimental tangents.When I awoke this morning my first thought was "Earthbox!" I have some new Earthboxes that haven't been planted yet, and I'm going to use one of them for asparagus. Will it work? Who knows! The EB has a plastic cover that is designed to cover the box except for holes for the plant stems, so of course that can't be used, since the spears come up just wherever. The roots go deep and I'm hoping the box can accommodate them. The main advantages I see are watering from underneath, weed control and portability. A filled and watered box weighs about 60 pounds so I won't be moving it often, but it could be slid onto a lowbed cart if moving it seems urgent. I'll place it for good afternoon shade, so maybe one spot can be permanent. I'll get a small order of plants, probably from Nourse (thanks, LLinda!), planting some in the box and the rest in one of the established beds for comparison. Haven't checked with MG'ers yet...their regular sessions for phone-in questions are Tuesday afternoons. Will report later...unless someone locks me in the looney bin first! Yuska

Good idea, Yuska -- the EB, not the looney bin :) With a couple planting locations, maybe you can determine what we need to do to get even a moderate continuous crop. May rethink and go ahead and order some from Nourse and figure it's worth a try after all. We'll compare locations for sun, etc. and see what happens?

In checking around, I learned that my favorite local nursery, Rainbow Gardens, has a supply of plants. Probably an older, unnamed strain, but I figure it will be okay for an experiment. I'm going to pick them up Friday. The Master Gardener rep is combing archives and promised to get back to me. We'll conquer this challenge yet, soozer!

Yahoo, Yuska!

Okay, status report. By the time I got to the nursery there were no more plants, so I had to order online and Vermont Bean was about the only place that still had a supply. I ordered twenty of Purple Passion. I planted eight of them in each of two Earthboxes and covered the boxes with the special plastic stretch covers just until the plants can get established (and to keep my cats out!) Last week I cleaned out the two existing inground asparagus beds and found a few struggling stragglers from the original plantings, so I set in a couple of new plants in each bed with plenty of compost added.....I hope to be able to compare these against the EB production. Even if there is healthy growth I won't be able to harvest this year, but I'm hoping to see good size and vigor right away. Keeping my fingers crossed...........

Mine too -- for you, Yuska.