Allotments 4 All

Hi! I'm new to the group and I have a question. Apologies if I get anything wrong. Just let me know and I'll do it better next time.

My question is this:this year I planted 4 asparagus crowns in my allotment (Edinburgh) and was very pleased with the early signs. I've now decided to do a proper asaparagus bed. I would welcome advice on what to plant. Should I plant long established varieties like Connover's Colossal or should I go for the more recent Dutch F1 hybrids? I'd welcome any advice.
Thanks
Grawrc

Welcome to the group grawrc, I cannot offer you any advice, but have some one year old crowns so am interested in the advice you might get ...

Derekthefox :D

Hi GRAWIC and welcome to the site.
I grow the old favourites like connovers and I also dont mind if I have any female plants. The new variaties, I believe, were developed for the farmers to give uniform easily cropped plants. They are not as tasty as the older types, although produce pretty regular spears.
Good luck
Chris

I'm going to grow for flavour and am browsing catalogues at the mo.  I'll probably end up doing them from seed.  Like the look of a variety in the Seeds of Italy catalogue and I'm about the check out the Real Seeds catalogue

Hi Wardy
   Its a long wait Growing from seed ..Dont expect a decent crop for about 4 years.
Regards
Chris

I am a patient person.  Anyway it'll give me time to prepare the bed  ;D

I decided to go for crowns because the results are quicker. I've already prepared the bed - raised and weed-free. Thank you for the Italian Seeds catalogue info. I didn't know about them. Their website is really interested.. Mmm ...(thinks) ...  this year asparagus next year truffles? :-\
Realistically though I don't know that truffles would thrive in cold windswept Edinburgh....

There might be a hidden goldmine there though grawc ...  ;D

Derekthefox :D

Indeed! Many thousands of euros are handed over for a kilo of quality truffles! perhaps I should give it serious consideration. :) \

.. anyway meantime, I've done quite a bit of surfing about asparagus and I think I'm going for half Asparagus Amarus (if the Italians rate the flavour it can't be bad) and half one of the Dutch hybrids which seem to have lots going in their favour like flavour and resistance to disease. I'll probably order from the Organic Catalogue. Thanks for all the advice!

Checked on mine asparagus anyway, it is Marte F1 ...

Derekthefox :D

hi grawrc,
why not plant one of the french/german varieties that you earth up in spring?
it is more work, but to my mind they taste much better than the green varieties.

Weolcome to the site, grawrc.   I planted 1 year crowns last year but cannot for the life of me remember the variety (Jersey something??) from Victoriana Nurseries.  Planted 10 but now only seem to have 7 tho they put on a lot of growth this year - I don't expect any crop at all for a couple of years and may get 2 or 3 year old crowns to make up the "lost" ones.

Like you I'm in Edinburgh so if we both keep our fingers crossed for good weather ....................

Jersey Giant, or perhaps Jersey Knight ... ?

Derekthefox :D

They both sound right, Derek!  Checked thru "Search" but I haven't mentioned variety there and also checked Victoriana site but this year they seem to only have variety Mary Washington.  I'm leaning towards Jersey Knight as I am not much into "giants" of anything being only a tich myself.....

Ok, well I was only being a clever dickie, using google to perhaps prompt your memory, so I can't offer any better info ...

Derekthefox :D

My (pre ordered) wild asparagus turned up today from Seeds of Italy. It will have to wait until the "bah humbug" season (I'm with you on this one DtF!) is over before it gets planted - also haven't got the bed prepared yet even though I knew it would arrive eventually. Oops.

Are they plants or seeds Periwinkle?

I haven't got my beds sorted yet either periwinkle, I will probably plant in early spring ...

Derekthefox

Plants Wardy. Might try some seeds in the Spring if I get the second plot I'm after and have more space....... ;D Bet I'd forget to water them though.

Christmas present to myself arrived this morning: 2 packs of Alitags and a graphite pencil. Sad or what? Perhaps may get labelling right next season

Oh right!  Didn't know they did plants - how did I miss that?  :(   

The recurrent theme on A4A seems to be that we are all fairly useless at keeping labels on our plants once in the hurly burly of the plots, except for DTF before he picks me up  ;D  Pumpkins and squashes seem to be the ones we got all our labels mixed up and had no clue what we were eating  :)