Asparagus 'Purple Passion'

Positive: HARDY GROWER I planted crowns ( about 8 of them ) on the side of the garden with dwarf beach plums, thinking that both plants ...Read Moreneeded the extra enrichment of deep hole with rich soil for a good start., now they are lots of purple spears and VERY TALL FERNS (5 feet) ...can I trim the ferns down?

My Purple Passion asparagus plants are pleasant bedfellows with the Mary Washingtons and Jersey Knights in my 5' x 16' asparagus bed. Ha...Read Moreving established the bed nine years ago with Mary Washingtons and adding the other two varieties over the years, we are enjoying a plentiful harvest of delicious, plump asparagus speers this spring. I continue to enrich the bed with leafy compost, cow manure and rotted sawdust. In our suburban neighborhood, many are unfamiliar with the growth cycle of asparagus, and they remark in late summer "what a pretty fern garden you have!"

Planted 10 roots of this and 10 of Jersey Knight last year. Despite a troublesome high desert "spring" with 80 degree temperatures one w...Read Moreeek and freezing the next, the purple is already several feet high and I have actually gotten to harvest a few spears that were 1/2 inch thick. The creatures that usually decimate anything green in the desert don't seem to recognize the purple as food (yet). I am afraid to actually think I found something that likes to grow here -- a crop can do well one year and not the next-- but for 2 springs the pruple has just shot up. No sign of the Jersey Knight yet except two pencil diameter spears. It may need to get warmer.

I have not grown this plant yet, information only.

Supposedly more sweet and tender than the green varieties. This plant p...Read Moreroduces a decent harvest, but since it is not all male, yields will be somewhat smaller than an all male variety.

The purple spears will turn green when cooked.