They weren’t being very photogenic, small green things on a grey background, but most of the asparagus I posted about a few days ago are in the garden. Wow, 30 varieties!
The germination rate of the seeds was phenomenal! Nearly 100% for most accessions. I wonder if the folks at GRIN use magic pixy dust or something. I’ve never had that good a rate of germination from asparagus before. It’s not unusual to get a rate of 0%, maybe more often I spend a lot of money for a package of 10 seeds, and 2 germinate. These packages were labelled 50 seeds, and the very worst yielded 8 plants in the end, which is enough.
One company I bought asparagus seeds from this year had 10 seeds per packet. I figured I would order 3 packets for about 3 euros a package, just in case of low germination, and none of them germinated. I was very annoyed.
Well you can do the math — 30 packages of 50 seeds, with a say 90% germination rate gives 1350 asparagus seedlings. Needless to say I didn’t have space for them all. It was more than I expected, and had to change gardening plans a bit to find space for about half of them. It’s a problem of luxury we gardeners have sometimes. After the first year I should have crowns to transplant, and I’ll probably be able to do some initial selections then. I probably don’t have enough space for 30 different varieties…
Hi Pat,
Funny, just yesterday I transplanted my asperagus seedlings! I had put a bunch of seeds into several pots and they had also germinated well. Yesterday I gently teased them apart and gave them each their own pot. Now I’m wondering how long I can leave them in their pots – I’d prefer to put them in the grond next year so I don’t have to keep weeding the bed that long, but I’m afraid they’ll get rootbound. No idea how they do it in commercially to get those nice, long, bare roots.
I only have one variety which I got from De Nieuwe Tuin – Mary Washington.
Cheers,
Jen
Hi Jen,
Asparagus likes a high pH. Normal potting soil might be too acid. I might add a little lime…
I’ve been growing Mary Washington for several years now. I like it a lot, but it was very variable. I think I started with about 50 seeds, about half germinated, and I ended up growing about 12 crowns from the best seedlings. Of these 12 crowns, there are 1-2 really good ones, a few that are okay, and I think about 4 that are all but worthless.
No, I don’t know how they grow commercial crowns either! Mine certainly don’t look that nice…
Good luck with your asparagus.