No spear to spare

One might not think a few shoots of asparagus emerging from the ground would create much cause for conversation, but in my case recently it has.

About a week ago my friend Sue came over to knit. As we chatted, she said her asparagus was coming up. We had a similar conversation last year, and I had been overcome with asparagus envy. We ordered a few two-year-old roots and planted them in the hopes of having a few homegrown spears this spring.

I had completely forgotten about the asparagus and made a mental note to check on their progress the next day. I have a hard time keeping up with my mental notes so a few more days passed before I saw a Twitter post about asparagus from BlondeChicken. Her post set me in motion.

I went outside and up the hill to see, if by chance, we might have fresh asparagus for dinner. There they were, three or four beautiful asparagus spears. Not even a handful - not a spear to spare - but very exciting considering they had emerged through considerable overgrowth.

My parents once had a nice little crop of asparagus, so I called to see if Mom could answer a few questions. She said she had an article about raising asparagus that she'd share with me. The next day, she handed me a yellowed article she had clipped from the local newspaper in 1996.

I began to chuckle as soon as I glanced at it. The woman, A.-C., who wrote the article has been a colleague of mine for the past two years. When she came to visit a few days later, I showed her the article that my mother had saved for more than a decade. What I didn't show her were the actual asparagus plants. You see, A.-C.'s article addresses the challenges of growing asparagus, including the need to "control the inevitable weeds" (See picture)

Maybe we would have had a bumper crop if we'd been better at weeding, but these few spears had survived among tall thick weeds, which I had attempted to eliminate last year before declaring the weeds could have at it. They were inspiring. If asparagus can survive this, I decided, we should order more.

I Googled "two-year-old asparagus plants" to see if I could find more plants to buy. I found them at Asparagus Gardener in Cookeville, Tenn. Their Web site indicates that the farm also raises angora rabbits.

When I called to place the order, I spoke with a woman whose name I believe is Rose. I mentioned that I also have angora rabbits. The conversation quickly turned from asparagus to rabbits and llamas and sheep and spinning and knitting. When I finished placing my order nearly an hour later, I felt like I had a new friend in Tennessee.

Tomorrow we'll be planting 25 more asparagus plants. Maybe....maybe...I'll even pull a few weeds. Certainly, I'll be having more asparagus conversations with Sue and A.-C. and maybe even Rose and BlondeChicken next spring.